I've been musing on the topic of how and why religion was started in the first place. I've come up with a few ideas. What else can you add to my list?

*It explains things like earthquakes, rain, tornados, solar eclipses, tsunamis, hurricanes, disease, death, barrenness, and other seemingly random events.

*It controls those who are weak minded, and fleeces them for money (the earliest example of the long con).

*It makes a set of "rules" to play by that minimizes conflict between a group of people.

*To make things seem more "fair," in that those who are unjust in this life will pay later, while those who toil and/or are good in this life will receive good things/paradise later.

I've been studying this for a couple of years because I was intensely curious about it. You're essentially right. Another principle that directs men's minds toward believing in the supernatural is the "hypersensitive agency detection system."

Other animals share this, but they have less imagination and memory. It's when we are startled by a sound or view of a disturbance in the distance or in the grass or trees.. We immediately ask ourselfves "Who's There??" Not "What's There.." Who. It happens that falsely detecting a being with intent doesn't cause much problem..But failing to detect a predator could be fatal! So we tend to detect agency in things, ascribe natural phenomena to "beings." First it was spooks and elves, then gods.

One important name on the study of in this subject: Daniel C. Dennett.

I think religion evolved naturally as we did, but we now live in a world so different from that earlier one where religion served some important purposes that it is beccoming a hinderance, not a help. It's just like some of our other annoying instincts.. like eating too much because we arranged for rich, fatty and yummy food to always be around.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/27/2013 01:33AM by rationalguy.

Never underestimate the pedophelia angle. I heard one person say the whole reason for the catholic religion was the harvesting of young boys for carnal pleasure. Based on their recent activities I would say this is certainly a possibility.

All these fuckers are perverts!

You've been watching Louie C.K., haven't you?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VABSoHYQr6k

That is seriously the stupidest thing I have heard.

Well, I think that was meant as a joke. (Surely not funny to Catholics.) Most Catholic priests aren't perverts. Some of us are still trying to work through the whys and hows on the Catholic priest scandals. bona dea, do you think celibacy is normal? I don't, and it might have something to do with inappropriate sexuality being exhibited. A lot of the outrage was also directed at the higher ups. They didn't stop it, they tried to hide it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/27/2013 10:32PM by rationalguy.

I hope it was a joke .If the poster really believes that I have some good books on the ancient view of sex he can read . Man on boy sex and sex and marriage with young girls was pretty much the norm. The church fought against man on boy sex and were pretty much alone alone in doing so.I agree that the sex abuse scandal is horrendous,but the percentage involved is.pretty low.They are not all perverts'as the poster said.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/27/2013 10:39PM by bona dea.

It's a joke if you're not some little kid getting ass-raped by a "man of god".

Yeah, it was a joke with a ton of truth in it.

There are some sick people out there and you all need to wake up to that fact.

Control. Plain and simple. If people thought hell was fake and that they'd die and cease to exist, imagine what some would choose to do?

I think a lot of people would be very, very "bad" if they thought this was their only chance at life.

I've thought about this a lot and I think that explains religion at least from the late Roman times to now.

I HIGHLY recommend the book Religion Explained by Pascal Boyer.

He explains in his book why these are the reasons for religion and explains instead what the real anthropological reasons are for religion.

It's a fascinating read that does an excellent job of illustrating why the way humans have evolved and how the human mind works sets us up to believe in the supernatural.

I don't even know how to begin to summarize it without taking several pages, but I found it to be fascinating. It is well researched and I believe he has really nailed the reasons accurately.