Happy Atheist Forum

Here's an interesting view....If you were one of the first caveman. No religion was bestowed upon you. There wasn't a book handed to you with what to believe.  They found a cave to sleep in, wasn't too comfortable. Next day, they found an animal and took their fur and made it into a carpet or blanket. They found comfort in it. Than they magically found out how to make babies. They made their babies believe the carpet was very special. They found comfort in it. Ultimately, somehwere along the lines from that point til now someone was consuming mind altering pills and passed their beliefs on, etc.

I think somewhere emotions started coming into play and people wanted answers to questions, they wanted to feel better when someone they loved died, they wondered how in the hell the sun came back every summer, what comets were, ya see....then I'm thinking groups became more powerful and needed some sort of guidelines that were "infalable" to keep the peace - the ten commandments -  Egyptian mythology and Greek mythology are perfect examples of people just wanting to know why things were they way they were, they didn't have all the science we've got now how else were they supposed to explain the coming and going of the seasons, death, stuff like that?  I mean it makes sense to me how it all came about but sheese come on don't we all know better now?

LOL!!!

I think that it was a way for physically weaker (but more intelligent) people to manipulate society to their advantage.

Quote from: "utynb"Here's an interesting view....If you were one of the first caveman. No religion was bestowed upon you. There wasn't a book handed to you with what to believe.  They found a cave to sleep in, wasn't too comfortable. Next day, they found an animal and took their fur and made it into a carpet or blanket. They found comfort in it. Than they magically found out how to make babies. They made their babies believe the carpet was very special. They found comfort in it. Ultimately, somehwere along the lines from that point til now someone was consuming mind altering pills and passed their beliefs on, etc.

Maybe I'm the one taking mind-altering pills, but I'm not following this at all.

Can someone 'splain this to me?

Quote from: "McQ"Maybe I'm the one taking mind-altering pills, but I'm not following this at all.

No, you're right.  It doesn't really make any sense.  I figured the rest of that paragraph disappeared into the aether.

What I think the person was getting at is, how and why did religion come into existence, and what purpose did it serve? (or the mind-altering substances I'm taking are totally sweet)

Quote from: "donkeyhoty"What I think the person was getting at is, how and why did religion come into existence, and what purpose did it serve?

That's how I read it.

I would guess that religion was sparked by early humans trying to figure out why anything exists at all.  Maybe they figured that if baby humans come from parents that there must be some larger parent figure which created all that exists.  The most primitive form of god of gaps.

Where did religion come from? Poor explanations for scientific phenomenon or inability to deal with reality.

Quote from: "utynb"Here's an interesting view....If you were one of the first caveman. No religion was bestowed upon you. There wasn't a book handed to you with what to believe.  They found a cave to sleep in, wasn't too comfortable. Next day, they found an animal and took their fur and made it into a carpet or blanket. They found comfort in it. Than they magically found out how to make babies. They made their babies believe the carpet was very special. They found comfort in it. Ultimately, somehwere along the lines from that point til now someone was consuming mind altering pills and passed their beliefs on, etc.

Religion comes from doing too many shrooms...Yeah, I get it.

It starts with the desire to control others, and survives through ignorance.

Quote from: "utynb"Here's an interesting view....If you were one of the first caveman. No religion was bestowed upon you. There wasn't a book handed to you with what to believe.  They found a cave to sleep in, wasn't too comfortable. Next day, they found an animal and took their fur and made it into a carpet or blanket. They found comfort in it. Than they magically found out how to make babies. They made their babies believe the carpet was very special. They found comfort in it. Ultimately, somehwere along the lines from that point til now someone was consuming mind altering pills and passed their beliefs on, etc.

I'm having a little trouble following this too, but I'm assuming you're referring to the question "Oh yea?  If god doesn't exist, then how did anyone come up with the ideo of god in the first place?"  There are different theories on this, but one interesting evolutionary explanation I've heard goes something like this.  It is a necessary survival skill to be able to, or at least attempt to, predict what comes next.  To hunt, humans needed to be able to predict where the animal would be and what it would do and how it would react to their attack.  To farm, they had to be able to predict when the growing season would come, what type of food they could grow and how, etc...  Our whole existence hinges on our ability to have forethought.  Well when it comes to death, obviously, we don't know what, if anything comes next.  All indications are that nothing happens, but that seems impossible since all we know is "something".  We can't really say what "nothing" is or what it would be like.  So people started making up stories about what happens when we die, and the answer?  Big surprise.  IT'S PARADISE!  And with no evidence of this, people believed it anyway because important people told them it was true....and gradually we ended up where we are today, with organized religion, die-hard extremists, and obscure internet forums where the non-believers hide out.

Quote from: "User192021"

Quote from: "utynb"Here's an interesting view....If you were one of the first caveman. No religion was bestowed upon you. There wasn't a book handed to you with what to believe.  They found a cave to sleep in, wasn't too comfortable. Next day, they found an animal and took their fur and made it into a carpet or blanket. They found comfort in it. Than they magically found out how to make babies. They made their babies believe the carpet was very special. They found comfort in it. Ultimately, somehwere along the lines from that point til now someone was consuming mind altering pills and passed their beliefs on, etc.

I'm having a little trouble following this too, but I'm assuming you're referring to the question "Oh yea?  If god doesn't exist, then how did anyone come up with the ideo of god in the first place?"  There are different theories on this, but one interesting evolutionary explanation I've heard goes something like this.  It is a necessary survival skill to be able to, or at least attempt to, predict what comes next.  To hunt, humans needed to be able to predict where the animal would be and what it would do and how it would react to their attack.  To farm, they had to be able to predict when the growing season would come, what type of food they could grow and how, etc...  Our whole existence hinges on our ability to have forethought.  Well when it comes to death, obviously, we don't know what, if anything comes next.  All indications are that nothing happens, but that seems impossible since all we know is "something".  We can't really say what "nothing" is or what it would be like.  So people started making up stories about what happens when we die, and the answer?  Big surprise.  IT'S PARADISE!  And with no evidence of this, people believed it anyway because important people told them it was true....and gradually we ended up where we are today, with organized religion, die-hard extremists, and obscure internet forums where the non-believers hide out.

Yes, self-preservation! A survival instinct developed out of fear. If there is a heaven or there is a hell, then why not skip this part called life? It seems rather meaningless compared to the afterlife. Doesn't God already know the outcome of your actions?

I'm sure religion has roots in superstition. The capacity of the human mind to recognize patterns and model cause and effect scenarios must have played a big role in early superstitions that came to eventually substantiate religion. For example a group of people may have been dancing around and noticed that it started to rain, and possibly this occurred on multiple occasions. This pattern could have led them to infer about the cause of rain as their dancing, thus initiating the superstition of rain dances. These ritualistic superstitions parallel what we see in religions today.