what do you think about "religion and god" origins in fear ?

Question

The Buddha, like modern sociologists and psychologists, believed that religious ideas and especially the god idea have their origins in fear.

Primitive humans found selves in a dangerous and hostile world, the fear of wild animals, of not being able to find enough food, of injury or disease, and of natural phenomena like thunder, lightning and volcanoes were constantly with them. Finding no security, they created the idea of gods in order to give them comfort in good times, courage in times of danger and consolation
when things went wrong. To this day, you will notice that people become more religious at times of crises, you will hear them say that the belief in a god or gods gives them the strength they need to deal with life. You will hear them explain that they believe in a particular god because they prayed in time of need and their prayer was answered. All this seems to support the Buddha’s teaching that the god-idea is a response to fear and frustration.

The Buddha taught us to try to understand our fears, to lessen our desires and to calmly and courageously accept the things we cannot change. He replaced fear, not with irrational belief but with rational understanding.

the Buddha saw that each human being had the capacity to purify the mind, develop infinite love and compassion and perfect understanding. He shifted attention from the heavens to the heart and encouraged us to find solutions to ¬ our problems through self-understanding.

We don’t believe in a god because we believe in humanity. We believe that each human being is precious and important, that all have the potential to develop into a Buddha — a perfected human being. We believe that humans can out¬grow ignorance and irrationality and see things as they really are. We believe that hatred, anger, spite and jealousy can be replaced by love, patience, generosity and kindness.

i'm a rather atheist and interest in psychology ..
so the article above somehow make senses to me..
i know not all religion and god origins in fear, some origin in love ..

just wanna know what you guys think ..

Answer 1

I am atheist and find belief in gods to be primitive and superstitious. I have a lot of respect for Buddhism. Of all the man made religions Buddhism is far far more peaceful than the ones like Christianity and Islam that attempt to justify violence and torture.

Answer 2

I'm an atheist, sounds like Buddha was too. Yes religion was made to explain. Now we have science and can prove it wrong. It was to help those that felt logical reasoning was too big for them. We are not as narrow minded. We do not need the temporary patch of religion. I am not, nor will I go Buddhist. But it sounds like he had the idea of how to put us on the right path. Buddhism can ween you from religion. I think that in the end we don't even need the guidance of another. He was intelligent enough to not need conventional religion. But we should not even need him. We are evolved enough to not need a plan for life. Maybe we can all be as intelligent. The atheists are already there. Thought is all we need.

Answer 3

That's cool. I like it. If I HAD to join a religion, I would probably opt for secular Buddhism because it is so humanistic and promotes balance.
In answer to your question, I think that is a valid view. I know alot of very religious people and they invoke God when they are afraid. They can't prove Jesus exists and get mad when I ask to meet the elusive immortal. They can't explain why good people suffer, and tend to blame it on hidden sins or an innate evil nature. People need to explain why things happen. If it is nature, it seems so random, so they need to feel there is a presence behind it that can be appeased. If it is a person they can't control, they turn to God or blame Satan. It's a catchall really, and fear is definitely one aspect of it.

Answer 4

The concept or belief in God is not a result of fear in its origination but to its realization. For example, when it rains, you use an umbrella to protect yourself against rain but before the thought of using the umbrella, did not the umbrella exist? Of course God is Higher, and if we were able to see God, would that make him more worthy of worship or less? Scientifically you have to believe in God b/c matter is based on cause and effect so it can not go indefinitely unless matter is perfect and eternal, which it is not b/c matter continuously changes but some thing perfect would not require change b/c it is sustained by itself. So matter has a end, but none the less if you believe that matter always existed and is perfect, who was the Decision Maker to initiate the original change of creation, since you believe in its eternity, you must accept it as perfect in the first place. Thus God must be in the formula as the Originator of creation and its attributes of cause and effect. Formula of God is 1 + 0 = 1 (One God + His creation = One God).

Answer 5

Very good question.

Often people who have absolute faith in a given religion justify their believing in that particular religion by saying that the world around us is so orderly and that the mystery of life and death, the amazing complexity of human body, mind etc are impossible for human to create/ understand, so there must be a grand designer, i.e GOD. They are confusing belief in religion with belief in GOD (the "creator" of this universe). Belief in a religion is much more than believing in GOD, it requires believing blindly in all that is preached in that religion, for example that the holy book of their religion is literally the word of GOD, that all the miraculous events mentioned in their holy books are true and that all that are instructed/taught in their holy books are absolute and should be followed and all the divine revelations of that religion be believed without question. All these require blind faith since these cannot be verified/justified by logic or rational thinking or objective evidence. The sense of awe and mystery that led them to postulate a grand designer, is erroneously extended into justifying a belief in these additional human constructs besides the universal human instincts of the perception of a grand designer. One important point (which is self-evident but seems hard to come to grip with) is that although an instinct of God and Life after death is a universal one and is not necessarily a result of indoctrination or belief in other humans, any belief in the revelations of a particular religion on the other hand really stems ultimately from a belief in other humans and indoctrination. Since few have direct oracular experience regarding divine revelations, most of those who have firm belief in them have placed a firm belief in what they have been told through preaching by fellow humans, reading books (Printed by humans) etc. If someone believes in the revelations due to a direct divine experience (Which no other person can verify) totally on their own and not having been told about them, then that would indeed be a sound basis for a firm belief. But even in that case if that person told others about his/her experience ( and it would be a truthful account, excluding of course hallucinatory experiences/ illusions etc) and others believed in him/her, then the belief of others will be a result of belief in a human, unlike the person who experienced the divine revelations directly. So from this it is quite clear that all the major religions are based ultimately on belief in humans (This chain of belief in humans ending ultimately in the prophets, also humans)

Answer 6

I think it makes a lot of sense. As you may notice from some responses fear is a recruiting tool that religions still very much utilize. I'm not Buddhist (I'm agnostic) but I like a lot of their philosophy. I have incorporated my own ideas on the 5 precepts into my own personalized life philosophy.

Answer 7

You are forgetting the main message of Budha.

Althogh Budha did not exactly believe in a God Budha exclaims that it is right for some people and wrong for others.

Budha's main message was understanding of all things. In other words even though he didn't exactly beleive in an exact religion he was o.k. with religion.

There is even a therory that Jesus Christ himself went and visited a Budha during his missing years.

Answer 8

If the idea of god is a natural response to fear and frustration, it must be more difficult for Buddhists to deal with fear and frustration without that natural defense mechanism.

Answer 9

i'd go back that dictionary to anyplace you bypass it and ask on your money decrease back. glaring whoever wrote it has no clue what they're speaking about. The note "christ" potential "anointed" and refers to someone who's in a particular workplace or position of authority. that is the Greek language time period from the Hebrew idea of "Messiah". The early followers of Jesus were first referred to as "Christians" contained in the city of Antioch round 18 years after the crucifixion of Jesus. The note potential "Little Christ", and became maximum in all likelihood initially a time period used to mock the followers because they believe that they shared contained in the anointed and calling of Jesus. even if the early followers took the time period and grew to develop into it round, utilising it to search for suggestion from with their had to be "like Christ" and follow him each section they do and say. The note Christianity does no longer come from the Latin language, yet from Greek. So further spelled note in Latin and performance no longer some thing to do with the beginning or the which technique of the fairway paintings on which "Christians" is depending.

Answer 10

Yeah I think you are right. Primitive man had a lot of things to be scared of and a lot of unanswered questions. They made up religion to answer those questions and comfort them. Modern religion is simply the evolution of those ideas developed over thousands of years.