What scientific/historical explanation do you have for why humans invented religion.?

Answer 1

read Marx my dear.... he outlines it properly about why is there a need for religion in a society!
he explains it as an ideology that is used to mystify human beings so that they do not realize that they are being used or oppressed or being taken advantage of!
it happened with the bourgeoisie and the proletarians
it happened with the capitalists and the factory workers
Monday to Saturday, the workers get oppressed and the feeling of dissatisfaction builds up. come Sunday, they all go to church, and the pastor tells them its OK to suffer on earth now so that you are enjoy your rewards in heaven later. and the tension evaporates, because of this eternal belief in something that hasn't even been proven true!
don't you think it works perfectly? the mechanism of religion....
and if you trace the history of the church, you'll find that its very powerful! it still is, take a look at the Vatican now! and this is one of the ways to perpetuate themselves in power.
this is still apparent today via the custom of "contributing 10% of your pay to the church"


i sincerely think Marx got it right the 1st time round in this area....

regards

Answer 2

Imagine, if you were a man living tens of thousands of years ago...no electricity, no cities, and you are living either a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, or you are beginning to plant grain or fruits on plots of land. You are totally at the mercy of nature. If there's a drought, or an earthquake, or a big storm, you are in big trouble. You don't know about tectonic plates moving or warm air over the Atlantic, and you need an explanation. You can see the stars move across the sky at night and the sun move across the sky during the day. You imagine an explanation from them.

Obviously, this is a dramatization, but what I mean is that people were at the mercy of the elements then so much more than we are now, and they needed a way to feel like they had control over what was happening around them, or at least understand what was happening. Humans have an urge to understand things around them, and I think they always have. That's what I think happened, in any case, I'm not sure if anyone knows the real story or the actually reason.

Answer 3

excellent question. My own theory, I have no experience with this at all, is that when people got verbal communication down to a comfortable point and started getting comfortable enough to socialize, they realized there were many things they couldn't explain, like what the heck are those white flashes that light up the sky and start trees on fire and where does that freightening sound come from afterwards, or to the people who lived through it, a tornado!!, or earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods and on and on. Then some wise guy decides to tell everyone he's got it figured out see, a little bird whispered in his ear the other day that there were these magical beings in control of the whole show and if only we sacrificed a few of our virgins, they'll calm down and these things won't happen, if they still do though, we should definetly sacrifice a few more. And that went on until people started getting wiser themselves and the wise guys had to start using other tools, like books, because see, when you put it in a book, the book becomes power, especially a few generations later when they've had time to revise the work of their ancestors and make sure they sealed any loop holes that any wise people may have figured out over time. But I've also heard another interesting idea somewhere; what came first, religion, or magic mushrooms?

Answer 4

What scientific PROOF do you have that religion (Christianity in particular) was invented by humans?

You're making hasty presumptions, which is a very unscientific thing to do.

It's not sufficient, especially for a champion of science such as yourself, to assert without proof that religion is strictly a human invention.

Many religions are human inventions, true, but the true religion is not.

Answer 5

I have no scientific/historical explanation as you request it simply because humans did not invent religion. Contrary to your beliefs, God created all humans and He has created us for Him. There is an emptyness within each human heart that can only be filled by God. Many try other things to fill this void, but nothing else will work because we are both human and spiritual and that spiritual dimension we have longs for God our creator and hence we have developed many ways to worship and praise God our Creator. Religion is a part of our spiritual side as we attempt to reconcile ourselves to our God. Historically, God took on human form in the person of Jesus Christ and Jesus did indeed establish His church here on earth.

Answer 6

Humans didn't invent all religion, Christ made way for christianity. Its not a crutch like most of you believe, just because you can't understand it, doesn't mean you have to attack religion every chance you get. Let people believe what they want and you won't find any scientific answer to your question.

Answer 7

The fear of the unknown had been haunting us from the day we lived in caves.

we had no explanation for natural disasters, for sudden changes, our pleasures and our pains.

Some more evolved minds thought of a super-power, which controls us...and told others to make IT happy for our happiness.

The inquisitive minds got the reply, at least to blame someone for the problems.

And the religion was born

But we must not take religion just as this....there is a super-power controlling all this....the description of it may be faulty or imperfect, as given by religions..But it is there.

It is our own self..our own self, which is one with the universe but thinks in egoistic terms due to our mind
and finding that universal self in us is the real religion...rest all is prejudice, fanaticsm, ego-game and imperfection

Answer 8

The search for something meaningful seems to be a natural longing in man. I don't think we invented THAT. But I do think most organized religions are useless.

Unfortunately, power over the masses is a stumbling block for many. Once in power, many religions lose their purpose and get used to their comfy lifestyle.

Answer 9

I think it's really quite simple. It's the old "science". The wise men of the time tried to surmise why and/or how the universe worked. Some science was accurate... most of it wasn't. And eventually, there became a split, wherein some "wise men" saw the need to update and test their theories, while others were content to sit tight with the theories they already had.

Those with different theories went to war and killed everyone who went against them. And eventually, only a few groups were left. This is where we got Judaism, Christianity, Islam, etc. And we're still trying to graduate out of those.

Answer 10

Did humans invent religion or did religion invent humans?

That's the real question.