What is the ultimate objective of religion?

Question

First of all thank you for visiting this question. Moving to the point, we all know that religion was created by man and hence it is not related to god in any way. But the people have modified it according to their whims and fantasies to suite their prowess. My question is actually on the objective on which 'religion' was first created. Please put forth your views in detail. And please keep in mind that this question is not about "God" or any of religious books and doctrines. So please exclude such topics. I thank everyone in advance. Good luck to you all.

Answer 1

Ultimately it is a program that prevents chaos and anarchy by proposing a set of rules or laws and a reward system. Successful inventors of religion gain control, riches, and a bully pulpit that is legitimized by the total number of followers. They are then able to live comfortably( or not if they are masochists) in a political -economic environment that they direct from the dogmatic seat of power as head of their church or mosque or temple or fortified camp in the mountains.Secondarily, man is so proud of his prescient existence that he had to invent a continuation of his existence because he could not accept the premise that at some point he would just expire like a plant or animal andso we have an afterlife guaranteed by acceptance of the rules and regulation and practice of religion. Thankfully some of these people were reasonable men who understood what an unregulated human race would perpetrate without guidance and restraint.

Answer 2

I think this question is more difficult then some of your answerers are supposing,
First of all Shamanism wasn't defined as a "religion" until the beatnicks hit the 60's. Most religions are labled so by those that dislike it for example the Lutheran religion was given the name Lutherans and ripped out of catholicism by the Catholic Church way back in the day, Religions unles created by single individuals whims, actually should be about searching for the truth in all things. Which is why I think being a Christian is more important then being a Lutheran, (but that doesnt mean that I'm not right in being a Lutheran)
Clear as mud right\
Good Luck and God Bless

Answer 3

First and foremost I agree with the fact that religion is not related to God, because people created it and modified it according to their whims.
There could be different reasons, why all these religions were created. It seems to have been created to keep common people away from the original truth of self discovery.
It may have been created so that a few people could remain in power and keep the rest of the masses in control.

But today religion has evolved into something unpredictable. religion has become the cause for so many unnecessary conflicts and "HOLY WARS". religion has been used by a few to push forward their own selfish ends and causes.

According to me Faith is the core. One person may pray to Jesus Christ, another may pray to Allah and someone else might pray to a crocodile. All of them have one common factor and that is "Faith".

This should have been the ultimate objective as to why religion was created, but unfortunately that is not what has happened.

Answer 4

Excellent question! Religion has been around forever, and there has always been more than one. As soon as the garden was exploited by the serpent we had diverse spiritual philosophies.

People have religion to help explain and justify the mundane existence on the planet. Additionally, it creates a big patsy for when things go wrong-"It is the will of God", "Allah has promised", so forth, and so on.
It also makes it palatable to die if we can count on a heavenly after- life.
In spite of that knowledge, I do recognize a supreme being, and I do believe I will be in His presence someday. Weird, huh?

Peace.

Answer 5

Religion is something that was created to make people believe and disbelieve. Like say some one is Muslim, and then you have a catholic, the catholic is going to look at the Muslim with a quizzical gaze, because they don't have the same religion.

So in my opinion i think that the objective of religion is to unite certain people together. Though that is not the case in all religions. But that's a different religion, so a different cause.

So the objective of religion, is seperate and unite certain people together, at least that's what i think.

I don't know if this answer helped you at all, but i hope so.

Answer 6

I think religion started as a way to explain things that people were seeing and experiencing in nature, and a way to explain death and make it not as bad. I don't think anyone sat down and said "Ok, let's start this thing called religion because..." It evolved slowly over thousands of years, since the early days when man first developed enough brain power to think about things other than food, survival, and procreation. Science, the true way of explaining the world around us, did not exist back then. Over the course of history it has slowly but surely been providing answers to questions that previously had no explanation, and thus were attributed to god or religion. Sadly though, many people fail to recognize the merits of science, logic, and fact, and cling to what are truly ancient ways of explaining things.

Answer 7

I guess the earliest religion would belong to the one of the earliest civilisations, and given that a religion is a set of rules built around a belief then it may be that the whole thing predates civilisation altogether. I can imagine Australopithecus thinking that the sun was a being capable of magical or mystical powers ... except that magical or mystical are concepts he could never grasp. So, in answer to your question, I think the first religion was born 2 minutes after we fell out of the trees, rubbed our heads and hoped the fall didn't damage the human race irrepairably ... sadly, I think it did.

Answer 8

The ultimate objective of religion is to bring people closer to the spirit within themselves. It is also to bring together a group of like minded individuals to celebrate the oneness we all share with each other. Most religions seem to miss that part. The simplest part is that the only way to truly know god, is to go within. It cannot come from an outside source.

Answer 9

Well, thanks for establishing an unworkable premise for me to answer you question from. You say that because religion was created by man it has nothing to do with god. Even if religion was created by man, where did man get the idea? Where did man come from? And who made that? If there was such a thing as "spontaneous creation out of nothing" wouldn't that still be happening? If not, what stopped it?
Religions serve many puposes in society. Many of them are in conflict because man is by nature an egotistical self-serving creature. My view of religion? See to the needs of those less fortunate than I.

Answer 10

Well, since there is debate over the oldest--and thereby first-created--religion, it is impossible to answer this question. Some argue that shamanism was the first religion; others argue that Buddhism is the oldest; still others believe that Hinduism came first; more, yet, believe that voodoo preceded all others.

If you want to give some idea of what you believe to have been the world's first religion, perhaps your answer could be better answered.