Who invented religion???

Question

And why do people believe everything they are told and read if there is no proof of it's existance??

Answer 1

Thank you for asking such a thought-provoking question, the kind that one rarely sees in Yahoo!Answers.

Religion is a socio-cultural construct that evolved as early man, and particularly early man's societies evolved. It seems doubtful that any particular person or society can be said to have invented religion from thin air. The archaeological evidence suggests that even the earliest culture to be studied whether Mesopotamian cultures in the Tigris-Euphrates area or Mojen-daro culture in India, all appear to have religious beliefs and practices more or less fully formed by the time artifacts and/or eventually writing are/is produced to demonstrate that fact.

What appears to be evident, particularly in light of studies in the last decade in the areas of neurobiology and neurochemistry, is that human beings appear to be hardwired to have a religious or spiritual impulse. This impulse manifests itself in its most immediate and "raw" state as WOW...the sensation of overwhelming awe and wonder in the face of sublime triggering event. By sublime, I only suggest the sheer overwhelmingness of the experience such that it transcends normal intellectual process. One then is awed either into a state of profound enrapturement or of extreme terror. This is simply part of a neurochemical and biological hardwiring. In other words, the old philosopher, whose name I unfortunately forget just now, who said, "If there were no gods, Man would have to invent them..." was, in essence, correct. We are prone to spirituality because our brains are wired to have spiritual experiences. However, the term, "spiritual" does not mean here something otherwordly, rather it merely means a biochemical process that results basically in people jumping up and down and getting all excited and talking about god, religion, and all the other things we so often talk about when confronted with a numinous experience that transcends our capacity to intellectually process. All this, however, only explains the arising of religious impulse from what is otherwise a natural phenomena i.e. the spiritual experience, NOT religion.

Human beings, primarily due to the neo-cortex, are given to organize thought-constructs into more easily processable schema. Thus, it only take a few people, each having a spiritual experience, to suddenly launch a religion upon its course. The purpose of the religion is to explain the experience and its meaning in a way that makes it easier for future believers to understand intellectually. Religion also makes it easier for future leaders of said religion to control and/or manipulate followers.

And thus, we encounter the great paradox of religion. Religions rise from spiritual experiences. Spiritual experiences defy intellectual processing. Religions seek to make these experiences accessable to believers intellectually through belief-systems. The result: as many a mystic has pointed out through the centuries...Religion is all too often the greatest barrier that any human being will ever face to keep them from having a truly transcendant moment that surpasses their ability to intellectually process i.e. a spiritual experience.

====I would like to thank my useless pc for having deleted the rest of my answer, but I will try to reconstruct it!====

So, to answer your questions. No one invented religion. Religion is a social phenomena, based upon human neurobiological experiences, that develops as cultures and societies develop and evolve. As to why people believe what they are told, paradoxically, it is all too often simply that they are told to believe. The reality is that most religions distrust spiritual experiences precisely because religion deals in beliefs i.e. intellectual constructs...spiritual experiences, by their inability to be easily processed intellectually, have a way of smashing through the constructs religions have created for their followers. And thus, most believers given a choice between blind, stupid faith or direct spiritual experience, which is easily obtainable through either electromagnetic devices, such as the Shakti helmet, or through psychoactive substances, such as mushrooms or peyote...they choose the safe, shallow waters of faith. H.L. Menken, it will be recalled, said that, if Americans were given a choice between going to heaven or hearing a lecture about heaven, they would choose the lecture.

Answer 2

Religion can be traced to earlier times than christianity or buddhism. Men have always tried to explain and understand everything around them. Tribes have always had a Shaman, someone to guide and explain the mysteries of nature and its behaviour, through stories. If they saw lightning, something that cannot be produced by their hands, they attributed this phenomena to something divine or sacred, something above their existance. You could trace "religion" as it is now to those kinds of explanations as offbeat as they might seem. Every culture has its own myths about the beginning of time and their "gods". People believe or follow religion for the same reason tribes did, some out of fear, some because it offers an explanation to things that are not scientifically justified, etc. Some don't believe in anything!! Another factor is faith, if you have faith then you don't need any other explanation. Even science cannot be trusted at all, one day you take a pill hoping it will help you and ten years later they discover that the pill was dangerous (see history of lsd, birth pills etc.)

Answer 3

That's two very unrelated questions. Religions have been around probably as long as humans have been able to communicate. Neanderthal burial customs seem to indicate a belief in an afterlife.

The second question is way harder to answer, and not a totally valid question. There are some followers in any given religion that are happy to believe what ever they are told, this also happens in every aspect of society. Others will accept various teaching based on how it fits in with their understanding of their choosen religion.

Answer 4

Personally, I do not care for religion. Wars, slavery, the crusades and all other manners of human beings being mistreated by other humans was based on their interpretation of their religious teachings. No one religion is total. There is no place in the bible or any other holy book is there a scripture where religious orders for each civilization God created distributed religion.








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Answer 5

A frog from a clone facility "Frog Created Toad in the Image of man". Its not that people believe it it is that frog troglodytes use it to make up flimsy excuses to murder and maim humans. Also they may of erase some thing else in the media of the time by runnng there frog comparison along to it to gain wills.

Answer 6

They don't believe EVERYTHING they are told -- just stuff they are told about religion. Which makes it even more bizarre -- they have enough critical thinking skills to be skeptical and verify information in every other aspect of their lives, but deliberately CHOOSE to have this enormous "blind spot" where they shut their brains off.....

Answer 7

he very first humans had religion. Religion is a search for a super being. We see things and don't know where they come from...so we search. The ancients made idols that represented a creator; today science search, and search, and search.
Now tell me just why elephant bury their dead. Are they religious?

Answer 8

Ahh spoken by the typical...oh Im so deep I reject what was taught to me because I can think on my own and Im too intelligent to be swayed by my parents or those leaders of religion.

Such simple little humans you are...so predictable and ignorant. Its just too bad your own ignorance goes unnoticed by your thought of reality.

Who invented you?
Did you conceive yourself?
Do you let your own bias of religion get in the way of thinking objectively?
Are you trapped by your own limited mind?
Why do people believe everything they are told? Why do your reject everything you're told? Why do you only believe what's directly in front of you?

Answer 9

Even hunter-gathers believe in gods and spirits and so the origins of religion are in the realm of prehistory.

Answer 10

Let me guess you do not believe in Jesus. Do you believe in George Washington? You never met him, only thing you have done is read about him. Books that was written by men. God is proven you just cant see it. All of creation speaks of Him and the stars and plants are all part of His creation.