Does anyone have a good theory of how religion first came about.?

Question

Since the earth have been around for over 2 billion years and modern man maybe a few million years. My theory is that religion was born when man became acutely concious of his own mortality and self, a few thousand years ago (unlike animals) and had to come up with a explanation for his exsitance and what happens after his death. Any other explanation or theory please beside the simplistic it came from god.

Answer 1

Science has shown us that all biological life - including the human species - is the product of unthinking, undirected natural processes. As part of our evolutionary 'toolkit' of survival strategies, we have a highly developed awareness of other entities in our environment - We often notice human faces in carpet patterns, rabbit-shaped clouds and so on. There is more survival value in seeing what really *is* there, and also seeing some things that *aren't* really there, than in missing things that really are there and going hungry, or worse, ending up as someone else's lunch.

The consequence of this undeniably true aspect of human nature is that we have a natural tendency to imagine entities behind natural phenomena and events in our own lives that aren't really there - i.e. gods and goddesses, demons, angels, spirits - a whole menagerie of supernatural characters. Society and culture binds up these characters with our wishes and fears, our desires for dominance and submission and shared identity, and we end up with religious belief and ritual and dogma, in thousands of different flavours, with the vast majority of people broadly following the religion of their upbringing.

Religion is a biological phenomenon, not a supernatural one.

Answer 2

Religion is, as you say, a way of dealing with our own mortality. It's also a way of avoiding the idea that we are literally the smartest beings in the universe. Since human beings can't control a lot of what happens in the world, either there must be a very powerful person controlling everything, or else the universe is running amuck with nobody at the wheel. Which view you take depends on whether you'd rather trust an all-powerful person, fight that all-powerful person, or try to fight your way through a mindless pinball game.

May I point out that the explanation "it came from God" does have to be dealt with in any theory of religion? If there is any such thing as a "god", or any non-human entity powerful enough to pass itself off as a god, it's quite likely that such an entity would want those it helped to worship it. Some people (not me) believe that space aliens were the first gods, coming from the sky in flying saucers and instituting worship of themselves so they could have whatever they wanted from us.

I personally believe that there is an all-powerful God who made me and died to save my soul. If I'm wrong, I won't be any worse off when I die for having believed it. But if I'm right, then I'll be a lot better off than if I hadn't believed in and worshipped a God who really did exist, after all.

As for the earth being around so much longer than modern man, that has nothing to do with whether God created either or both. If God exists, he is eternal, and he doesn't have to create everything all at once.

It's good to see somebody really thinking about this stuff. Good luck.

Answer 3

It came about as a way to answer the unanswered questions. Most religions that first found its way to man, came around before any big breakthroughs in science. The Greeks, Romans, Norse, Egyptians, and etc used their gods to give an explanation to things that they didn't understand. Then when science started coming onto the scene and explaining stuff to people, Christianity came about and basically said science doesn't exsist. There are still some people out there who refuse anything proven by science, and only listen to what their religion tells them, but most religions now have embraced science as a part of life.

So basically... religion came about because people couldn't figure out some things about the world.

Answer 4

Yes, I have a theory...
Religion, I beleive, is a by-product of a survival mechanism that mankind learned whilst evolving. As evolving beings, we tended to learn survival techniques from other "successful" cavedwellers. These techiniques would be passed down verbally, in the forms of lessons. As a child cave dweller, you learned certain lessons - dont stray too close to the cliff's edge or the lions den - or you will die. Those that listen survived. Those that didnt pay attention - lion food. So, the surviving children pick up an important survival mechanism - ALWAYS listen to your parents/elders, as what they tell you will help you survive. The human brain ends up developing an interesting ability - to beleive whatever it is told, as long as it is told this by a parent/elder or guardian. Good survival mechanism to have.....

At least, it is a good survival mechanism until you are told that, besides avoiding the lion's den, you have to sacrifice a goat to the Sun God in order for it to rain... This is how and why religion persists to this day.

Answer 5

For one thing, the earth is not billions of years old, and man is not millions of years old.
In the Beginning, God created the Heaven and the Earth. Over a period of one week He created all heavenly bodies, plants, animals and elements. At the end of the week He created humans. These humans failed in their relationship with their Creator, and were eventually destroyed 1600 years later, except for one family of eight. (The only ones who worshipped the true God.) The entire world was buried in a Flood 2 miles deep everywhere. (Think "Waterworld".) After the Flood, the original family continued to worship the true God (the One who created the Flood and brought them through it), but their descendants began sun-worship and self-worship, from which all other religions on Earth today descend. Only Judaism and Christianity descend in a straight line from the God of Noah.

Answer 6

Memetics and game theory.

Good reading on the subject in The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion both.

Even religion is the result of evolution.

Answer 7

To explain natural phenomena that was beyond our understanding. Most of the early gods reflect the geography of the cultures that created them. The Sun God RA of ancient Egypt the Norse thunder God Thor are some good examples.

Answer 8

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Answer 9

unlike animals is right, animals were conscience about thier spirituality long before humans came up with religion, anyways there was a Goddess named Venus and she had the prettiest singing voice on her, I think you know her as *evanescence* everyone adored her so they worshipped her. that is how the first religion came about. religion happened when someone admired a quality they saw in a God, unfortunately that brought about more violent religions like christianity and islam

Answer 10

Think about it for a minute.

Primitive man endures a (insert your favorite natural disaster) and in an attempt to understand it man imagines a personality and intent behind the occurrence……..Tada you have an infant religion.

Trying to understand things and why they happen is just simple survival. If you understand why something happens you can cause it to happen again (if it was beneficial), stop it from happening, prepare for it or avoid it (if it was harmful) in the future.