imagine if you will, the first group of apes that develop the ability to reason. the apes that grow tired of the silverbacks getting all the action, make up a story about the sun god wanting them to have monogamous relationships so the smarter apes can have some fun. when more problems confront the clever apes they invent more sun god rules, and the blind stay blind.
2007-11-15 10:44:23 · 8 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
nice
2007-11-15 10:48:28 · answer #1 · answered by ƴℏḉя@ηα ḯṫṥḯянℭ 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
The anthropologist Rene Girard was able to answer that question.
It started as a process of human mimickry. When a gruoup of people want to acheive a goal, they stick to something that will represent that goal (eg. I want to be like Jason Bourne so I will buy Motorola).
The search to be like God is no different. A person is mimicked who is seen as Godly. Soon a competition will build up in society towards this goal, that is seen as unreachable, and tension will build up in societies, untill this person who is seen as Godly, but is at the same time one of them will be found as a scapegoat and sacrificed. After this horrendous act, the tension in the society is releived, people go back to business, and the scapegoat is deified because he is attributed for restoring peace. This is the basis of archaic religions, it is the reason why early hunting was ritual, it explains the domestication of animals to keep a reserve for sacrifices, and it explains early agriculture to feed those animals.
This sacrificial mentality is what differenciates early human communities from animals. And this anthropologist explained that archaic religion is the basis of human civilisation.
2007-11-15 19:41:44 · answer #2 · answered by the good guy 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Early man. Greeks were first to chronicle it what with their gods and goddesses of fire, earth, wind, seas, stars (etc). Western religion (christianity, islam, catholicism) didn't appear in any documented form until almost 3,000 years later.
2007-11-15 19:01:40 · answer #3 · answered by Makakio 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The Jewish, Christian and Muslim religions evolved from their misinterpretation of their God Yahweh's scientific based instructions. Mainly found in The Laws of Moses.
2007-11-15 18:55:26 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 2⤋
Genesis.4:26 And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the LORD.
Hebrew reads.."other gods"
2007-11-15 18:48:37 · answer #5 · answered by Royal Racer Hell=Grave © 7 · 0⤊ 4⤋
In the minds of primitive man... indeed.
2007-11-15 18:48:19 · answer #6 · answered by I, Sapient 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
wherever it started, the earliest religion looked something like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_figurines
2007-11-15 18:52:16 · answer #7 · answered by grandfather raven 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
lay off the paint chips
2007-11-15 18:49:08 · answer #8 · answered by Dennis James 5 · 1⤊ 3⤋