Atheists: If religion is not necessary and a bad thing for human beings...then why has it always been w/us???

Question

Since primitive man started walking away from the African savannah that we all (supposedly) came from... man has had a propensity for believing/creating in an afterlife/deity.

Remains from site dwellings of early man and even Neanderthals often have primitive religious figurines of female fertility deities found in them, all the way back to 50,000 years ago

With this evidence it seems more like humanity is geared and has EVOLVED an innate need for religion doesn't it???

Disregarding all of the atrocities committed in the name of how can Atheists say that humans no longer need religion when in all reality humans have had RELIGION bred into you...?

Comrad Abdul: I'm sorry to hear that syphillis has always been with you... maybe you'll get lucky and they'll find a cure for you...!

Answer 1

Good luck going through your answer list. I'll add to your troubles and simply say:

There is a realm of human experience that is unknowable. There are emotions within us that ask "why?," and our intellects cannot answer. Intellect has limits. Science and logic have limits. Both logic and science were not invented to replace religion; but rather to understand the creation in which we live.

When you lose a loved one, or are really up against a wall yourself, religion is your link back to what created you and this universe. It's the Home Page.

And it's not going to be changed very soon.

Answer 2

Atheists do not say that. Like all educated people, they recognize the significant role religion has played as an institution of human society. “Religion” may have always existed, but the specific beliefs people hold and the imaginary supreme beings they worship are products of specific cultural/historical circumstances.

The human brain is hard-wired to define and understand patterns in its world. Nothing scares humans more than uncertainty and they cannot function if everything seems randomly variable. So important is the need for understanding that in the absence of scientific knowledge the mind creates imaginary causes and mystical forces to explain the unknown.

The question would be better asked of theists who claim that one religion is any different or better than another, and that their imaginary supreme being is the only real imaginary supreme being while every other religion’s imaginary supreme being is, well … imaginary.

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johnatplayct ---

Atheism is not a philosophy, belief system, or epistemology. It means, simply, a disbelief in God(s).

Before you attempt to criticize something, the least you should do is learn its definition.

You never took that whole “education thing” seriously, huh?

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☼evolvedkw☼ ---

We can thank Christianity, specifically, for the Dark Ages when it used all of its political might to suppress human knowledge. So extensive was this intellectual purge that all of the knowledge acquired by the developed Ancient civilizations was lost for almost 1000 years. It particularly retarded the development of medical science, claiming that illness was the result of sin rather than viruses, bacteria, and biochemical processes.

Answer 3

You answered the question yourself.

"Since primitive man started walking away from the African savannah"

It is left over from far more primitive times. Unfortunately its uses to control vast populations did not go unnoticed by the unscrupulous and it has been being used to anesthetize and blinker and ultimately control the masses ever since.

It is only with the explosion of education in the last few hundred years, and the ability for all people to have access to it, that some have come to realize that it is in fact all a big lie perpetrated upon them.

And freed themselves.

EDIT.
Regarding Gary's point above which I agree with, he says (sort of) that we are 'hardwired' to see and need to understand things, so true, however the majority of people who have done that throughout history have tended to be scientifically minded, and have almost always come into conflict with whichever religious group ruled the society of the day. Some were punished severely for daring to tell what they clearly saw as a fact.

Religion has done nothing to forward the knowledge base of man, quite the opposite.

Answer 4

The fact that the vast majority of people who are raised non-religious do not later on become religious (the few who do tend to be paraded around a lot by the religious why need to feel like they're beliefs have some semblance of validity but they are a minority) yet of those raised religious in countries with freedom of religion about a third end up leaving their faith with most becoming non-religious (and thus bringing up their children as non-religious).

Fundamentalist sects have it even worse with about half their children leaving the religion they were bought up in (they only grow through conversions, mostly from the more liberal branches of their religion).

The fact that so many people who have been bought up without religion don't end up getting a religion when they are older and that those who lose religion typically don't get it back indicates that we probably don't need it.

As for why religion has persisted, a lot of it is because of unfair practices such as murder of opponents, censorship, torture, bullying, etc.

Answer 5

I think you are wrong when you say that humanity has "evolved an innate need for religion.." It is not religion that humanity has evolved to need, it is a need for a higher power that mankind has evolved into needing.

When, over a long period of time, there are things that primitive man cannot explain such as fire, rain, thunder, the sun, an echo, child conception, etc., one would logically think that a god would need to be created to fill in the gaps.

We are at a point in our "evolution" where a god is simply not needed. We know how our world works for the most part, AND when religious dogma has to adapt to the changing times in order to stay relevant that, in itself, tells me it's false.

Don't even get started on the number of gods in society.

We don't need god anymore because it has gone from a benefit (comfort) to a liability (religious wars, persecution, etc).

Answer 6

Alcohol and drug use are not good things and they have been with use for a long time, the same goes for murder, slavery and rape.

Religion has its uses in that it is a form of social control and/or an aid to cementing a forming society together. And yes, the likelihood to "believe" is genetic, take a look at the "God Gene" - there are 3 genes that apparently affect the likelihood of belief.

Edit:
It should be noted that religion has had many forms through the years and not all have been as controlling or influential as others. Also not all of us think that religion should disappear, but agree that it should not have it's morals made into laws, and not forced onto others.

Answer 7

No "religious" artifacts have been found that are older than roughly 20,000 years. Neanderthals did not worship gods. In addition, according to the Bible, they never existed in the first place. Further, Gods and religion were a primitive method of understanding the world. Clinging to religion would be clinging to primitive superstition. The only reason to do that would be emotional. Personally, I do not get any emotional satisfaction out of superstition.

Answer 8

You're absolutely right about the innate tendency, but surely the last thing that any theist should derive from this is comfort?

We also have an innate tendency to giggle when tickled, but if anything this argues against any supernatural explanations for laughter.

If we have this tendency, it means that humans are specifically likely to invent deities to deal with the inexplicable - and that is exactly what has happened.

We're now in a position where vanishingly few day-to-day things are inexplicable, and it's time to stop offloading them on an imaginary sky-wizard, and face the facts.

CD

Answer 9

Humans like to be able to expalin and understand things. In the past, they expained the unexplainable (lightning, eclipses, earthquakes, etc) as 'god did it'.
This has carried on throughout history. We've explained a lot of things, but those we don't completely understand, like where we came from, or how life started, are still explained as 'god did it'.
We've been doing this for so long, that it really has become a part of who we are. This doesn't mean that god exists, it does mean that god is a habit that we have learned over time.
Just because it is a habit, doesn't mean that it is necesarry. Believing that 'god did it', stops us from investigating what really did it. Religion has always been opposed to science. Some parts of it still are (evolution etc.)
By getting rid of religion, we can remove something that has always slowed scientific advancement.
Oh, and people would hopefully stop flying planes into buildings, or blowing up abortion clinics, in the name of god.

Answer 10

If the Neanderthals and those from 50 000 years ago prayed to a god, then that proves the disqualification of Adam and Eve as human beings that most religions are so proud to propagate. That leaves religion as a bunch of lies. Please dont disregard the atrocities as it is part and parcel of religion and cannot be dismissed so easily. No doubt religion has been in bred more as a condition and not actually as the truth. Search for the truth and remove those layers of conditioning that is hampering your evolution to your higher self. The truth shall set you free, good luck.