How was religion made? (argument and debate)?

Question

This is an argument and debate section. How was religon made?
I think that there are 23 major religions but how did they all start? Why did they start? When did they start? Who started it? What started it?

Answer 1

All religions are the formalized combinations of generations of myths and folk stories. From the time that modern man had the ability to communicate, he was telling others that things happened because of demons, fairies, gods, etc.

And over time, all of the common stories came together, and were listed along with the rules of the society. These primitive people said that everyone had to obey the rules because these demons/fairies/gods had decreed that they had to.

Since then, science has taken us beyond such things. But of course, there are still people in the world today, who simply don't realize that science has replaced fairy tales. And they still not only believe these things, but they will violently oppose anyone who says otherwise.

Answer 2

Actually the other answers are also true. I think way way back when Men and Women tried to make sense of the world and its marvels by grasping at straw ideas to explain to themselves how something could be in existence. And that was the way it began, until mankind and womankind evolved enough to start to see the 'patterns' to things and realize that there still might be an unseen hand directing the universe as a whole. And that unseen identity choose to reveal his presence to the human race in different ways. How else can you explain the similarities between the various denomination if not from a single source?

And is it so wrong to consider that God might have chosen to speak to the people in different ways to ensure they 'get it'.

Why else would the authors of the New Testament decide to write their gospels in the different languages and styles if not to appeal to a certain group at the time?

It is a known fact that we do not utilize all of the potential in our brains so to discount the possibility that some people manage to expand their brain usage and tap into a higher consciousness is absurd at best.

Answer 3

That's a helluva complex question to ask on here. Do you really expect people to give you answers to all of that for 23 different religions? Someone could write a set of books about that.

It's just too complex to try to generalize.

Answer 4

Religion, the opiate of the masses. The biggest con ever perpetrated on the human race by ,in the case of Christianity, the oldest and one of the most powerfull terrorist organisations which ever existed: the Catholic church.

Answer 5

Human hear thunder.

Human see death.

Human fear.

Human think big man in sky (Man is boss daddy!)

Human think Boss Daddy Man in Sky in charge of weather and death, hunting and luck.

Human try placate 'angry' boss man daddy with gift of sacrifice.

Human tell tale of creation as human see man makes things.

Humans travel and trade, humans borrow tales and spread around. Humans make war about gods and beliefs, tales change and adapt. Real people and history get all mixed into more mythos. Hard to tell the difference.

Middle Eastern gods come from Sumerian and Babylonian beliefs, later Christianity got mixed in with Northern paganism when Romans spread Middle Eastern beliefs through Western Europe by assimilation.

Answer 6

The roots of religion can be found in our own biologically-mediated social structure. Or to put it in simple terms, we are social animals and so we invent cultural "tools" to enhance our social advantages (to us as individuals). Religion is one of those tools.

Evidence of this can be discerned in cave paintings and figurines from southwestern Europe. Many of these are well over 20,000 years old, and some may be as old as 40,000 years. The concerns of "religion" in such times were primarily fertility and hunting, and this is exactly what the art seems to be about.

With the invention of agriculture about 10,000 years ago, religion became highly stratified and hierarchical (to accompany the way societies were organized to grow crops). Such religions focused, quite naturally, on issues important to crop growers: the food itself, and protection of the food from marauders, the weather (especially sun and rain), and the notion of a god-king to instruct the thousands of people who depended on the food a city-state could grow.

Such are the origins of world religions. You can still traces of these origins in them now. However, religion continues to be reinvented as a social construct (and subconsciously) to suit all kinds of human desires.

Answer 7

Long ago, people needed answers to why things happened in the world. They decided that a great spirit made all thing, and that many spirits kept things running. If things were good, the spirits were happy, if things were bad, the spirits were angry. Modern people have taken all the spirits out and left the creator, and created division.

Answer 8

Religion was created in the absence of Science!

Answer 9

The ruling classes in societies instituted religion to make their control more effective and lasting

Answer 10

religion started when early man encountered things he didnt understand (ie fire, lightening, meteor strikes) and just assumed some higher power must have been at work

Strange how all this time later the human race still closes its eyes to science and allows itself to follow this clap trap