How can some people claim religion is a man-made construct?

Question

when there are so many diverse cultures & religions on the planet? How come all these religions preach worship in idols or gods? Wouldn't this imply that the concept of God existed way before these different civilizations were formed i.e. from the time humans were created (or evolved from apes, whichever way you put it)?

Also, what about some cultures that must have existed back then which did not preach in god or idol worship? It is strange that such non-religious cultures did not exist back then.

OK, I know I am asking two questions here. I'd like your feedback on this.

Answer 1

That there are so many different religions out there suggest that religion is not a divine thing, but a human one.

If it were divine one would think that there would be a single religion, or at least many that were similar. But they're not. Apart from the ones from the same source of course.

Humans tend to, in their ignorance, leap to false conclusions about how things work, and sometimes this leads to spiritualism and religion. Like the "cargo cults", cults that sprang up in various places independently, and that essentially worshipped planes and cargo boats that brought riches to the people. They built airports in the forest, air control towers out of wood, and in one there was a "radio" an old women who went into fits that only the "priest" could decypher.

Non religious cultures may not have existed in the past because so much was unknown and easy to attribute to the actions of a benign or maelovelent "thing". And from there would come the desire to know that thing, to control it, leading to religion and priests based upon it.

Answer 2

I think you answered your own question.
Religion is man made construct, and the evidence for that is that every society creates a different construct, which clearly defines Religion as a random output of social processes.
But the second part of your question is wrong, there was never in the history and prehistory of mankind a human society without some form of religion, that is from evidence we have that goes back at least 50000 years ago, to the first Homo Sapience cave men.
Only in the last few centuries, and especially in the last century, did the human civilization reach such a level of understanding, that made the more educated people realize that religion is a form of superstition.

Answer 3

neanderthals buried their dead, showing an amount of reverence for death and belief in an afterlife.

if afterlife was a concept for these beings, then probably so was a creator.

since these ideas were around before civilization it is easy to see how seperate developing clusters all had the same concepts.

beyond that, the first civilization in sumeria had a vast influence on all regional groups and played a major part in the development of a ruling class, which included 3 groups: the administrators, the warriors, and the priests. the priests defined natural phenomena as acts of local deities

there were no cultures before the sumerians. gods area man-made construct. religion is it's side effect created to bring order and control over the environment.

Answer 4

My theory is that all religions, even the ones that are considered mere mythology now, all came from the same source in the beginning.

If we look at the ancient religions, they really do have quite a lot in common with each other. Even their stories are similar.

Of course, many of the "gods" in various mythologies were actually men that were deified after their death.

Some of the ancient religions used many gods to explain the various workings of nature. But most were not monotheists. Even Amen-Ra's power was limited, and so was Zeus'. It was almost as though they had human limitations.

Anyway, I got off-topic a little, but it's fascinating to me. While religion itself is not man-made, our interpretations of God ARE.

Richard Dawkins said (in a debate with Francis Collins) that if there is a God, He is bigger than we could ever imagine. I couldn't agree more.

Answer 5

"How come all these religions preach worship in idols or gods"

a) all these gods are all different, strange, huh?
b) We like to make gods in our image

"Wouldn't this imply that the concept of God existed way before these different civilizations were formed"

yes, I believe the at the dawn of self-awareness we also became aware of a lot of things we didn't understand. Like the sun moving through the sky. Like the wind rustling through the leaves. Like the moon chasing the sun.

These became the first gods, and echoes of sun-gods and moon-gods are found in every religion today.

Answer 6

Because it is.

None of these cultures believed that the earth was spherical and that the stars were actually much, much farther from the Earth than the moon or stars (except the ones with the rare atronomers), either. Really, that isn't at all a solid argument.

The majority of humans are religious, as they fear death and prefer delusions of security. Not much to comment on, really.

"2) Creation must have a creator. The universe could not originate without a cause."

And god could because...? None of your other arguments even begin to make sense, so I won't bother with them, Wally.

Answer 7

Evolution selected religious behaviour to survive for whatever reason. Maybe because it helped us control our societies and therefore live longer with fear of random death and allow us a better chance at spreading our genes.

religion is also a convienient step to attempting to understand the world logically. It is a natural progression from cause and effect. When we see an effect but don't fully understand the cause then we attribute it to some unknown invisible God.

Ask yourself why every God figure is essentially man-like. Is it because all these Gods created man in their likeness or is it more likely that man created God in his likeness. I think the latter is more likely.

Answer 8

Wait a minute, there were still people back then wasn't there? And the many different cultures rather implies that it was man made. If god is real, why isn't everyone worshipping the same god?

Answer 9

Are you saying all these different idols or Gods bade the people to worship them? Isn't it more likely that they made up the Idols & Gods themselves and that's why there are so many different ones in different places, this is heavy evidence that religion is a man-made construct I would suggest.

Answer 10

A great book on the topic is "Eternity In Their Hearts" by Don Richardson.

Yes it would imply the existence of God before man. The heart of man has an eternal longing in it (not to sound too simplistic). There is tremendous evidence for the existence of God.

Check out:
Eternity In Their Hearts - Don Richardson
The Privileged Planet ( http://www.privilegedplanet.com )