Please, don't bring your religious beliefs into this. I don't want anybody to say "because there's a god", because that'll just trigger a flame war. Just think about this: why does religion exist?
I've always thought it's to provide a sense of control; for example, if your people experience a flood, as an atheist you can do nothing. (Yes, I realise you could use sandbags or whatever, but bear with me.) But with religion, you can pray. Humans, as a rule, hate not having control.
So when somebody says "That flood was because of random, heavy rainfall", you resent it and spend your life worrying about more floods. But when somebody says "That flood was because of heavy rainfall brought about by not sacrificing a goat to the Rain God", then you sacrifice a goat and be done with it.
Well as most of you guys stated , I believe that religion was something to explain unknown phenomenon or happening . But sometimes i believe religion was used by some people like Buddha , Confucius , Muhammad , Zoroaster , Jesus and ... To reform or fix or improve one societies cultures or behavior and ... Like in Zoroastrian for example : Zoroaster Sick of some morally wrong behaviors from the people of Iranian Plateau , Started the creation of Zoroastrian as a codex or different manner of behaviors and ...(Or was told by god if you believe in god (Im not Atheist neither do have a religion) ) and he did accomplish his act , because in Irans plateau we had lots of improvements and Zoroastrian was the main religion of Iranian plateau for 1000-1500 years ...
Besides with religion , I believe generally people had hope and something to grasp on in the times of hardness and ...And they could simply explain lots and lots of their doings with religion like : in history most of the rulers or ... Gained and Obtained and enormous amount of Casus Bellies and reasons and rights to do as they wanted . As we can see that lots of rulers that didnt believe in god but ultimately tried to use religion as personal favor .
We can see as humans advanced religions became more and more advanced because the creator was becoming more advanced and needed to create a religion to be compatible with the beliefs of the people of his/hers era ... as we can see older religions were just wiped out by their new successors because simply they were more advanced . And the newer the religion gets it tries to create stronger roots for itself so it cannot be destroyed or reformed by its opponents as we can see after 600-700 AD we only have 3-4 main religions and they wiped out the other majority either by being better and more complex or by force ... And these religions have a really strong root that they cannot be simply destroyed or reformed easily as other religions because the acts that have been made to prevent this like in Islam whoever is born to a Muslim family becomes Automatically a Muslim , this may not be that bad but the thing is if you change your religion from Islam you will be known as a Heretic and you must be killed (at least in the old days now not that harsh) or in Christanity that papacy had pretty much the same harshness ... (I know that both religions have had reforms and are now much better and im not saying these religions are bad , In fact some of these religions acts or ... are greatly respectable ...
I would like to hear more on that. In what way, exactly, do you think that spiritualism/religion helped us advance socially and culturally?
Religion helped create rules. "If you steal from me, you're going to be punished. Not by me, but by this supernatural being that could potentially end the world or torture you for eternity. You decide." "If you kill me, you're going to go to (insert negative afterlife dimension here)"
It helped define moral boundaries, and it did create a stronger sense of community.
Alright now why do we have religion?
Many reasons. What was the first reason? I don't know. Some say burial of the dead, like nicho, but others say for control. There is evidence of both of these things. Aztecs and their supernatural terrorism could have sparked a few things here and there, or people got all sad when someone died so they stuck around the corpse in the ground to feel better.
I think the most logical FIRST reason for religion, was to explain the supernatural. Then the sort of "smarter" people, if you will, understood that you could control people based off of their blind faith, but the by-product of that control came actual positive results, such as better moral values (ie no killing, stealing, don't harm others) even if it started off as a form of brainwashing.
I could imagine the first "big men" that would turn into chiefs coming up with something along the lines of "I am related to the Sun God, so if you harm me, kill me, or steal from me, there will be divine punishment." as a way to deter people from doing anything to them. The term "Big Men" is sort of a pre-chief. They don't rule over an massive area, but they are considered the leaders because of their charisma and other traits. A very charismatic Big Man could have used something along the same lines of the Aztec's supernatural terrorism to completely take control of the community, so his place of power would no longer be threatened.
I'm sorry for this being so jumbled together but I've got to head out now. However, I encourage you to reply. I will be back, and my responses won't be so disorganized.
Religion helped create rules. "If you steal from me, you're going to be punished. Not by me, but by this supernatural being that could potentially end the world or torture you for eternity. You decide." "If you kill me, you're going to go to (insert negative afterlife dimension here)"
It helped define moral boundaries, and it did create a stronger sense of community.
I disagree. Morality has been present before religion was. You can see empathy and strong community sense in indigenous tribes of hunter-gatherers, which have vague beliefs in nature spirits but no religion. There are even hints of morality and sense of fairness in primates . Religious morals coevolved with and influenced cultural morals once religions were more wide-spread, but they were not the main catalyst.
As to the rest of your post, the reason why we still have religion nowadays seems to boil down to power issues. Don't you think that besides manipulation and misuse, religions might have developed a cultural momentum that keeps it going?
I disagree. Morality has been present before religion was.
I said helped define moral boundaries. They were present, but more people will follow them if there are dire consequences.
You can see empathy and strong community sense in indigenous tribes of hunter-gatherers, which have vague beliefs in nature spirits but no religion.
Well that's because they have a stronger sense of kinship. Call it "undeveloped" if you want, but they call people with the same name brother or sister. That isn't the cultural norm for more developed areas.
Don't you think that besides manipulation and misuse, religions might have developed a cultural momentum that keeps it going?
I think religion has help replace the declining value of "tribal" kinship. Instead of people with the same name, they will call people with the same religion brother or sister, father or mother. It brings a stronger sense of community and relationships that transcend the genetic family. It gives people a place to belong, or something to define themselves as. And that is the cultural momentum.
The issue is that some of the "moral boundaries" weren't very moral at all, such as divinely sanctioned ethnic cleansing through war.
But that isn't the religion's fault. That is the fault of those who took control and used that religion to manipulate the followers. I don't believe that religion is inherently evil, or that those who follow it are automatically stupid. When you have faith in something that you truly believe to be omniscient and all powerful, you would do anything that that being would want. The killing and negative things (I believe) are all to the fault of conniving people who decided to use people's faith to help their own agenda.
When you have faith in something that you truly believe to be omniscient and all powerful, you would do anything that that being would want.
Possibly irrelevant side note: earlier deities were neither omniscient nor all-powerful. As far as I know (though I could be wrong on this point), Abrahamic religions were among the first to use this concept. Be it as it is, people were afraid of the early, often human-like (and hence moody) deities. But some still tried to defy them; see the Greek mythology for some examples.
The killing and negative things (I believe) are all to the fault of conniving people who decided to use people's faith to help their own agenda.
I think the 'not-very-moral boundaries' mentioned by EmperorPalpatine are not a result of 'bad' individuals, but much rather a product of the general moral boundaries of that age. This point appears critical to me in this discussion: if I were right, this would mean that religions have not helped to define more advanced moral boundaries, but rather simply created a contemporary, parallel subset of morals. If you were right, then we would have to define the morals we see as 'good' today as the merit of religions, while the morals we see as 'bad' today would have been the fault of conniving individuals back then.
But that isn't the religion's fault. That is the fault of those who took control and used that religion to manipulate the followers.
When the holy text specifically states that a deity commanded its followers to slaughter everyone in the lands around them, including women and children, how is it not the religion's fault?
When the holy text specifically states that a deity commanded its followers to slaughter everyone in the lands around them, including women and children, how is it not the religion's fault?
Because a religion is not a physical thing that can write a book. PEOPLE write the books.
There are conflicts within every religion, and if you think that an ancient, flawed book is the defining factor for religions then you are very wrong, my friend.
