Wht do we have religion? Because to me it seems that we only have religion to comfort you or the past. Religion also seems that it is supposed to heal sins. How do we know all of this without some proof? (I'm a christian) Like do we have any bones of adam and eve? I'm just trying to get answers to questions. Thank you!
In reply to the original post, no, we don't have any bones of the Biblical Adam and Eve. But that's the only easy question to answer. The rest is opinion, faith, or whatever you want to call it. Religion exists today for as many reasons as there are people who practice it. Some people claim to remember a past life, or believe they personally communicate with a god, and that is their "roof". Others find one of the theological or philosophical arguments convincing. For others, their religion seems to make sense, so they will assume it to be true until proven otherwise. Then there are people who don't really believe, but find religion inspiring, or convenient (US politicians, for example), or are afraid of going to hell.
I don't know what you were looking for as a response, but I gave it a good shot.
peolpe wanna be able to understand why we are here and whats goin on. religions help them to grasp a better meaning on things. or maybe they jus like the religion. =)
Again, I think there are many ideas about how "religion" got started, but it will never be possible to understand or prove these origins. Just like most things throughout history, religion was most like a random series of contingencies that happened to be called religion. There are reasons today that people engage in religious activities, but we can't apply these retrospectively. I agree with samalam that there are numerous reasons for religious practice today, but if we're trying to understand roots or origins, that just isn't possible.
why do we have to be so different with religion cuz we are all the same in different ways... it all started with adam and eve i mean come on... even if ur not catholic u still have 2 have 2 people starting the world... so since adam and eve(or whoever else u beleived started the world) were the only 1s they had kids and they had kids until it became an endless line of kids and their kids so in a matter we are all related
The three questions religeon answers: Where do we come from? Why are we here?
A history of religeon: Around 200,000 BCE humans began to bury their dead. They burried their dead in the fetal position, meaning rebirth. It is the forst sign of belief in an afterlife. Around 60,000 BCE, there was the deification of nature. When they killed a bear or other creature to eat it, they would honor the bear's spirit in thanks for it's life, so that they could live. At that time the idea of an immortal god has not yet developed, so they assumed that they were all gods, along with every animal on the planet. Then in 18,000 BCE amorphous figurines so naked women came out. They had figured out the connection between the moon, tides, and menstrual cycle. In 17,000 agriculture started. This caused the people to rely on the sky. (Rhyme) They needed rain, sun, and they kept the connection with the moon in the above paragraph. They stopped believing that they were gods, but that the gods were in the sky. Then came the Epic of Gilgamesh (which the second creation story (the one that was written first) was based on.) This created the idea that we were put here to serve. Then came the idea of a savior (in my case Jesus)
*Oh yeah, Adam and eve is a pun that any ancient hebrew would have picked up: Adam means human Eve means life The story is not about adam and eve, but human life.
That evidence is very compelling, chili, but when we really look at it without our modern perspective, I think it breaks down. First, early man would have had no idea that the human fetus developed in the fetal position; without ultrasound or some kind of way to see the fetus while inside the body, I don't think they would've known this. I agree that they did weird things to their dead and animals that they killed, but we can't really know why they did it. We assume it was to honor a spirit, but this is just a hypothesis, and there are plenty of other hypotheses that could be used to support other theories. We can't possibly know what they were thinking. I think it's also pretty reasonable to assume that early man didn't understand certain functions of nature, and we think they might have developed gods to explain this, but I really think that we are attributing things to these people that we assume they used religion for. I think that much later on, especially when you look at Greek and Roman mythology, they used the gods to explain certain events. While it is clear that most people during that time did, in fact, believe in the gods, we can't be certain that they actually believed the various creation stories. Besides, there were tons and tons of different variations of the same story, which indicates to me a much stronger case of just contingencies developing rather than a conscious decision to try to explain natural events.
my religion make since than any other religion see im a mormon and ive been a mormon my whole life. i can tell u this i wouldnt be the man i am today if there was no religion or a christian.
we have been put on this earth for we can recieve a body and for we can choose if we want to follow heavenly father and keep the commandments and the word of wisdom and the word of chasity. if we are faithful and follow heavenly father then we will be in one of his beautiful kingdoms, but if we are not rightouse then we will go to the outer darkness.
As an atheist, it's my belief that many religions were founded by people who didn't actually believe in it, but were trying to instill good morals into the everyday joe and mary. Some may have believed, in a delusional way, due to either a) mental instability or b) a sort of placebo effect. Haven't come up with a theory with no clear founder, but those such as *Christ*ianity are the ones I'm referring to here.
Way back in the early days there were a lot of things that were not understood. At that same time there were men who weren't as physically fit or attractive as other males, but they had intelligence going for them. They used their quick wit to explain the unknown and set themselves up as shamen, eventually gaining as much or more influence than the chiefs had.
Religion came about as a way for ugly (smart) men to get laid. Yes, it's that simple.
lol decendentdragon your last sentence made me lagh but I found it semi-disturbing to some poeple outside my own home. Anyways, as I have said 24 times before (yes I keep count) I am aeithiest and I simply think that religoun was made to do these things:
1) Comfort oneself in time of stress
2) Hope for the best hence we die
3) enforce rules to try and decrease chaos in the world. (unfortunatly, with many religouns that backfired such as the iraqi war and hitlers dictation)
religion is for weak minded people (here come the angry emails). anyone with some common sense doesent need to be looked afetr by some old guy with a white ebard in the clouds. and when something fortunate happpens. its not a miricles. its called coincidence! and do you see anyone parting the red sea these days? no!
Well we have Christianity because God made it we have Jewish because some people didnt beleive that Jesus came back the rest are different and false explanations
