I think I've figured out why religion exists

What do we start out with? Human nature. Of course there is a lot of fighting between men if we go back to caveman. Some men are winners, others are losers. Winners are happy, losers are not.

The way I see it, the original purpose behind the founding of every religion is to make everyone happy. However, numerous times throughout history, religion has been tainted by powerful men who abused religion for their own personal agenda.

Let's look at some religions individually.

Christianity. Goal: Give every man a woman, give every woman a man, and make sure everyone behaves perfectly, and we have a perfect world. Sounds good, and actually seems possbile in theory (just like happy communism). But, human nature can not be controlled so easily. Living your life by certain rules is possible for a while, but not everyone can keep it up forever. How does the Christian community respond to too many people breaking their rules? Stricter punishments. Hey, that's why MJ is illegal, isn't it? Zero tolerance has become a tradition in this country. In the end, the problem with Christianity is that in an attempt to enforce unenforceable rules, they hand out more punishment than there would be unhappiness without rules at all.

Islam: Give every man a woman, and everyone's happy. Wait, didn't we forget about someone? Yes, women. Nothing protects women.

In the end, religions try to achieve an ideal, but it can never be achieved. Let's compare it to the current forms of government. Democracy, Republic, Communism. All of them, just like religion, are trying to achieve an ideal that is unattainable. The way I see it, there will never, ever, ever be an ideal form of government, or an ideal religion. However, the closer you are to honesty, fairness, and truth, the better it is.

I def have to disagree with you on this. I feel it was only created to control others.

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Originally Posted by zeitgeist

I def have to disagree with you on this. I feel it was only created to control others.

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That would have been a really long shot, considering every religion takes a looooooong time to gain supporters. You probably don't even know if a religion is going to live in the first 50 years or so.

BTW, I do agree that it is being used to control others. I think Christianity has been "hijacked" a long time ago.

Conflicts can be an interesting thing. Both sides firmly believe in their own side, and it gets so personal, that people don't even acknowledge the other side's positive points to themselves, thus decieving themselves. And through this, they lack the understanding that would be required to convince the other of their viewpoint.

For the record I am an atheist, but I am a person who does not want to limit feedback to those who think like me. What I have found is that if you have negative opinions of a group of people, then usually the one actually missing something is you. You have negative opinions, because you don't understand them, and you don't understand them, because they know something you don't. And what they know and you don't can be important.

Religion is the result of man's insecurities and fears of the unknowns around him. You fear what you do not understand, and in that way THClord you are correct in stating that religion helps make people happy because they no longer fear what they don't comprehend, if albeit misguided in their explanations. Religion then became something man turned to when he was feeling alone in a giant universe. No one likes the notion that we all die alone, and yet we do. Fear of what may or may not come after death led men to create stories to alleviate their worries. To try and explain our existence in the vast cosmos is competely worthless in our short time as a race, and it for that exact reason that people cling to their faiths. Perhaps we may learn the true nature of the universe and its creation far down the road, but I doubt we'll survive that long to find out.

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Originally Posted by CultureCherryPopper

Religion is the result of man's insecurities and fears of the unknowns around him. You fear what you do not understand, and in that way THClord you are correct in stating that religion helps make people happy because they no longer fear what they don't comprehend, if albeit misguided in their explanations. Religion then became something man turned to when he was feeling alone in a giant universe. No one likes the notion that we all die alone, and yet we do. Fear of what may or may not come after death led men to create stories to alleviate their worries. To try and explain our existence in the vast cosmos is competely worthless in our short time as a race, and it for that exact reason that people cling to their faiths. Perhaps we may learn the true nature of the universe and its creation far down the road, but I doubt we'll survive that long to find out.

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Exactly. It provides a sense of security.

However, THClord, you spoke about Christianity and very little about Islam, what about Judaism? We wouldn't have Christianity or Islam without Judaism.

Also, people seem to hate Islam for certain reasons, but in reality, we owe them A LOT. go to muslim country and experience it for yourself, don't trust what the government shows you, the government wants what the muslims have, the middle east, so our government has demonized the muslims. don't buy into it. the Islamic empire produced some of the greatest human advancements in history.

Intresting Thread.

I always wondered about christianity and like how they would go all around the world converting people.Growing up in Hawaii we learned about Ancient Polynesia and how they believed in Gods,maybe not jesus.But we knew about pele and maui in school.I would always think that maybe CHristianity was just the same thing,only they had a book with stuff documented.Whereas our cultural beliefs were just handed down stories.
I believe in God,but there are so many unanswered things like dinosaurs and stuff.
Also I have found some religions have some believeable stuff.
Take Mormonism for example,the first settlers to America were from Israel.....That would explain the simalarities in the temples,the drawings on pyramid walls found in South America were identical to those found in Egypt.Theres lots of other things.
Also,what about Noahs ark,if everyone died except noah,we'd all be the same race right?
I dunno......sometimes I feel confused when it comes to these things.:upsidedow

What about Buddhism? It is centered on the changing/growing process of an individual's mind as they experience their own spirituality and oneness in and with the universe. To say that this idea is not inherent in all religious thinking is naive. Perhaps some religions have been distorted towards a negative goal, but religion certainly wasn't created for that reason.

One of the biggest problems with humanity is communication. When one person understands a real concept or idea so deeply that it can no longer be put into words, how do they share it? Perhaps religion was created along these lines.

The amount of distortion in the current dogma of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism that is supported by the respective "religious authorities" these days renders most of it moot to individual use. Other religions like Hinduism and Buddhism, which have no ruling class that serves as a "religious authority" still retain a spiritually-minded belief system that is governed solely by interpretation, which is arguably how religion works best. Having a pope who is considered "completely infallible" in the eyes of the church opens the door very wide for corruption, and this concept applies equally to all religions which do not hold the only religious authority to be one's own.

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Take Mormonism for example,the first settlers to America were from Israel.

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lol wut

well i have done research on this topic before, religions such as Christianity, and Buddhism were all philosophies first, Christianity in particular was fought against by Rome at the hight of the roman empire, there was a saying that for every one Christian you kill, there are one hundred more. what seemed to have happened was Rome's tactic was to "embrace" Christianity and invite all the Christian leaders to join the Roman plutocracy, effectively corrupting Christianity and destroying its teachings. original Christianity of the time was based on the Torah.
anyhow in terms of why we have religions in the first place, is very interesting. out of all animals on earth, humans seem to be the only ones who think of death the way we do and are the only ones who have thought of notions of god, nature, universe, etc. In terms of our awareness; i believe, religion is the product of our early cognitive developmental stage.

Christianity is based on Judaism, that is for sure. How it originally developed and what it originally stood for are completely debatable because, as you mentioned, the Romans swallowed it up. Its a shame that it happened that way because for a mere philosophy or religion to motivate a gigantic, world-dominating superpower into squashing it says to me that the early Christians had a solid message.

How far into cognitive development would you say we have progressed? Considering the state of the world, I would say not very far :(

yeah i too feel the early Christians had a very solid and good message, now as for how far we have come cognitavly is tough to say in my opinion, i agree that by looking at our world, it would seem as though we are quite backward and rotten to the core. at the same time it could be that we have not yet found a solution/s to some very large problems we seem to have; grave lack of equality, justice and freedom, amongst other things. i wish i knew what to say.