Do you believe religion was made up to answer tough questions like “what happens after you die”? And by believing in a religion people therefore wouldn’t be afraid of death?
Do you believe religion was made up to answer tough questions like “what happens after you die”? And by believing in a religion people therefore wouldn’t be afraid of death?
Comments
I think it’s one of the reasons but definitely not the reason
No, I believe it was created as a way of controlling the weak minded masses.
I think it arose to answer questions like “how did this all come to be?” and “what keeps things operating, like day and night, and the seasons?”
Probably part of the reason, and to scare you into behaving yourself
That question among others, yes. Not all religions involve a belief in an afterlife. But the whole range of philosophical and ethical questions, religions attempt to provide some kind of answer to. Thus giving believers some sense of understanding why things happen as they do.
> And by believing in a religion people therefore wouldn’t be afraid of death?
The opposite… “Behave yourself or you’ll be punished after you die.”
Not really, many people in many religions are super fearful of death. I have some super religious friends who are elderly but really cling to life – fair enough that they enjoy living, but the measures they go to seem to indicate fear to me, not a joyful expectation of the next place
I think religion is based off of the altering of one’s consciousness either spiritually or through hallucinogens.
The idea that some Arabs in the desert could create some total bullshit story 2,000 years ago far more complex than any fiction novel written in modern time is not logical.
And the idea everything in the Bible or other religion was real doesn’t add up either.
It’s likely the experiences were experienced in some sense. But not necessarily real.
And most ancient civilizations used drugs to trip hard all the time.
Of course
It answers questions we don’t have answers to. For example, people used to worship the sun.
Even simpler, I think it first came about to answer “Why is there water and noise coming from the sky?!?” and “Why am I covered in cold white flakes?” My sense of the oldest religions is that they were about nature gods and storms and such.
The systematic questioning of existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language using logic and critical analysis developed after religion and faith (in terms of practice and belief).
Most of these practices weren’t “religion” like we know it to be currently. Most of them were more shamanistic, holistic, naturalistic, etc. in nature; however, very much religions of their time.
Modern-day religions like we know them to be formed alongside old world philosophical inquiry which is also different from our more modern forms of philosophy.
Eeeh, I feel like it might have started in a place to answer questions, but very quickly adapted as a control mechanism.
I think death scares people and so someone way back when made up a beautiful story that gave people hope of something after death so that death wouldn’t be so scary.
For me a lot of religion was made up by kings and other various rulers to have the poor help each other out and punish any behavior that would be bad for their kingdom. If you believe that king was appointed by god and you are deathly afraid of god and going to some terrible afterlife you may ignore just how bad your life is.
Made up to control people
Hard questions, yes.
Stopping people from fearing death isnt going to happen broad scale, but it can make it a little easier or lower the threshold where it seems worth it.
I think religion is to the human mind what a pearl is to an oyster. A pearl is formed with something irritates an oyster and it creates a coating to make the situation bearable. For people we live with irritations like “People die” and “Bad things happen to good people while bad people are ok”. And we form religions that tell us things like “Well your body dies but maybe your spirit lives on either in an afterlife or reborn into a new body” or “Bad things happen to good people in this life, but the next life or after/life good things will happen to them and also don’t worry the people who were cruel to you will suffer for it some how even if you don’t get to see it.”
The thing is the bigger the pearl doesn’t mean it’s a bigger truth in the center, just that it’s been around longer. And just like there are artificial pearls, a religion can be formed around something like a person who wants to take advantage of other people instead of someone who wants to bring comfort to people.
I think humans as a whole want to believe in something and want questions answered. A god/gods is the easiest answer. Also I like to think a lot of old religions derived from stories of actual events passed down and translated so often it became a giant game of telephone across generations.
religion was made exactly how it was described in the movie “the invention of lying”, great movie if you never watched it
its less of a comedy and more of a anti religion movie
Death is a huge part of it, but fundamentally religion is just a philosophical debate around “Why is there something rather than nothing”.
Religion are just cults that caught on. They’re all systems of control for the masses.
Maybe it’s more like luck or karma made up force to justify having hope
humans have always longed for an answer, and when we don’t find it we make it up.
TLDR for the people that didn’t understand my philosophy stuff: yes
No, I don’t think that’s why.
I think religion was created to control ppl by exploiting their fear of death and the unknown.
Religion was made to offload some if not all the “why all this bad things are happen to me” questions. Today people are more informed and have more resources so religious power is fading.
Religion was made to exert control over others. Philosophy and spirituality are where answers to those questions are pondered, and religion uses them and structures rules around them to control behavior.
The main three religions arose to create order in society.
There were many religions before the 3 big main ones, and polytheism was very common, but with the main religions they essentially instilled “morals, values” into society I.e. don’t steal, lie, kill, be violent etc.
As an example, in the Middle East Medina was a popular trade market and Islam became popular there, but those that wanted to trade had to accept the religious ways of not being violent, and it grew.
This is an oversimplication, and more context can always be built on top
I believe religion was created to try to control people’s behavior.
rules created my fellow man (police controlled)
are only going to followed by so many, if you create an all powerful , all knowing being, with moral, religious, rules then you have another layer of control.
No, I think it came to be more so for questions like:
“Why / how do we exist”
“Why did that earthquake happen”
“Why did that tsunami happen”
“Why did that drought happen”
Etc.
Obviously they wouldn’t have had those names, but how I think the first religions started
It came about to explain the inexplicable and to control people through fear, guilt, and obligation.
Science has largely made the inexplicable part unnecessary, but there’s still an unevolved corner of our brains that makes some people fear judgement after death enough to do the various voodoo that makes them believe they’ve earn points with an imaginary deity.
I believe religion was created to enforce women into servitude.
Prior to the three large religions (the ones that fain answers to unanswerable questions) people had values and beliefs about such things as death and life’s meaning. People have always tried to explain these things.
Religion though, is more of a power structure. It’s less about the WHY of things, and more about who has the power.
Religion was created to hurt people justifiably.
I’m prepared to debate this with anyone,
Faith, I believe, is an innate human thing.
Religion, on the other hand, is something created to explain the vast cosmic mysteries that plague a person every day. For instance: Ball Lightning. You see that with no explanation you are gonna assume something is happening.
Partially yes. Basically religion was an answer to “everything” we wonder about once we move past the basic necessities like food, water, shelter. On top of that, religion was a huge organizing and uniting force for people who didn’t have much in common otherwise.
I know religion gets a lot of hate nowadays, but in essence it was the first documentation of organized thought, science, culture etc and shaped human history in ways we can’t even fathom.
I think it possibly arose to answer those questions but sticks around to keep the masses in line.
It’s all about controlling the masses. You can punish people for egregious crimes (prison, whipping, etc.), but then you need something for the rest of the people – to keep them in line
No I believe that religion evolved from man’s superstitions about what was going on around him and perhaps it was realized that this group experience also exerted a control over the masses. It was about creating civilization and community originally. And at the time we needed the people so “don’t covet your neighbors wife” because you could be killed and we need the people. “Us vs Them” goes all the way back in our “lizard brains” and makes us feel warm and cozy (which is why racism will never go away). And we sank right into it. The average person is stupid and fearful so they welcomed the “laws of god”, whichever god was being proffered around them.
But once the full extent of the control was realized? Then others said “wait! I want to be powerful and rich and control the masses!” let me just tweek a few things and BAM! another parasitic faction was formed, then another and another. And we get what we got here, a failure to communicate and everyone believing in their god, even though it’s all made up.
All Religions were made by man, for man, to control man. “god” has nothing to do with it.
yes, essentially I believe it was made to bring people “peace of mind” about the unknowns
I think it was more likely created as a cudgel to get people to act against their own best interest and accord respect and powered to people or ideas that had not earned it.
Religious leaders don’t deserve your money or admiration anymore than any other crazy delusional bums, but if they somehow could convince you that their delusional crazy was true then of course you’d respect them and realize how worthy they were of your support.
A scam in other words.
I think it began from ancient, primordial knucleheads doing random things to make the rain happy. One knuclehead throught the other knucklehead was doing it wrong. The two knuckleheads knuckle each others heads, they tussel, and end up both knuckleheads knuckling heads the same way. Since the rain came afterwards, they must be knuckling correctly!
This repeated with many, many knuckleheads. On and on, until there were so many knucleheads that they needed one big knucklehead to keeps all the heads knuckling together.
And such…we have organized religion.
Rinse and repeat. Apply to rain worship, sun worship, donkey dung worship, whatever you please.
Please consume your donkey dung wafer. It’s fresh!!!!
Also to control people and to gain wealth by those in charge.
I’m of the mind the old testament was created as a ‘how to keep a bunch of pre-literate desert people from stupiding themselves to death because the ones who actually lived to old age and knew how not to die couldn’t convince them to stop eating pork that had gone off, so they came up with ‘god will smite your ass if you do that and the time spent on the toilet is proof of that so no eating pork dammit’.’
It attempted to answer questions science wasn’t prepared to answer at the time.
I think very early on a guy stubbed his toe and that night there was a bad thunderstorm. A week later, he stubbed the same toe and again there was a thunderstorm. That made him say “wait a second, something is at work I cannot see here!” and religion was born. I don’t think it was specifically created to fill an observed need.
A young child, toddler, barely comprehending the complexities of childrens day to day life, one evening they look up at their parents and ask:
“what is this? Where does it all come from?”
And then!
In their parental confusion of getting caught of guard, and unable to explain the complexity of the adult day to day life to a toddler, start to tell the child a story, one that has been passed down to them, when they where around the same age, asking the same questions.
And then their parents… You get the drift.
Then you add a vowel or a word or something here and there, the language changes, the location changes, the stories adapt. Someone figures out something with clay tablets, they call it “writing”.
One, two, three.. here we are, answering to our children the same questions we asked.
That’s one reason. Just go ask any religious person what they would do if they found out their deceased loved ones are not waiting for them in heaven. Or any religious parent what they would do if they found out their kids won’t meet them in the afterlife. They can’t cope with unpleasant truths, so they just make-believe what’s comforting to them.
The only people I’ve known who were afraid of death were religious people. When my late wife – raised Catholic and abused by nuns as a child – was dying, she told me she was afraid. I felt so bad for her but there was nothing I could say to ease her fear. I silently cursed those nuns. As a lifelong atheist, I honestly do not fear death. I do fear the suffering that often precedes it, but not death itself.
Christianity is way too convenient in its history. It had to have been made up as a means to control people through fear of the unknown, fear of an all knowing being, fear of eternal suffering for doing bad.
Buddhism arose out of a purely philosophical question: what is the relationship between ‘having stuff’ and ‘being happy?’ It did not appear to be linear.
I’d recommend you should read Emile Durkheim’s seminal work _The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life_. Or maybe just find Jesus. I think I left him around here some place.
Historically it was made to explain the unexplainable.
If you don’t know what the sun is, must be a god.
If you don’t know germ theory, Tim got sick and died because he did something to anger a god.
It’s usually referred to as “the god of the gaps”.
Eventually, whether intentional or not, it became really useful as a way to control large, concentrated populations.
I’m starting to believe it was a way for the people in power at the time trying to find a way to stay in power and deflect blame for any bad decisions they made and to get people to fight for them. In other words, just another form of control from the rich and powerful
I think religion is a combination of that and also a means for
Over 40 years ago, I was back packing in Big Bend area in TX and got to see the Milky Way for the first time. It was terrifyingly awesome. To realize how small and insignificant I was, a bacteria riding on the skin of a planet.
I think religions help us rationalize a terrifying and, at times, irrational existence.
It will be interesting to see how organized religion fares in the coming years.
All religions are man made. I think they were made to control and instill fear, to easier control populations. And also as an excuse to murder and rape if you’re “not part of this faith”. They’re all garbage.
No, no. I believe the main goal is to make law and power to keep a social balance going. WhY aRe wE hEre comes after.
Yes but also as a way to disseminate important rules that might otherwise be ignored. For example if there’s a drought going on something your gonna want to not do is kill and eat your cow because your not getting crops. You’ll need that cow to plow your fields once the rain returns. So you make the cow itself important. Also these particular foods seem to be making people sick and killing them, maybe never eat them.
From my experiences with the supernatural i believe religion is our attempt at explaining and understanding the unexplainable.
gotta keep em working hard and give em the ole, “ don’t worry, things are SO much better on the other side, keep pushing those blocks/ stabbing my enemies!”
It is a control feature to get you out to follow seemingly arbitrary reasons.
Don’t eat pork because it can kill you didn’t work so pork is forbidden by God
Don’t screw your sister was the same way and it still isn’t that effective.
Even “not mixing fibers in the same garment” has a valid reason that any fiber artist can explain. But trying to get poor people to do that back in the day was harder than just saying “god forbids”.
No. I think religion evolved. You’d have multiple tribes with different answers that worked for their society. When there was conflict or catastrophe they were pruned – some survived, some adapted or combined. New religions formed, new tribes formed, were decimated again and this repeated. The survivors held the surviving beliefs.
Those beliefs were relevant when they formed. Recently science has been successful and left religion to answer the questions science can’t, but I don’t think it’s the way they were founded.
Partially. I also think it’s made up as means to control the masses
Yeah man, basically. Early humans were intelligent enough to ponder philosophically and teleologically but lacked the scientific knowledge to explain anything by natural causes. They came up with fairy tales because those were easier to explain. It’s no coincidence that several major culture developed some variation of the same story. Religion satisfies a lot of fundamental human curiosities and they didn’t know any better than to simply believe it because there was no other alternative.
Today, we basically know that creation is likely mythical and that natural processes are better explanations for reality. But people still cling onto Bronze Age myths because they’ve been indoctrinated.
No snark, this is just the truth.
Religion was invented to control people. It’s been working like a charm for thousands of years.
I think faith is divinely inspired conversation with yourself (use “divine” here to mean with “something larger than just me”)
IMHO … Religion was just one human’s way of trying to explain the unexplainable in a way that made sense to them.
To comfort people who can’t do it for themselves
No, its all about money. And power.
The question is not whether God exists, it’s the nature of God. Also, consciousness and the soul is independent of the body and mind, science is becoming clearer on that, so physical death being the end isn’t such a nonsense idea. There are questions that can never be proven and that’s where religion and faith come in.
I don’t believe religion was made to answer the question of what happens after death. More so to help people cope with the unknown after death or possibly to provide comfort to those dealing with their own mortality.
Nope. Nothing that deep.
I think religion was created partly to answer those kinds of questions and partly as a way of exerting social control. It’s easier to get people to stick to the rules of they’re scared about what happens after death as well as before.
I think religion was made up to answer easy questions like, “should I think for myself?” “will my afterlife be shit if I don’t keep giving money to tax exempt organizations”? and “what would the world be like if book clubs that only (sort of) read one book hurt people who didn’t conform to their fictitious characters likeness.” Hashtag team Jacob.
Religion was the framework we used to describe a terrifying and uncaring universe
Today it’s used by many as a framework for morality and ethics. Others use it as a framework for meaning in this infinitely large universe.
You’re not wrong, but you’re also being very reductive.
Before religion, we had stories. And stories birthed our gods. Stories are what makes us human
It was made up for multiple reasons. To explain things we didn’t otherwise know how to explain, and for control and manipulation of populations.
That’s the false solice it provides (and a popular route into many a religion).
I think religion was originally most began as a form of self gratification. Think shamans taking gifts or fees for spiritual rituals. As the religion grew it becomes more about control, providing rules to live by in a time without laws, infringements enforced by the threat of the punishment in the after life.
Religion isn’t some singular thing. All religions weren’t created for the same purpose, though yes, I do imagine one OF MANY purposes was to make sense of the question “is this all there is?”.
Because there is so much stupidity and nonsense involved in religions ,I think people know deep down that it’s all made up. Ultimately they are more afraid for the lack of real answers .
Religions were created for the social control of the masses. They use the fear of death as a tool.
If religion started preaching suicide is ok, people would be brainwashed to commit suicide.
As an atheist, I always wonder why any Christian would be afraid to die. Heaven is supposed to be awesome isn’t it?
It was created to ‘control the masses’ and enforce the patriarchy
Yes. And then wielded to control the masses.
Modern religion is in place to easily recognize people who don’t think properly. Free thinkers look at evidence to determine what they hold true. Backward thinkers believe in something and then look for evidence to support that. When presented with contrary evidence, it is easily dismissed because they already believe. I think it was Jung that said, “True intelligence is the ability to question your most cherished beliefs. The inability to question your beliefs is ignorance.” Originally, religion was invented to keep the poor from killing the rich. Now, it just gives those in power the ability to keep us separated.
I’m an atheist and I’m not afraid of death at all. I’m cornered that my process of dying could be painful, but being dead will feel exactly how it did before I was conceived.
In my experience, Christians seem terrified of death, because they’ve been indoctrinated into that fear so that their religion can step in and offer “hope.” I’ve never worried about a hell. Maybe religion initially was useful for providing made up answers, but honestly most Christians today seem constantly miserable, terrified, and ashamed of who they are.
Yes and also to keep people in line from doing bad stuff. Also don’t eat pork because they didn’t know how to cook it originally.