The idea that started religion.

Akrasia

I've always considered the evolution of religion to be like a runaway logic train that started off with a leap to an incorrect conclusion that kind of traps people into a doctrine that just gets more ridiculous every time you try to understand it more deeply

The video below cracks me up every time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVbnciQYMiM

Christianity and other monotheistic religions started with the conclusion that everything must have been made by something conscious and the rest of the doctrine and theology is dedicated to trying to guess what this being is like and what it must want from it's creation

endacl

It all stems from fear of the dark, and a need to explain.

Cabaal

here's another interesting take on where "god" came from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRV9PsZRUV0

kylith

Hotblack Desiato

Akrasia wrote: »

Christianity and other monotheistic religions started with the conclusion that everything must have been made by something conscious

Everything apart from the conscious something, of course...

Blahfool

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Everything apart from the conscious something, of course...

You not go to meatland.

magicbastarder

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZP7K9SycELA

Harika

I think George Carlin hit it on the head, if you are impatient, his reason starts at second 20.

Here's how it happened: About five thousand years ago, a bunch of reli­gious and political hustlers got together to figure out how they could control people and keep them in line. They knew people were basically stupid and would believe anything they were told, so these guys announced that God— God personally—had given one of them a list of Ten Commandments that he wanted everyone to follow. They claimed the whole thing took place on a mountaintop, when no one else was around.

MrPudding

Harika wrote: »

I think George Carlin hit it on the head, if you are impatient, his reason starts at second 20.

I think the reason from "The Invention of Lying" is as good an explanation as any and to me seems perfectly conceivable.

MrP

recedite

Agree, Ricky Gervais nailed it IMO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXYvwEeWrm8

Moo Moo Land

endacl wrote: »

It all stems from fear of the dark, and a need to explain.

I always found it interesting that when Moses came down from the mountain, the people were already worshipping a new "god" in the form of a golden calf. After all they had seen escaping from Egpyt and slavery, they had zero patience.

magicbastarder

recedite wrote: »

Agree, Ricky Gervais nailed it IMO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXYvwEeWrm8

is that fionnuala flanagan?

smacl

endacl wrote: »

It all stems from fear of the dark, and a need to explain.

Yes indeed, and then some bright sparks figured out they could enjoy an easier life acting as an intermediary for the young corn god / ancestors / Jesus & Mo etc... and from religion blossomed the church

MrPudding

smacl wrote: »

Yes indeed, and then some bright sparks figured out they could enjoy an easier life acting as an intermediary for the young corn god / ancestors / Jesus & Mo etc... and from religion blossomed the church

As the saying goes (though apparently not by Mark Twain) "religion was born when the first con man met the first fool."

MrP

XR3i

i'm going to go to mass this evening

don't know if it's open as they dont have a website

XR3i

and sure even if it's closed i can sit in the car and say my prayers

XR3i

i miss my granny

12Phase

I think there are a lot of things at play:

1) Human brains innately seek to understand why things happen. We really find random uncomfortable and tend to look for a causation for events that might be completely random. This comes out in things like lucky charms, but I suspect it also comes out in religious beliefs, especially around mortality.

2) Nobody is too comfortable with the idea of mortality, so it's quite nice to create a bit of an explanation for it. Whether it's heaven or some notion of multidimensional ghosts in far fetched pseudo physics, people do tend to clutch at straws around this topic.

3) Our brains look for patterns, faces, and narratives all the time in things that don't have any of these things. We see faces in clouds, we see patterns that may not be there and so on.

4) We don't like worrying, unanswered questions and also our brains actually work on the basis of making leaps of logic to fill in blanks and extrapolate what should be there. The fewer information points we have, the more bizarre and far fetched the extrapolation might be. So, if you input something like "how did we get here?" and you have no idea of science, you might extrapolate based on what you know and trying to fit things into a model of cause and effect, that you were probably put here by 'someone' .. then that goes off into religious belief.

5) Accepted facts. The greater the number of people believe something, the more we are likely to accept it as fact. It doesn't matter how crazy the idea is, we are evolved to engage in group think. As you can see throughout history, accepted status quo beliefs are hard to break, but when they do break they can often break very dramatically and all of a sudden the old belief seems ridiculous. This is where ritual, customs and all sorts of strange stuff come into play.

Humans can engage in some very odd ritualistic behaviour, some of which is even extremely physically damaging body modifications and so on. However, once it's socially accepted it becomes very hard to challenge.
...

Quite a lot of stuff going on there that would lead to religious beliefs, magical thinking and so on.

Moo Moo Land

Great post 12Phase. Spot on.

XR3i

se do bheatha mhuire

atá lán do ghrá

Fleawuss

XR3i wrote: »

se do bheatha mhuire

atá lán do ghrá

Ghrásta

Even the religious trolls are disappointing.

Fleawuss

Humankind cannot bear much reality. It begins with fear and attempting to control our environment and our tribe and find a mechanism to guarantee the future of the tribe. We are basic organisms with an extraordinary self consciousness and opposable thumbs.