Who Made Religion Up?

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So there's this thing called 'social cohesion' where, before nation states and in a forever war between city states, if you didn't have it - you'd be slaves to someone who did.

Naturally - no better contract escrow service that God or the conscious cosmos.

These things may turn out to not even be whole-cloth BS when it comes to consciousness after death but nearly all of the prohibitions or what things cause one to 'burn in hell' are specific to that historical tribe's needs for both cohesion and ideologically arming themselves to be a tight fighting unit.

This is why I'd argue that new age, Advaita, Neoplatonism, could almost never be 'religions' in that they have no social contract enforcement stick. They may have some Daoist benefits of seeking 'right relationship' with one's environment but in a world of Darwinian game theory that works in peace time at best.

Humans the world over believed in nature spirits in the stone age hunter-gatherer cave man days.

Then as we settled down and farmed humans evolved "gods" (humanlike beings that governed different forces of nature). This happened independently all over the globe.And humans evolved rituals to negotiate with and placate said gods involving temples and priests and so forth. Greek Gods, Egyptian, Chinese, and Aztecs all had big families of numerous "gods" (though not the same gods as each other).

Gradually some cultures evolved monotheism, and that supplanted religions with multiple gods in late antiguity in the Mediterranean region. And thats what we have now. No one person or group invented the notion of religion. Though mythic (if not out mythical) figures are said to have founded specific religions after ...interacting with god through revelations.

First of all I will state these are my beliefs. I personally believe: If a person believes that some out-side force controls their actions - that is called superstition.

Catholicism came from the early apostles who passed on traditions (so they say) and wrote letters to the early church to address issues that existed there at that time. It's largely a historical faith. The apostles were witnesses to Jesus' life.

That's what we're taught, anyways. I'm not Catholic (yet), though.

Other factions of Christianity branched out from the Reformation, though some might have come before that. There are so many split-offs.

Of course I know Christianity isn't the first religion. Even the Bible doesn't make that claim. I don't know what the first religion was.

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. 19 After being made alive,[d] he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirit
By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.

— 1 Peter, 3:19–20 (KJV

Re: the aborted babies. Have a bit of imagination would ya, they'd be given that ability in the afterlife I presume.

"The first religion began when the first scoundrel met the first fool." -- attributed to Voltaire*

"Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool." -- attributed to Mark Twain*


*The attributions may be incorrect, but the meaning of the quotes remains the same.

In church today the pastor (who always has a little mini sermon for the children) was talking about Jesus rising from the dead and one of the kids popped up and said "like a zombie?!"
I lol'd

Technically Jesus was a lich, not a zombie, but as "Sweet Zombie Jesus" is such a funny expression I ignore this info

I think it may have begun as an evolutionary-driven bias in humans to assume living beings were the cause of various phenomena that were temporarily or permanently unexplained. The theory goes that a primitive would survive better if they thought that the snap of a nearby twig in the forest was down to an animal or person. With that bias they'd be more able to evade predators.

Similarly, when extreme weather, infection, etc. wreaked havoc, we might have "reasonably" assigned it all to a mighty, invisible living agency, and used the only means at our disposal - attempted appeasement - to avoid annihilation. We had no science to offer the explanations we have today. So we "sacrificed" things to the gods, reassured them that we fully internalised our deference to them.

Also, as a highly cognitive species we can anticipate our own certain deaths, which is a terrifying thought, as is the deaths of our fellow humans, so it's emotionally a great comfort to imagine some kind of afterlife for them and for us. We're in denial because we can't cope with the fact of our complete annihilation. Our prime directive is survival, death is anything but survival.

So I think our ancestors all made religion up, though I don't doubt that our leaders tweaked the superstitions, consciously or unconsciously, to help perpetuate and enhance their control over us. And upbringing is the strongest predictor of religious belief there is. Most people are religious because their caregivers and local community were religious, so you could say our parents made religion up, though they may have believed it themselves so it wasn't necessarily a cynical, deliberate lie.

Yes, theologies got complicated, but for the masses the take-home message is pretty simple - do the deity's bidding as interpreted by the spiritual authorities, don't try to go it alone or think outside of the divine box.

^^^^^^I whole heartly agree. I am not against spirituality but I am too a critic of organized religion.

According to a YouTube video I was watching Josephus and the Roman Flavian emperors made up Christianity.

Apparently, the Romans in the first century had problems with Jewish uprisings so they started a propaganda war against them and created Jesus.

Instead of a militant messiah, they created a peaceful messiah. I know it sounds kinda crazy but it does literally answer the question of the thread.