A Theory into the Origin of Religion

[TheSilentArbiter]

Now, for a moment, imagine you are primitive man. (For you evolutionists, think Homo Erectus, for you creationists, think very early human civilizations. Like before Abraham, Moses, and the like.) One night, you look into the sky and see a brilliant meteor shower. Well, you wouldn't CALL it a meteor shower. What would you call it? What would you think it was? Well, those who are capable of rational thought today know that the lights shooting across the night sky are meteors burning in Earth's atmosphere. But you are early man. You don't know what an atmosphere is. Or meteors. What could have caused it? It takes time, but the thought comes across your mind:

"WHO did this?" not "What", "Who?"

In short, what if God hasn't always existed? What if our collective thoughts and ideas gave birth to the notion of powers beyond our own. Spirits, Gods, Goddesses, all through time. What if God didn't create us? What if we created God?

 

[Tiapan]

And if someone suffered from narcolepsy, or ate a bit of puffer fish, they might have thought they had risen from the dead.

Cheers

 

[SugaCubez352]

If you look at the evolution of this "god meme" that has plagued us, we will see that this god meme has evolved along side the brain capacity of our species.

We don't even have to go back into time to see how. If we go and anthropologically study different groups of people who have different levels of understandings well see this.

If you study the Pigmiies of Africa, the Papuans, and most other indigenous "primitive" tribes, you see that they have a belief in animistic "spirits," of trees, rocks, mountains, and such. They have stories about spirits, certain things about life and existence causes fear in them, and they have primitive rights and stories to explain away these mysteries and fears. This group would most likely represent primitive man.

Those pagans on the other hand - much like the ancient Greeks and Romans - worship the god meme in anthropomorphic fashion by giving or superimposing their own understandings of human nature onto their gods.

Then you have the monotheists who utilizes one one god meme to explain life and existence away to their adherents. The most pressing mystery being what happens to us when we die, and what we are doing here.

Now today our brain capacity - the ability for some of us to think and behold greater or higher levels of thought - has brought us to a weird place where part of us have left that god meme behind for current scientific wisdom and what we have dis-covered about our universe...

And we are also seeing that those of use modern humans that cannot free themselves from this god meme have evolved - or updated their idea or conception of a god - by fabricating these weird alien based religions where some extraterrestrial life form created mankind via genetic manipulation... or we see this same updating of the god meme affect in certain religious sects who re-interprets the god of the bible in such extraterrestrial weltanschauungs.

 

[dogsgod]

The following book takes us back to the very possible beginnings of religion itself. I would recommend it to anyone interested in religion's roots.




Blood Rites
Origins and History of the Passions of War by Barbara Ehrenreich


In Blood Rites, Barbara Ehrenreich confronts the mystery of the human attraction to violence: What draws our species to war and even makes us see it as a kind of sacred undertaking? Blood Rites takes us on an original journey from the elaborate human sacrifices of the ancient world to the carnage and holocaust of twentieth-century "total war." Sifting through the fragile records of prehistory, Ehrenreich discovers the wellspring of war in an unexpected place -- not in a "killer instinct" unique to the males of our species but in the blood rites early humans performed to reenact their terrifying experience of predation by stronger carnivores. Brilliant in conception, rich in scope, Blood Rites is a monumental work that will transform our understanding of the greatest single threat to human life.

 

[Riverwolf]

It's certainly a way that pure theism may have come about, which, in turn, would have led to some sort of mythology.

 

[Riverwolf]

The following book takes us back to the very possible beginnings of religion itself. I would recommend it to anyone interested in religion's roots.




Blood Rites
Origins and History of the Passions of War by Barbara Ehrenreich


In Blood Rites, Barbara Ehrenreich confronts the mystery of the human attraction to violence: What draws our species to war and even makes us see it as a kind of sacred undertaking? Blood Rites takes us on an original journey from the elaborate human sacrifices of the ancient world to the carnage and holocaust of twentieth-century "total war." Sifting through the fragile records of prehistory, Ehrenreich discovers the wellspring of war in an unexpected place -- not in a "killer instinct" unique to the males of our species but in the blood rites early humans performed to reenact their terrifying experience of predation by stronger carnivores. Brilliant in conception, rich in scope, Blood Rites is a monumental work that will transform our understanding of the greatest single threat to human life.

What's that got to do with the origins of religion?

 

[Dunemeister]

Now, for a moment, imagine you are primitive man. (For you evolutionists, think Homo Erectus, for you creationists, think very early human civilizations. Like before Abraham, Moses, and the like.) One night, you look into the sky and see a brilliant meteor shower. Well, you wouldn't CALL it a meteor shower. What would you call it? What would you think it was? Well, those who are capable of rational thought today know that the lights shooting across the night sky are meteors burning in Earth's atmosphere. But you are early man. You don't know what an atmosphere is. Or meteors. What could have caused it? It takes time, but the thought comes across your mind:

"WHO did this?" not "What", "Who?"

In short, what if God hasn't always existed? What if our collective thoughts and ideas gave birth to the notion of powers beyond our own. Spirits, Gods, Goddesses, all through time. What if God didn't create us? What if we created God?

This has even less to commend it than Nietzche's and Freud's vacant ramblings on the same topic.

 

[dogsgod]

What's that got to do with the origins of religion?

A lot. This book is a study of the earliest forms of religion and how they may have come about.

 

[Mikael]

When presened with a prestene world of plenty, as ancient man was, arose a feeling of gratitude that had to be directed somewhere. So man did, and called it god/spirit/holy tree/holy mountain/holy sea etc and worshipped it. Of course, in periods when the plenty declined the worship became even more important. And even, if some worship REALLY didn´t seem to work, we just moved on to other forms. I clearly remember this to be the truth of the matter.

So is this man creating the deity, or the deity manifesting itself through the reality of man? I really don´t see the importance in this distinction! We are here now!

 

[footprints]

Now, for a moment, imagine you are primitive man. (For you evolutionists, think Homo Erectus, for you creationists, think very early human civilizations. Like before Abraham, Moses, and the like.) One night, you look into the sky and see a brilliant meteor shower. Well, you wouldn't CALL it a meteor shower. What would you call it? What would you think it was? Well, those who are capable of rational thought today know that the lights shooting across the night sky are meteors burning in Earth's atmosphere. But you are early man. You don't know what an atmosphere is. Or meteors. What could have caused it? It takes time, but the thought comes across your mind:

"WHO did this?" not "What", "Who?"

In short, what if God hasn't always existed? What if our collective thoughts and ideas gave birth to the notion of powers beyond our own. Spirits, Gods, Goddesses, all through time. What if God didn't create us? What if we created God?

Religion is nothing more, nothing less than an extention of culture (race). The heritage of where people came from.

Although from a modern day perspective, (base) ancient cultures can appear very primitive and sometimes naive, this is more due to our lack of understanding of that culture, rather than a fact of reality.

Personally to even imagine the contents of the OP, I reckon a person would have to have watched a movie like, "The Gods must be crazy," one too many times.

In order for the human brain to associate, the human brain does need something to relate to. Certainly something like a comet or a meteor, would have given them something to relate to. Albeit, to relate it to a deity, would mean they would have had to have had a deity figure in order to relate it to that way. If a person doesn't relate they cannot associate, it is an impossiblity.

As to the "Who, not What," scenario. This would take a very vivid, modern mind to relate and associate that way. Base ancient cultures related in the same way as we do, not just Who and What but also why and how. It is the primary reason tools and hunting implements were developed, simply because humans had the intelligence to figure it out and them put them to use.

 

[Riverwolf]

A lot. This book is a study of the earliest forms of religion and how they may have come about.

Yet the text you quoted had pretty much nothing to do with the origin of religion in general; only specific tribal rites that were part of certain religions.

It is unlikely that there's any one "origin" of religion, considering all their differences. Some religions originated by attributing divine forces to things in nature (strict polytheism), some by yearning for something that doesn't change (philosophical monism), some by a desire to know what happens after death (occultism), some by not being able to let go of recently dead family (ancestor worship).

 

[dogsgod]

Read the book, there isn't anything like it that I know of, nothing that goes back this far. We're talking prehistoric, before humans banded together to become the ultimate predator that we are now, before the largest predators became extinct, when we were predator yet ultimately, still the prey.

 

[Riverwolf]

Read the book, there isn't anything like it that I know of, nothing that goes back this far. We're talking prehistoric, before humans banded together to become the ultimate predator that we are now, before the largest predators became extinct, when we were predator yet ultimately, still the prey.

And what does it base this time travel adventure on?

I'm not going to read it until I can be sure it's actually a credible source and not just propaganda junk.

 

[dogsgod]

And what does it base this time travel adventure on?

I'm not going to read it until I can be sure it's actually a credible source and not just propaganda junk.

Didn't I mention it's propaganda junk?

 

[Riverwolf]

Didn't I mention it's propaganda junk?

A quick review of your posts tells me that you did not.

However, a quick review of the text you quoted again sends red flags through my propaganda-sensors.

Believe me: I'm wary of propaganda even from my own religion, and from the path that I'm trying to follow. Many Eastern Swamis and philosophers claim that theirs is the way that can mend the world's ills. As a follower of an Eastern philosophy myself, I can say that not a single one above the others can mend the world's ills.

 

[ManTimeForgot]

The origin of religion is selection pressures for social solidarity in an increasingly dense and sedentary population as well as satisfying personal curiosity/alleviating fear of the unknown (not knowing how the world around you works produces a fair amount of anxiety).

MTF

 

[A-ManESL]

Now, for a moment, imagine you are primitive man. (For you evolutionists, think Homo Erectus, for you creationists, think very early human civilizations. Like before Abraham, Moses, and the like.) One night, you look into the sky and see a brilliant meteor shower. Well, you wouldn't CALL it a meteor shower. What would you call it? What would you think it was? Well, those who are capable of rational thought today know that the lights shooting across the night sky are meteors burning in Earth's atmosphere. But you are early man. You don't know what an atmosphere is. Or meteors. What could have caused it? It takes time, but the thought comes across your mind:

"WHO did this?" not "What", "Who?"

In short, what if God hasn't always existed? What if our collective thoughts and ideas gave birth to the notion of powers beyond our own. Spirits, Gods, Goddesses, all through time. What if God didn't create us? What if we created God?

It's a mistake to think that religion is only about creating agencies for effects and for a good moral code. Examine any of the major world religions deeply (even LHP's) and you will find that esoterically they have nothing to do with these things. Esoterically, they are about recognizing a metphysical Reality, justified by an inbuilt intuition, and fine-tuning the relationship of man with it.

Your argument that God and all related concepts emerged as a result of assigning causes to effects presumably rests on the assumption that the scientific method is the only valid method of gaining knowledge and since early man was not proficient in it, hence he couldn't have gained proper knowledge. I do not believe this to be the case.

Regards.

 

[Mr Cheese]

It's certainly a way that pure theism may have come about, which, in turn, would have led to some sort of mythology.

If we only look at the surface sure

If we seek pearls however
We must dive for them.

.....

 

[Jollybear]

Sugacubez352

If you look at the evolution of this "god meme" that has plagued us, we will see that this god meme has evolved along side the brain capacity of our species.

So to be consistent, you would have to believe that your “evolution belief meme” has evolved alongside the brain capacity of our species?


TheSilentArbiter

In short, what if God hasn't always existed? What if our collective thoughts and ideas gave birth to the notion of powers beyond our own. Spirits, Gods, Goddesses, all through time. What if God didn't create us? What if we created God?

If that is the case, then you created evolution. Why not be consistent, right?

 

[Zadok]

If the evolution of G-d was necessary element for compassionate society to develop among humans – why would anyone want to interfere with that? What we would want to do is anything to continue the evolution of compassion based on reason (not irrational bias).

But on the other hand I find it rather interesting that the possibility of intelligence superior to humans is not considered as an engine for what evolves.

For me it seems that genetic engineering is the next logical leap in evolution. This would put humans involved in such engineering into the role of g-ds. Thus it would seem very foolish to me for someone to say that they do not believe G-d could possibly exist.

Zadok