How did religion start?

[savethedreams]

How did religion start, from a theist perspective? I read about Judaism, and etc, but Hindu's , janis, sikhs, how did it all start religion?

and how would you be able to serve 'the true god/the right faith/your religion' when religion just began? What I mean is How can a person be a janis, sikhs, buddhist, shinto, taoist, wiccan etc 5,000 bc, or before the religion came into place.

 

[Meow Mix]

Well I know you asked for a theist perspective but I'm gonna provide an atheist conjecture.

It seems to me like religions usually explain things like why the universe exists, why death exists, why we're able to stand tall at all and ask questions like "what is my purpose," "what happens to me when I die," "why is anything there at all?"

All of these are legitimate questions, and I think religion offers confident (if bogus) answers, and that's so very comforting to many people who want to see their relatives again, etc.

Not all religions deal with all of these questions but many deal with at least a few of them, some of them deal with all of them.

Religions typically tell us that we don't have to worry about death because in some sense we live forever -- which is the ultimate sentient being's dream; to fail to stop existing.

Religions answer the problem of justice by saying that evildoers who escape justice in this life will face punishment in some "next" life -- another dream of sentients.

Religions answer the problem of suffering by saying that suffering is temporary and that we'll experience inexplicable joy in the "next" life -- another dream of sentients.

It turns out that pretty much anything that we "want" to be true, as sentient beings, somehow IS true in religion. That's interesting to me, and the definition of "wishful thinking."

To answer the original question, it seems from my subjective opinion that religions had half to do with solving these questions about existence and death and then half to do with explaining why things exist and how things that exist work -- such as explaining lightning, rainbows, the diversity of life, and so on.

Religions persist because there are always believers readily available (or so it seems to me). Even people who believe that their religion is the "one true religion" have to admit that people are so gullible that they'll believe just about anyone that's convincing enough; there are examples throughout history such as Jesus, Mohammed, Joseph Smith, L. Ron Hubbard, the guy that wrote Oaspe (or however you spell it), and so on.

Sometimes religions get lucky and someone really famous and powerful adopts the religion either because they truly got suckered into it or because they think it could help their position (Constantine, Tom Cruise, etc.)

Fact is that nearly everyone's religion is determined by their culture, parents, and people around them -- religion typically spreads through cultural diffusion with rare exceptions.

You know what else spreads through cultural diffusion? Fashion.

 

[jarofthoughts]

[youtube]f15PNrk94kg[/youtube]
YouTube - The superstitious pigeon

And also:

[youtube]hDC_NcihiV8[/youtube]
YouTube - :: Douglas Adams: 42.2: The origin of god (puddle's view) ::

 

[Riverwolf]

Who knows? Humanity's natural tendency to deify things coupled with its boundless imagination and creativity?

 

[Madhuri]

How did religion start, from a theist perspective? I read about Judaism, and etc, but Hindu's , janis, sikhs, how did it all start religion?

and how would you be able to serve 'the true god/the right faith/your religion' when religion just began? What I mean is How can a person be a janis, sikhs, buddhist, shinto, taoist, wiccan etc 5,000 bc, or before the religion came into place.

I am a Hindu, but I don't take my scriptures completely literally. So I don't buy into the ideas that the earth was originally populated with heavenly creatures and persons and that Dharma existed from the get-go, which a lot of Hindus do. I definitely believe in evolution.

I assume that when humans developed the ability to think about the world and to become introspective, there were those who experienced the divine in various forms. Coupled with a natural inclination to discover truth, to experience and pursue love and to find meaning in life, humans made their own interpretations of the reality based on their circumstances.

Because we are also generally quite selfish, egotistic, and territorial, we create boundaries, divisions. Our insecurities make us violent, and make us want to feel special. We develop groups and institutions that create identities and classes.

Religion almost seems inevitable.

I would have to go back in time to see how things happened exactly, but I think that the above is likely.

 

[LuisDantas]

How did religion start, from a theist perspective?

Would that perhaps mean "from an internal perspective", or are you indeed not interested in non-theistic religions?

I read about Judaism, and etc, but Hindu's , janis, sikhs, how did it all start religion?

and how would you be able to serve 'the true god/the right faith/your religion' when religion just began?

My personal understanding is that worries about possibly being an adherent of the "wrong" faith were hardly ever an issue in times past. Between the tribal nature of pretty much all faith up until very recent times and the widespread practice of syncretism, serious questioning about alternative beliefs is a pretty new phenomenom (sp?).

I also want to point out that IMO the correct way of dealing with that kind of doubt is by questioning the tenets and precepts of one's own faith. Regardless of which tradictions one has inherited or happened upon, the beliefs can and should be pondered, tested and course-corrected until they make sense. By that point, of course, the way by which one came upon them is of only minor importance.

What I mean is How can a person be a janis, sikhs, buddhist, shinto, taoist, wiccan etc 5,000 bc, or before the religion came into place.

I don't understand quite what you are asking here.

 

[dust1n]

I am not a theist, but Taoism isn't necessarily theistic, so...

Taoism was written by Lao Tzu somewhere in the 4th-6th century BC. So... that is pretty straight forward.

 

[Wannabe Yogi]

How did religion start, from a theist perspective? I read about Judaism, and etc, but Hindu's , janis, sikhs, how did it all start religion?

and how would you be able to serve 'the true god/the right faith/your religion' when religion just began? What I mean is How can a person be a janis, sikhs, buddhist, shinto, taoist, wiccan etc 5,000 bc, or before the religion came into place.

I believe that Religion is wired in many human beings. I for one believe there were always a percentage of the worlds population that did not like religion and took a more practical view toward the meaning of existence. For many of us Mythology has always been a way to explain the meaning of the cosmos, better understand what it means to be human, and our place in the world. Even the Neanderthals showed signs of ritualized burial with the inclusion of grave goods.

I believe that parts Hinduism can be traced back to the Neolithic. But religion started with the first humans.

 

[Mister Emu]

What I mean is How can a person be a janis, sikhs, buddhist, shinto, taoist, wiccan etc 5,000 bc, or before the religion came into place.

They were not. There were no wiccans before neo-paganism emerged, there where no buddhists before the Buddha, etc.

That does not mean people did not serve the ideals of the religions. There were people who sought enlightenment before Siddharta Gautama, probably along the same path that he did.

 

[ButTheCatCameBack]

Early man's attempts to explain the nature of the world around them.

 

[St Giordano Bruno]

People gathered much knowledge about their environment and the world such which fruit poisonous or edible and the correct hunting strategies and how to fashion to tips of their spears. Much of this knowledge was passed down from their elders. On most issues the tribal elders were right but the tribesfolk felt that in order for the tribal elders to earn their feathers they should know everything.
So my theory is religion started from that strong tribal yearning to know what is considered to be unknowable of the time, such as what caused the sun to rise and set to how the star constellations seemingly appeared in a fixed position relative to each other in the sky. So since the tribal elders could not come up with an answer the impatience of the tribes folk still demanded an answer. So what did the elders do?, they guessed! So they just simple made something up to pacify them such as animist spirits transporting the Sun across the sky or demon spirits getting angry deep underground to cause earthquakes.

 

[lemie]

Hi all,this is my first post here. I'm not trying to debate with others, just trying to share some opinions. I'll try to give my opinion on this topic. U can agree or disagree with me but please, politely.

Most people think that something with complex rules or law embedded in it must have something that brought it into an existence. For example, when we come across a bee hive, we know that the bees must have created it. When we look at a cell phone, we know that it must have been manufactured by a group of people, and so on and so forth. The more organized the thing is, the more intelligent the one who created it. So, when they looked at the universe, they wonder whether something did create it too, bcoz it is so well organized with rules and laws beyond human capability. The problem is that we can’t see the one who created it. We can see the people who created a cell phone and we can see the bees that created the bee hive, but we can’t see anything that created the whole universe. Believing that the universe must’ve been created by something or so called “God” is what many religions based upon (not all religions). Some other people think that the universe was not created by anybody (not like the bee hive, a cell phone and most of the things on earth) or rather it created itself. Some other people just don’t want to think such a bothersome issue.

So, I think we can never know for sure whether the creator exists or not (bcoz it is beyond human capabilities) unless there are a clear proof given by the creator himself (not just a feeling in your heart that god do exists).

 

[Skwim]

I've always had the impression that a religion comes into existence because someone or a group of someones gets off on leading/controlling others. A power trip as it were. They seize a need, construct a belief system that addresses that need, and then sit in charge of its implementation.

 

[Wannabe Yogi]

I've always had the impression that a religion comes into existence because someone or a group of someones gets off on leading/controlling others. A power trip as it were. They seize a need, construct a belief system that addresses that need, and then sit in charge of its implementation.

This is the case at times, but history if full of people who started a religion to right wrongs and express love and compassion for their fellow man.

 

[JustWondering]

This is the case at times, but history if full of people who started a religion to right wrongs and express love and compassion for their fellow man.

I believe some religions were created by men for their own personal gain.

 

[Wannabe Yogi]

I believe some religions were created by men for their own personal gain.

More then some many !

 

[Erebus]

Early man's attempts to explain the nature of the world around them.

I'm going to have to agree with this. I'll also throw in that in many cases the very survival of the intellects of the time depended on them giving answers to questions about the nature of the world. In such a situation it's important to have an answer, even if it's not necessarily true.

What I do find interesting is how similar some of our concepts have been around the world. Take the image of a Hebrew angel for example and compare it with the Persian Lillitu, the Egyptian Ba, the celtic Morrigan the Greek harpies, the Native American Owl Skinwalkers etc. You find some fairly similar depictions of an entity (in this case, the fusion of a human and a bird) throughout much of the world.
I don't know exactly how this came to be, since not all of these cultures had interactions with one another, but it does suggest humans have similar ways of interpreting the world.

 

[Skwim]

Early man's attempts to explain the nature of the world around them.

I'm going to have to agree with this

This may well explain the beliefs, but not their organization into a religion.

 

[Erebus]

This may well explain the beliefs, but not their organization into a religion.

I suspect that early organised religion would have been in part a form of law. First take what you believe about the world, then decide how life should be lived.
A lot of the Kosher laws make sense when taken in context of the time and place the Hebrews lived for example. Some meats and fish are more dangerous than others if not prepared properly and it's easy to picture somebody becoming ill from shellfish as being seen as infected with evil spirits or punished by god, considering the limited understanding of medicine at the time.

Of course, this is pure theory, I'm no historian

 

[savethedreams]

I suspect that early organised religion would have been in part a form of law. First take what you believe about the world, then decide how life should be lived.
A lot of the Kosher laws make sense when taken in context of the time and place the Hebrews lived for example. Some meats and fish are more dangerous than others if not prepared properly and it's easy to picture somebody becoming ill from shellfish as being seen as infected with evil spirits or punished by god, considering the limited understanding of medicine at the time.

Of course, this is pure theory, I'm no historian

I totally agree with you, same with pork! at the time due to ignorance (not knowing) etc