|  quinnte | Dec 11, 2007 8:41am | I'm sure there are many different reasons, and each person really has there own, but is there really any one underlying cause for religion? For myself, I found that my reason for having religion was for 2 reasons:
1) I never had a choice, being "saved" and baptized at the wise and rational age of 5 (or somewhere around there.. I don't really remember).
2) Despite my skepticism later, I found that I was using Christianity as a crutch for a basic fear of death. I couldn't handle the thought of ceasing to exist when I die, and it's still a little unsettling. It's so much nicer to go through life thinking that 60-100 years isn't all we have.
My personal feelings aside, I think the main reason religion exists at all is because of ignorance. If you think about it, theres a reason that all religions are so old (except for the new ones, which are either ridiculous or deviations of the old ones). People of ancient civilizations needed to explain their origins, and not being technologically advanced enough to even know that the earth was round, they created gods. "We're here because the great ball of fire in the sky put us here, and we must do as he commands."
I think it's hilarious that people base there life around words written by men who probably didn't even know what a star was. |
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Sponsor |  jengis | Dec 11, 2007 8:45am | | It exists to give idiots a rationale for arguments |
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|  Murdocc | Dec 11, 2007 8:53am | | I think it's a desire to know, to make sense out of chaos. |
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Sponsor | | Morosoph | Dec 11, 2007 8:54am | 1: Extinguishing yourself at your life's end (in your mind) replaces continuity with a mirror. That which comes before, like the guts of a laser (which has a mirror at each end), becomes that much more intense.
Continuity dilutes life.
As to your question, people believe primarily because of our belief in basic human selfishness. This forces our moral feelings to be externalised; hence belief in an external, good entity. However, belief in essential human selfishness is a mistake. |
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Sponsor | | Vortexfugue | Dec 11, 2007 9:15am | | I think it exists primarily as a salve for that horrible, nearly unpalatable, fear of death. |
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Sponsor | | jengis | Dec 11, 2007 9:27am | Don't ya think this question should be on a bloody god squad forum...all i here is religion this and religion that...god this n god fuckung that...
How about why do Atheists exist?
To mock christians...not to continually answer their stoopid fucking questions |
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| | ZtL | Dec 11, 2007 11:19am | | I think it usually plays a certain societal role, as well as simply being comforting. |
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Sponsor | | MJ-Brutus | Dec 11, 2007 12:04pm | Despite what many here might think, most questions about life, death, life meaning, ethics & morality, the basis for the social contract have no clearcut answers. Most of what we wish we knew remains shrouded in mystery.
More than anything, some 70% of the world population lives in up to pitiful conditions without much hope. Hunger, war, lack of housing, education, etc. leaves a fertile ground in which religions can grow.
In practical terms the countries with the highest levels of socialism and economic parity have the least percentages of god-believers... Countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran and the USA have some of the highest levels of economic and social disparity and the highest levels of theism. |
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| | eat | Dec 11, 2007 12:08pm | | 8. I wonder whether the lack of religion in regions more inclined towards socialism is due to the coincidence that many socialist theorists lack religion. |
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Sponsor | | Kibiyama | Dec 11, 2007 12:19pm | How to start a primeval religion:
1. Have strange dream that you interpret as telling you to do something.
2. Do it.
3. If nothing happens, goto 1.
4. If something good happens, adopt belief and spread it to others.
At this point, the religion has been created. It now progresses as if it were a living organism, mutating slightly as it spreads from person to person.
The two goals of this "organism" are the same as any other: to survive, and to reproduce.
Survival is easy enough to figure out:
Favorable mutations -- perhaps, a ritual that requires brushing your teeth -- will help the society, increasing the number of people who believe in it, and strengthening their belief as well.
Unfavorable mutations will hinder the society and prevent the religion from spreading very far.
The reproduction part comes down to how easy it is to convert someone. After all, people die, so you need a constant source of new believers. For a religion that promotes societal well-being, the source is plentiful and easy to find: children. But for a religion that tends to kill off its own believers, new believers must constantly be found.
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Unless you mean "why" psychologically, in which case, I think it's the same as any other belief: it's comforting. It's comforting to think that the world will still exist tomorrow, even though we have no way of knowing it to be true. It's comforting to think that some day you'll be rich and happy. It's comforting to think that you're safe.
We're all delusional, to some degree. Religion is just a particular delusion that I, personally, don't find very satisfying.
There's also the enculturation thing. "If everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you do it?" Probably. Nobody wants to be the rebel of the pack, because that's the one who gets eaten by a cheetah. |
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