The Origin of Religion

[Laurens]

What do you think the main contributing factors are towards the origin of religion?

I would say that perhaps the biggest contributing factor was our realization of death. We hold memories about people, and often create a mental image of that person (i.e: imagining what they might say or do in a certain situation etc) during the time that we know them, what were our ancestors to think when they saw that person cold and dead?

They might have reasoned that the person had gone somewhere else, their essence had left their bodies and continued towards the afterlife (this ties in with what Dawkins and Dennett say about our innate dualism).

As a general rule, our species seeks comfort and happiness. Awareness of death brought the opposite, so perhaps our notions of an afterlife were also a means of comfort. Of course once the notion of an afterlife arose, the notion that you might be able to contact deceased loved ones through strange rituals might also arise.

I would say that some form of primitive ancestor worship was probably the genesis of religion. We know that both early man, and Neanderthals buried their dead (indicating a special reverence for them).

Also, although I wouldn't go so far as to subscribe to Terrence McKenna's ridiculous 'Stoned Ape' hypothesis, I would not be surprised at all if ingesting psychoactive compounds also contributed towards the genesis of religion (I would not agree that it contributed to our evolution and civilization though, as McKenna does). Many tribal cultures today use them in their rituals, and I know from experience that some of the things that occur whilst under their influence might easily be described as interacting with the spirit world or whatever. As our species embarked upon a search for edible food we would have been bound to find some kind of psychoactive plants and mushrooms.

 

[Unwardil]

I don't think that fear of death and the idea of an afterlife is pivotal. Plenty of religions have existed with absolutely no concept of an afterlife whatsoever.

I think it's combination of our need for stability and our innate willingness to accept the word of an authority figure. If an authority figure tells you they know the reason for something and you have no way of confirming what they say, the usual response is to just accept it. That will create a nice feedback loop that will lead to religion in no time.

 

[Nordmann]

I think it is impossible to answer this question absolutely, mainly since the term "religion" itself has not historically retained semantic continuity and even today has diverse meanings.

One could postulate that all religious belief stems from a propensity to superstition as a substitute for reasoned deduction, at one time by far the most common state of affairs given restrictions in access to the data required to arrive at profoundly empirical deductions of any sort. One could equally postulate that organised religious codes and movements originated at a time when the reliance on superstition alone became increasingly unnecessary in the face of advances in comprehension of human beings' environment and universe. Until one totally replaces the other then both appear to highlight inadequacies in our ability to comprehend. Hence the antagonism which often exists between the two viewpoints and the difficulties accommodating both in society. Historically it would appear that a coding of superstition and all that developed from this seemed to have been a response to this difficulty. Since it enabled social cohesion it was and still is a successful tendency, though its relevance in this regard has greatly diminished in the very recent past.

Your answer highlights one remaining rationale which does indeed fuel religious belief today and to a large degree, the fear of death, but to ascribe the origin of all superstition and all religious belief to that motive would be wide of the historical mark, I think, in so far as we know from the clues remaining.

Edit: Unwardil's point, made while I wrote this one, is closer to my own thinking regarding the comparative relevance of fear of death and "stability", which I termed as social cohesion. The question of religion creating religion through dependence on an authority figure has also been historically evident, but I would qualify this by pointing out that this archaically straightforward process has been greatly complicated in recent history, the element of social control it engenders being now more obvious than its religious propagative qualities. Ideologies not essentially religious in nature have, in other words, overtaken a lot of this function with varying degrees of success.

 

[Laurens]

I don't think that fear of death and the idea of an afterlife is pivotal. Plenty of religions have existed with absolutely no concept of an afterlife whatsoever.

I see your point. Although I think death does have some kind of significance in religion (perhaps not in all religions, and I'm not claiming that it had only one point of origin), I think that ties in with our need for stability that you mention. Death is the ultimate threat to our stability, whether it be the knowledge of our own eventual death, or the death of our loved ones. To me a need for stability would easily lead us to believe that our ancestors are still alive, and waiting for us, and that we can see them again when we die. The comfort that religious traditions provide, in terms of both bearing the distress of losing loved ones, and dealing with the inevitability of our own deaths I would say contributes towards the stability that you mention.

 

[Unwardil]

I dunno. I'm not convinced it's the result of anything more complicated than someone at some point saying 'Do what I say or I'll hit you with wood' and people thinking to themselves 'do I really want to get hit with wood? Is what's being asked of me so terrible? Eh, whatever'. And that whole process leading to some sort of relative social stability. A couple of generations onwards and people have forgotten about the wood and they just do things because people are telling them to. That's religion, in a nut shell.

 

[Deleted member 619]

TBH, I think it's more fundamental than any of those things. Deep in our evolutionary past, we gained a certain advantage from being able to recognise patterns.Being able to distinguish the tiger from the trees is a useful ability to have. As time went on, and we became better and better at distinguishing tigers from trees, we eventually garnered the ability to see tigers even where there were no tigers. Such superstitious behaviour is common in the animal world, as it provides a clear advantage. Thinking that something is a tiger when it's not isn't going to save your life, but it certainly isn't going to kill you, and it will definitely keep you ready to bolt.

Religion is, in my opinion, merely the misfiring of this pattern-seeking ability, as is all superstitious behaviour. I don't think it's any more complicated than that.

 

[Leçi]

Afaik, due to a lack of scientific knowledge people tried to explain natural events with their own flawed logic, like Thor who made thunder, Zeus who threw lightning, etc.

 

[Nordmann]

Unwardil addresses the origin of organised religion with his "lump of wood" analogy. Leci and Hackenslash address the origin of superstitious belief. Both are primary elements of religion as we understand the term.

But that is not what religion always means. Another feature, for example, is the determination to marry these two aspects amongst others to an integral philosophy, and that places religion in another area entirely, that of analysis and understanding of human thought itself. From contemporary evidence it is easy to see that the vast majority are unwilling or unable to distinguish between philosophical deduction based on objective observation and that which emanates from imaginative speculation. This failure is not new and has allowed religious thought occupy a role coadjacent to scientific comprehension throughout its existence as a feature of humanity. From this alone I would conjecture that the true origin of religion, in any of its manifestations, lies in the origin of cognitive thought itself.

 

[lrkun]

What do you think the main contributing factors are towards the origin of religion?

I would say that perhaps the biggest contributing factor was our realization of death. We hold memories about people, and often create a mental image of that person (i.e: imagining what they might say or do in a certain situation etc) during the time that we know them, what were our ancestors to think when they saw that person cold and dead?

They might have reasoned that the person had gone somewhere else, their essence had left their bodies and continued towards the afterlife (this ties in with what Dawkins and Dennett say about our innate dualism).

As a general rule, our species seeks comfort and happiness. Awareness of death brought the opposite, so perhaps our notions of an afterlife were also a means of comfort. Of course once the notion of an afterlife arose, the notion that you might be able to contact deceased loved ones through strange rituals might also arise.

I would say that some form of primitive ancestor worship was probably the genesis of religion. We know that both early man, and Neanderthals buried their dead (indicating a special reverence for them).

Also, although I wouldn't go so far as to subscribe to Terrence McKenna's ridiculous 'Stoned Ape' hypothesis, I would not be surprised at all if ingesting psychoactive compounds also contributed towards the genesis of religion (I would not agree that it contributed to our evolution and civilization though, as McKenna does). Many tribal cultures today use them in their rituals, and I know from experience that some of the things that occur whilst under their influence might easily be described as interacting with the spirit world or whatever. As our species embarked upon a search for edible food we would have been bound to find some kind of psychoactive plants and mushrooms.

The following:

Lack of sufficient information to explain a certain event.

To avoid fear of the unknown.

To pacify questions.

To promote order.

To promote a sense of identity.

To promote a standard of what is correct and what is wrong.

The above are just few of the things, I think, caused the existence of religion. Though, I did not include some.

 

[Exmortis]

Answer: Mankind's legacy; Want, the cause of religion and Ignorence the cause of Gods. In every one of the Archaic religions begin with the creation of existance to satisfy Ignorence. Later, Want got involved. The cleverness of a few, motivated by desire of power and influence, allowed certain people to manipulate and add certain aspects of their Gods. Thus creating moral blackmail and various other... stuff and things.

 

[Guardian Angel]

TBH, I think it's more fundamental than any of those things. Deep in our evolutionary past, we gained a certain advantage from being able to recognise patterns.Being able to distinguish the tiger from the trees is a useful ability to have. As time went on, and we became better and better at distinguishing tigers from trees, we eventually garnered the ability to see tigers even where there were no tigers. Such superstitious behaviour is common in the animal world, as it provides a clear advantage. Thinking that something is a tiger when it's not isn't going to save your life, but it certainly isn't going to kill you, and it will definitely keep you ready to bolt.

Religion is, in my opinion, merely the misfiring of this pattern-seeking ability, as is all superstitious behaviour. I don't think it's any more complicated than that.

Is that common mainly amongst the religious, would you say?

 

[australopithecus]

Is that common mainly amongst the religious, would you say?

This is not your essay thread, please don't start that off again.

 

[Guardian Angel]

Is that common mainly amongst the religious, would you say?

This is not your essay thread, please don't start that off again.

Are you saying that I can't ask questions? Wow.

 

[australopithecus]

Are you saying that I can't ask questions? Wow.

I'm saying that you should quit asking leading questions that have nothing to do with the topic. I cut you slack in the other thread, that slack has ran out. This is the last word on the subject, comment on the topic. /end.

 

[Guardian Angel]

Are you saying that I can't ask questions? Wow.

I'm saying that you should quit asking leading questions that have nothing to do with the topic. I cut you slack in the other thread, that slack has ran out. This is the last word on the subject, comment on the topic. /end.

It's not fair to tell me that I can't ask a question because you think it's leading or has nothing to do with the topic. I appreciate you cutting me slack but don't you think you're being a little overzealous? Why not just let me post and see how it goes. Seems reasonable to me.

 

[lrkun]

GA, that's just how it goes. A post must be related to the topic as proposed by the thread starter. While, of course, you can make your own thread. To derail the topic is considered a no no here.

It's just common courtesy, you know, a little bit of etiquette.

 

[Dora]

It's not fair to tell me that I can't ask a question because you think it's leading or has nothing to do with the topic. I appreciate you cutting me slack but don't you think you're being a little overzealous? Why not just let me post and see how it goes. Seems reasonable to me.

How about you stop stomping your wee little foot about it all being unfair and explain to all of us how your question either
* shows you are answering the original poster (OP), this thread isn't even a page long yet and you are already derailing it, perhaps your question is a genuine one but now it just looks like you are high-jacking someone elses post, that is just bad forum form.
or
* is a question that will help you understand the OP's question so you can come back later with your point of view? Otherwise, again, you are just derailing a thread

oh, and you might have a looksie at this post here, there you can see how to appeal to the forum rules without high-jacking other people's threads.
Also the part about moderators would be useful.
I also know how the mods behave, getting a slap on the wrist in a public thread usually means you are already ignoring private messages about the issue, if you disagree, take it up with the moderators in the proper way

 

[Guardian Angel]

It's not fair to tell me that I can't ask a question because you think it's leading or has nothing to do with the topic. I appreciate you cutting me slack but don't you think you're being a little overzealous? Why not just let me post and see how it goes. Seems reasonable to me.

How about you stop stomping your wee little foot about it all being unfair and explain to all of us how your question either
* shows you are answering the original poster (OP), this thread isn't even a page long yet and you are already derailing it, perhaps your question is a genuine one but now it just looks like you are high-jacking someone elses post, that is just bad forum form.
or
* is a question that will help you understand the OP's question so you can come back later with your point of view? Otherwise, again, you are just derailing a thread

oh, and you might have a looksie at this post here, there you can see how to appeal to the forum rules without high-jacking other people's threads.
Also the part about moderators would be useful.
I also know how the mods behave, getting a slap on the wrist in a public thread usually means you are already ignoring private messages about the issue, if you disagree, take it up with the moderators in the proper way

I didn't get any private messages about anything. Did you send me a message?

 

[australopithecus]

Enough. Dora and myself and even Lrkun have explained why derailing the thread is not on.

Back on topic now please, and this isn't a request.

 

[Guardian Angel]

For clarification, what am I not allowed to do? Am I not allowed to ask questions? Is it the way I phrase my questions? Is it just the fact that the other thread was full of my questions and you don't like it? Is it that I haven't clarified my views? Is it that you don't feel that you know me or I know you well enough to ask so many questions? Is it that you feel like I'm interrogating you? Does it make you feel uncomfortable? Something else? It's just a bit confusing and now I don't know what I can or can't do. I don't think it says anything in the rules about asking lots of questions. Or maybe it does. Does it? Am I missing something?