Does anyone have theories on why religion came about...

Does anyone have theories on why religion came about. Mine is that some power hungry people made up shit to control others, is this the root of anti-semitism?

It started as a way for man to make sense of the world around him and turned into a tool used to control people.

Same with science.

What things can it explain besides an afterlife?

let's take a step on the brakes here buddy now you've made a few mistakes here. for one thing people only have hypotheses as to how religion came about as they are not confirmable through scientific methods and pretty much everything points to animism in tribal groups. animism is sort of a pseudo-science religion thing people who don't have writing or tech to explain the world. basically whoever figured out how large-scale agriculture can create enormous amounts of power had their animistic religions become a lot more important than other peoples. this is probably what happened. religion has definitely been used before by power hungry people to control others, if you want proof of that existing turn no further than the LDS church that's exactly how it came about just read an article on joseph smith's history. and don't bring up the jews because now the thread is worthless. youuuu dummy.

Times were shitty, people needed something to believe in and making their lifes atleast worthy of living.

Altough Islam was probably created by Mohamed to get some prestige points.

The tide, the sun, the universe, weather patterns and other natural phenomena. Seasons, lunar months, fire, the shape of the earth, the depth of the ocean, the creation of life.. etc, etc, etc.

I once heard from somewhere that magical thinking arose when humans projected their internal emotional states and desires on to external reality. I've believed it ever since.

So for example imagine your tribe has a graveyard spot for those died for violent reasons besides old age. It creeps you out to go there because it reminds you of mortality and lost friends. You start to associate the negative thoughts of lethal disease and murder with that spot. And then you start to believe the graveyard itself is cursed or haunted. You tell your kids and they start to believe there is something ominous about the spot. Now the tribe thinks dark spirits are there.

If this is true religion is probably always intimately connected to human emotional needs and anxieties.

It's a byproduct of human consciousness, i.e. self-awareness. We are ultimately aware of our own mortality, which causes a sort of existential crisis.

One also naturally wonders at the answers sense alone can't answer, by physical forces at work in the world that are invisible. The answers are 'held' to be the gods' doing. Then we transfer this meta-awareness from a non-physical being to a mystical figure/deity/concept that embodies certain values.

Early humans also most certainly tripped balls with mushrooms or other herbs and shit when they could, which would add to the legends...

God and spirits are real.

divine revelation

I've had 3 out of body experiences in my life, each got progressively more intense. They happened over a span of 7-10 years maybe. And I'm not talking about dreams, I know what a dream is. These were discernibly and blatantly different to the point that 3 in 10 will eventually become a reference point to the discernibly different.

But yeah, I don't doubt I'm the only one and I don't doubt the visions people had in the bible for example. The confusion and anxiety that takes place when your 'now moment' is pulled to a whole different over all experience, where you are 'now' aware and fully conscious in a very different over all conduit and set of circumstances. It's intense. Even more so when you receive help when you don't even know if you consciously asked for it. Obviously needed it, but had to reason to believe help would come in this way, maybe I knew it was possible, but I definitely didn't see it coming. But when you're able to calm down and get your fear in check in relation to the over all experience, all you have left is the awareness of the generosity that was bestowed on you, even though you were guilty. You were generally forgiven before you believed you were. The forgiveness was already activated toward you...anyway, my point...

If you read the new testament, you literally see an attempt to break the man made control religion had on people, so you can't claim that its meant to control people, when there was a blatant exposure of that evil where man was attempting to control and oppress his brother in vain.

I mean there's really no excuse for claiming that religion was made in attempt to control man, when the word of God frees man from control from the bondage of unbridled appetites.

That makes no sense. You have to do research before you claim anything. I know that's hard, we're all tempted to pretend like we know what we're talking about to impress people, but research first.

Objective research, you cant learn anything if you make your mind up in advance.

research can easily bring to light the control organized religion has over the masses, whether or not one has read the new fucking testament. So, fuck off.

Just as long as people know what they're talking about in reference to the difference between the religion attempting to take control and what the actual teachings convey.

If one doesn't know the difference and they attempt to pretend like they do, then they're just talking out of their ass.

t. Lenin

Religion s pro-social reproductive pattern. Secularists don't have babies. Religion encourages making new followers and is a self-sustainig organization.

Explaining the world as well as a vehicle for the human need for artistic expression.

It's the meeting of politics, science, philosophy, and art.

>"In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth"

The beginning is an indefinite point in Time, while God, the Almighty, created the heavens, or Space, and the Earth, Matter.

>"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and is God"

The Word Incarnate is the message of God. Christ Yeshua does not preach religion but speaks the Word of God. The message of God brings us back to God after our realization of finate reality in the form of the material world.

It matters not what religion you are. You are not separate from God. God is always with you. If you are a Jew, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, "Hindu" religion, whatever, a Satanist, or even an atheist, God is not separate from you. All religions talk about the vibration of the soul and God being the infinite, causeless, all knowing and self existing perceiver, and we are all in resemblance to the Father, which is God in all religion.

>How did people use religion to manipulate others?

By telling them they have to agree with creed, and by bashing religious ideas to replace them with their own twisted forms of scripture. If you want to be a Christian, you will have countless "Christians" tell you how to believe, and if you disagree, you "go to hell". This is not true religion. Same with Islam. Talking to a Muslim is more informative than watching the news and reading people's opinions of Islam on the internet.

I'm secular, non-religious, and plan to have at least 3 children with my fiancée. Just kinda waiting for her to finish her PhD so that she actually gets it done. She's 27 now, so it should be doable.

Literally everything?
>using modern science as a way to disprove ancient religions
>implying those peoples had this reasoning

One year when your crops flourished and the other you had no crops farmers couldn't figure it out so they invented gods.

Ha! You sure showed him Captain Statistical Outlier!

Secularism is more antinatalist in advocacy of homosexualism , abortion and contraception, and of career and school before family formation among women. Religious are insulated from these birth suppressing influences and thus are more fertile as codified.

It's obvious. Religion is the only way that life could possibly make any sense if you're neurotic.

Death threatens to erase all meaning? Morality is simply mind-control by society, and you're a sucker for following it?

Tie these two loose ends together. Death isn't the erasure of meaning, it's the final exam for morality. Suddenly life makes sense!

Being a nihilist hedonist isn't actually fun. It just reveals to you that the highest peaks of mortal life are still sadly disappointing.

It came from god.

Divine revelation

dude weed and mushrooms lmao

The point is, for you:
>citation required

I think you're confused by false correlations. It isn't secularism (which is a broad brush stroke indeed) that results in less children, but other elements of western life. Capitalism and western individualism generally conspire to encourage women to pursue climbing the corporate ladder over motherhood.

There are modern liberal churches that are OK with homosexuals, abortion and contraception. These are not mutually exclusive forces. In a way, it's organized religion's own fault (unforeseen of course) for positing themselves as such rigid gatekeepers over basic biological processes. Anyone who doesn't want to be seen as old-fashioned or 'regressive' will tend to shy away from the same qualities those old-fashioned and 'regressive' forces trumpet as their strong points.

As we no longer live in a society where you can be killed and shunned in every single way for not following the state religion, people are obviously not compelled to fulfil life's milestones (reaching adulthood, finding a long-term partner and raising a child with him/her, etc) through the Church.