Origin of religion

[The Grand Nudger]

So....in all likelihood, the origin of religion is something that we're all familiar with and not, in and of itself, all that complicated (theres certainly no need for a specific theory of mind to explain it ).  

Dreams..lol.  After all, dreams suggest things consistent with religious belief...and the religious believers themselves will invariably refer to some vision or another. Not that for-profit bullshittery doesn't factor..it's just..when -doesn't- that factor?

The status of the earliest ritual burials (the sort of thing that leaves paraphernalia for us to study today) tell us that the earliest believers imagined an afterlife like this life..where uncle ogg hadn't been crushed by that sloth, cuz aunty ugh just saw him last night...and he needed his best adze superbad.

[The Valkyrie]

I suspect the origins of some religions went like this:

Judaism:

Unknown priest: "Let's make one of our gods supreme and the only god and then use it as a justification to invade our neighbours!"

Christianity:

Mary: "No, dad, please don't stone me. I'm still a virgin. Ummm... god did it!"

Islam:

Mohammed: "Let's take the Christian god and change its character a little to justify invading and slaughtering our neighbours!"

Hinduism:

Unknown priest: "Let's have millions of gods. That way the people will be too confused to ask questions!"

[The Grand Nudger]

*Millions of tithing opportunities

The costly rites enjoined for those who die
Are but a means of livelihood devised
By sacerdotal cunning, nothing more....
While life endures let life be spent in ease
And merriment; let a man borrow money
From all his friends, and feast on melted butter

-Attributed to Charvaka.

[Whateverist]

Julian Jaynes* hypothesizes that consciousness itself began as a hallucination of the voice of a god.  Actually it's more complicated than that.  But if any of it makes sense then the voice of god has always been a hierarchal affair.  The highest priest/king would still hear the voice of the last one emanating from a stone figure commanding him what to do and everyone below him would hear the voice of god when he spoke.  That voice would continue to resonate with them even when he wasn't there by way of their own capacity to hallucinate.  The capacity to have a voice of ones own would have been and some degree of will as an individual would have been a later development.  So if he were right about this, the priest class wasn't a scheme of a conniving individual; it was instead part of a process which led to individual consciousness of self.  But god only knows what he may have been huffing.


*The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

Sounds overly complex. The bullshitter theory is quite enough.

Yeah, if you like simple answers go with that.

[bennyboy]

I'm pretty sure religion started as metaphors, and some kid hearing them took them too literally.

[vorlon13]

Mormon:

digging for treasure and then being visited by Moroni, no wait a minute it was Jesus, no wait a minute it was God, no wait a minute it was Jesus AND God, no wait a minute it was a host of angels, no wait a minute it was God, Jesus and a host of angels, uh . . . , did I mention Moroni ?

[ignoramus]

Theist simple answer: Goddidit
Atheist simple answer: Bullshit

[Fireball]

I'm pretty sure religion started as metaphors, and some kid hearing them took them too literally.

:lol: Case in point- When I was a teenager, a kid came to school claiming that to get into the MAFIA, you had to eat pussy. I'm willing to be that what he heard was the old joke, told by a nearby adult- "How is the MAFIA like eating pussy? One slip of the tongue, and you're in deep shit!", but didn't hear it right.

[Cyberman]

I want to join the Mafia...

[Aoi Magi]

I want to join the Mafia...

Well signups are still open