RE: What human purpose does religion fill?
September 7, 2015 at 1:20 am
(This post was last modified: September 7, 2015 at 1:27 am by Aroura.)
Human beings naturally seek explanations, see patterns, and recognize cause and effect. This is actually an advantage we have, as a species. When the grass moves, we can guess there is a tiger hiding in it, even if we cannot see the tiger.
If there is a thunderstorm one night, and the next night half of the village comes down with the plague, people WILL ask why, and they WILL connect the two. It's natural to invent the supernatural, when you haven't got a better explanation yet.
It takes people continuing to seek patterns and ask why to get to where we are today. Yes, they had some stupid ass ideas from our perspective, but for their time, it was the best they could do.
As to why people cling to it today, I'd say because it is:
a) a form of control for leaders to excercise, so they keep the illusion up
b) it is conditioned into most children by their own parents, and into most societies as well. Human children trust what an adult says. This is also important to our survival as a species, but has the obviously terrible flaw of people accepting information just because it came from an "authority figure"
c) Death and social needs. It soothes fear, and fills the desire humans have to form tribes of like minded people.
If there is a thunderstorm one night, and the next night half of the village comes down with the plague, people WILL ask why, and they WILL connect the two. It's natural to invent the supernatural, when you haven't got a better explanation yet.
It takes people continuing to seek patterns and ask why to get to where we are today. Yes, they had some stupid ass ideas from our perspective, but for their time, it was the best they could do.
As to why people cling to it today, I'd say because it is:
a) a form of control for leaders to excercise, so they keep the illusion up
b) it is conditioned into most children by their own parents, and into most societies as well. Human children trust what an adult says. This is also important to our survival as a species, but has the obviously terrible flaw of people accepting information just because it came from an "authority figure"
c) Death and social needs. It soothes fear, and fills the desire humans have to form tribes of like minded people.
“Eternity is a terrible thought. I mean, where's it going to end?”
― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
