People need religion because people are - for the most part - ignorant and terrified.
Ignorance is what leads them to think that sacrifices will appease or control nature, personified as gods. Terror is what causes them to believe in an afterlife. People in general are so unable to imagine a world in which they are not, that they dream up the most fantastical, albeit comforting, notions that they (all everyone who agrees with them) will never die. I think it was Robert Heinlein who remarked that the acceptance of one's own mortality is the hallmark of emotional maturity (or it may have been Spike Milligan, I get the two confused).
This is why I largely dismiss the reports and surveys that from time to time herald 'the death of religion'. Religion isn't going anywhere. As long as people remain untaught and fearful, they're going to need the illusory comfort that religion provides. People as a whole aren't becoming any less religious, they're merely swapping organized religion for a more nebulous spirituality (which is rather like swapping athlete's foot for jock itch, and thinking you've made a gain).
Boru
Ignorance is what leads them to think that sacrifices will appease or control nature, personified as gods. Terror is what causes them to believe in an afterlife. People in general are so unable to imagine a world in which they are not, that they dream up the most fantastical, albeit comforting, notions that they (all everyone who agrees with them) will never die. I think it was Robert Heinlein who remarked that the acceptance of one's own mortality is the hallmark of emotional maturity (or it may have been Spike Milligan, I get the two confused).
This is why I largely dismiss the reports and surveys that from time to time herald 'the death of religion'. Religion isn't going anywhere. As long as people remain untaught and fearful, they're going to need the illusory comfort that religion provides. People as a whole aren't becoming any less religious, they're merely swapping organized religion for a more nebulous spirituality (which is rather like swapping athlete's foot for jock itch, and thinking you've made a gain).
Boru
‘I can’t be having with this.’ - Esmeralda Weatherwax
