RE: Why Do People Need Religion?
November 21, 2015 at 6:44 pm
(This post was last modified: November 21, 2015 at 6:46 pm by bennyboy.)
Unlike most here, I don't think fear is the main reason for religion. I think it is an attempt to anthropomorphize the unknowable. If fear was the main reason for religion, God would have been a cuddly puppy, or a really nice Grammy-gram-- not a fire-breathing city destroyer.
You have to be dense to think that "God is an almighty god who will burn you in hellfire for eternity" is an attempt to alleviate fear. Rather, there is our tendency to pretend we understand that which we don't understand, and this is a human trait, not only of religion. Science does this, too, in a different way-- it slaps numbers onto things (statistics in QM for example) and relaxes now that it "knows" how things work.
I'd say it's more a matter of pride-- we see OURSELVES as Gods, and are annoyed by the very many mysteries around us. And by de-mystifying them with the right narratives, we get to stick our heads in the sand and feel that, after all, we are the center of it all. In my opinion, that's why God is a cruel, sadistic fuck-- because that's what the culture that invented God was. By making God in their image, they announced, "We are perfect."
You have to be dense to think that "God is an almighty god who will burn you in hellfire for eternity" is an attempt to alleviate fear. Rather, there is our tendency to pretend we understand that which we don't understand, and this is a human trait, not only of religion. Science does this, too, in a different way-- it slaps numbers onto things (statistics in QM for example) and relaxes now that it "knows" how things work.
I'd say it's more a matter of pride-- we see OURSELVES as Gods, and are annoyed by the very many mysteries around us. And by de-mystifying them with the right narratives, we get to stick our heads in the sand and feel that, after all, we are the center of it all. In my opinion, that's why God is a cruel, sadistic fuck-- because that's what the culture that invented God was. By making God in their image, they announced, "We are perfect."
