Why religion was necessary; why it no longer is.

[Angrboda]

I disagree with the OP. The OP sounds like little more than back of the envelope conjecture and is likely of as much substance as the fables it's meant to criticize.

I don't feel like hauling out all the brain science and crap, so I'll just leave it at that. You need to spend more time studying what science has to say on the matter and less time making up just-so stories to comfort you in your prejudices.

So you are saying that the application of force is actually a good thing, then. I dunno what you mean by "just-so stories," in fact your entire post sounds really vague, but I'd be interested in hearing what you meant in a solid, concrete fashion and why you feel the way you do. After all I post this stuff to see what other people think about it.

You know, I should just tell you to go fuck yourself for claiming that I said something that I didn't say, and for implying that I was endorsing the use of force, and by force I presume you mean religion enabled force that unnecessarily oppressed people then and now. I should just ask you to provide your evidence that the explanation you give for the why of religion is correct. However, I'll be kinder than you deserve and indicate where I think you are wrong. My reading of the science, and of the writings of people such as noted psychologist and former director of the Institute of Cognition and Culture at Queen's University Belfast Jesse Bering, French anthropologist Pascal Boyer, and J. Anderson Thomson, Jr., MD, Trustee of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science and a staff psychiatrist for Counseling and Psychological Services at the University of Virginia, is that religion is a consequence of the way our brains are, so to speak, designed. Various systems in the brain, and general cognitive features of the human brain, give rise to religious perceptions and religious inferences as a side effect, more or less, of their serving to help us cope and thrive as a species and a species for whom these systems, when they're not throwing off religious error, are helping us function and thrive as the social, culture building, big brained apes that we are.

Now if you have some evidence that this is not the case, or that your theory is preferable to the theory from evolution and cognitive science, I'd like to see your evidence that this view is wrong, and that you are right. Let me quote your opening statement, and any other relevant part of the OP to be sure exactly what it is you are arguing. And I don't want to misrepresent you like you misrepresented me, so let me know if I've omitted a key piece of your argument or of the evidence for it. You said:

"Religion, as we mostly agree, is a man-made concoction. It is often founded partially on history, and mostly on fabrication. The likelihood of this explanation being the most accurate is backed up by observing a rumor being spread; starts as fact, changes a little bit from each person telling it until it's a story about a different person, a different situation, and a different outcome so that it's no longer recognizable. Happens all the time, and time is a multiplying force in it, too; the longer it goes on, the more warped it gets....

...So I get to the meat of what I'm getting at here with this; this points to people taking the stories and rumors and cobbling them together for the sake of creating something to use as a means of control. [Pascal Boyer goes through a number of such "common sense" arguments about the why's and wherefores of religion and gives reasons for doubting them; I don't recall this specific one but if you're nice to me, I might look (or ask you to explain how this functions in, say, the African tribe whose religion is centered around the belief that some of the tribe are malevolent witches using their powers to ruin their neighbors, or in any of the plethora of examples from around the world in which there is no centralized authority; in particular, I find your thesis unpersuasive as to it being the case that the heterodox religious systems of India, the Eleusinian mystery cults, Hellenic paganism , Japanese Shinto and pre-Shinto religion, Chinese shamanism, native American religion, and Roman and Celtic paganism were "cobbled together for the sake of something to use as a means of control". But I won't prejudge you. What's your evidence that this was a driving force in the creation of these religions?]....

...You see, rulers of the old days were not very strong; there is a reason the whole "divine right" thing became so popular; because it was the cheapest and easiest way for men with no real grip on their reign otherwise to actually HAVE a grip on their reign. ... [Chinese shamanism, Taoism, and a whole host of other Chinese "philosophy of the way" religious systems — which emerged in what is known as "the hundred schools period" — predate unification of China, Zhong-guo, and to be precise, emerged at a time when there was no unifying authorities, or as Wikipedia states, "in the 8th century BC, power became decentralized during the Spring and Autumn Period" and in the ensuing "Warring States period" which is about as well organized as it sounds; the heterodox religious systems of India were largely a reaction to the hegemony of the Vedic traditions, and were hardly underwriting any kingships there; the Eleusinian mystery cults, despite rising to great prominence and respectability, to the best of my knowledge never meddled in the kingships of the various Greek city states, and to the best of my knowledge weren't used to prop up the fledgeling Athenian democracy, but do correct me if I'm wrong; I apologize for not being as expert on the religions of Japan, Greece, Rome, the British Isles or pre-European North America, but I suspect we'd be hard pressed to find the Divine Right of Kings as a driving concern in the development of these religions. Only other piece I have to add is that, as documented in The Transmission Of The Lamp, which is an eleventh century work by Buddhist monks detailing the biographies of significant figures in the transmission of the Dharma or teachings of Buddhism, to China, of which I've read a significant portion, there was a large element who were advocating reclusiveness, of abandoning society to sit on a mountain and ponder the Dharma — I'm curious as to how you feel their advocating abandoning society and becoming recluses was a move to prop up the authority of weak kings.]....

...Religion was simply used to unify. To scare the poor and pitiful into submission....

...This is why religion is no longer necessary. If, indeed, it even ever really was to begin with.... [This seems to imply a false dichotomy, ignoring the possibility that, biologically, religion may be a necessary evil, but in and of itself have no adaptive value; and that's not necessarily the case, but it is an option your argument seems to exclude without justification. If you have justification for excluding it, please provide it.]..."

Those appear to be your central claims. Religion arose as a) storytelling gone awry, and b) as a means of controlling the populace. I find your arguments far from compelling, and I require more than mere "plausibility" — if you could even manage that, which I don't think you can given the breadth and depth of religious phenomenon in the history of mankind. I will in fairness add, that I was upset when I wrote this, as a result of what appeared a crass and opportunistic misrepresentation of me, and I don't do my best work when angry, so if I've missed something critical and "jumped the shark" as they say, I apologize in advance. If you want to go into the specifics of some of the religious systems mentioned for which I lack detail, I'll do what I can to help; I have a modest library on Japanese religion; a larger library on Chinese religion; a very small selection of texts on the heterodox systems of India; a small collection of books on the major world religions; and then there's also the internet. My best friend is in the middle of a financial crisis, and my father is in town on a rare and unexpected visit, so I don't know how much time I can afford right away. But first I need to know what your answers to my primary objections are. (I may not get to your response until Monday or Tuesday.)

Till then.