(January 20, 2013 at 5:19 pm)The_Germans_are_coming Wrote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_WillendorfThis link brought me to this quote
Quote:The figure and the story of its discovery were featured in the first episode of the 2005 BBC documentary series How Art Made the World.Which reminded me of this documentary I watched so long ago... and is now in youtube! (if you want the statue, skip to minute 8)
(January 20, 2013 at 4:57 pm)Confused Ape Wrote:(January 20, 2013 at 4:30 pm)apophenia Wrote: I'm not going to explain them in any depth, but for initiating discussion, other common theories are:
1) superstition/myth: religion began as simple superstition or mythical tales that morphed into all encompassing narratives over time.
2) political/social/psychological control: religion was developed, maintained and policed by powerful elites to control and manipulate the masses.
3) social cohesion: religion developed as a social-psychological mechanism for binding groups of people together and enabling them to function as a coordinated whole.
4) meaning/teleological: theorizes that humans have an inherent need for teleological explanations, a sense of meaning, or causal explanations and that religion developed to service that need.
5) "the con": that religion is fostered and maintained by an endless supply of charlatans, great and small, using it to get their immediate needs for power or wealth met.
Religion is such a complex phenomenon that all the above appear to have played a part in the development of individual religions.
Agreed, "all of the above" would probably be the most accurate description of the phenomenon.
