Enlighten Yourselves

[Delicate]

I'm not worried by religious pluralism or pluralism of any sort. To me it's the same as aesthetic and musical diversity. Linguistic diversity and other forms of cultural diversity.

But I don't think you can avoid the ad hocness of your explanations by asking me a different question. Your explanations are ad hoc, and this weakness of theirs remains, right?

Forgive me, milady.... I was mistaken as to the meaning of "ad hoc"....
Now that I've taken the time to instruct myself, I must kindly disagree.

My explanation is far from ad hoc.
It flows from our slim knowledge of how life was back then and our present knowledge of human psychology.... and takes a few hints from today's missing divine.
Nothing ad hoc about it as it is quite applicable to any civilization. Many strategies have been devised, throughout the years... centuries, or even millennia, in order to keep a substantial number of people living together without them becoming a violent mess.
Religion has the merit of being one of the best methods yet found... If it was minimally thought out at the start or if it evolved into the control mechanism it became, I cannot tell.... there is no record of it... or, if there is, it hasn't been brought to my attention. And, if there ever was such evidence, it would stand to reason that the people in control and possession of it would be very interested in having it destroyed.

But the themes in the various cults do seem to have suffered some form of path from a simpler, more nature-oriented version (such as can be found in animism and shamanism) to the widely known present-day transcendental one.

Milady? I get the whole fedora atheist reference, but I'm a dude.

What actual research have you done to look into the issue? I mean besides just making up your theory?