(July 8, 2018 at 11:56 pm)kbultra Wrote: I know this is very far fetched but hear me out. I was thinking about religion (I am newly atheist) and thought that maybe religion was originally made to keep early humans in order. Before police and jail and law at all. Think about it, if you couldn't keep people under control and there were no laws, what would you do to keep people from killing and stealing? I know what I would do. I would come up with a story in which people who do bad and immoral things get punished after they die, and people who do great and kind things live in a perfect place after they die. Sound familiar? I honestly believe that religion could have originated from an early human form of "law"
I would love to hear your thoughts.
Kindest regards,
Kb
Not really. It was more evolutionary in that 200,000 years ago humans didn't have any written language or modern science. The world was far more unknown and scary and more dangerous with shorter lifespans. Our species merely confused success and failure, good and bad as being controlled by something even bigger than us, but being like us.
The first ideas of control were in the form of earthy god/s/spirits such as volcano gods, animal spirits, weather gods. The "control" was more clan/family but not political by any large scale.
Our species bad guess stem from our evolution. Life doesn't always have time to slow down to assess the reality of something. If you want a good book that explains the evolutionary reason god belief exists, "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins explains how our brains evolved to gap fill. The problem with evolution is that while a bad guess can create safety in numbers and lead to reproduction, it can still be based on a very false perception.
But it wasn't really about control back then, but more about survival. The politics mixing with religion really didn't take off until the age of farming and cities.
Not only read "The God Delusion" but also the following books.
"God The Failed Hypothesis" Victor Stenger
"The New Atheism" Victor Stenger
"God Is Not Great" Christopher Hitchens
"The End Of Faith" Sam Harris
"Letter To A Christian Nation" Sam Harris
"Infidel" Ayaan Hirsi Ali
^^^^ That is my short list.
Take your time learning, and never feel stumped by a theist. If you think you get stumped feel free to bring the theists argument to the brains on this board and we will be happy to rip the argument to shreds.
