Just a theory

[Whateverist]

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  I was thinking about religion (I am newly atheist) and thought that maybe religion was originally made to keep early humans in order.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

The only thing I would challenge is the idea that religion was made up knowingly to serve a purpose. Story telling goes way back to preliterate times. Stories like genes are passed down and some stories imbue a culture with qualities which help it thrive. People didn't need to invent religion directly, it just grew out of story telling. Natural selection on a societal basis would do the rest. It wasn't the invention of a charlatan priest looking to exploit rubes to make an easy living. That came much later.

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Not to mention our ancestors were as capable of making up stories as we are. Storytelling is what humans do when its dark and there's a fire going. Memorable stories are more likely to remembered and passed on, and throwing in some superhuman feats by the heroes and villains makes the story more memorable.

I was well and truly ninja'd I see.

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It seems that humans were inventing religions two times because human look on a world changed almost completely when they switched to agricultural society. So humans invented gods once when they were hunter gatherers looking out of caves and wondering about what they saw. What made the lightning flash? Where did the wind come from? Why would winter start soon and why would all the green things die? And then why did they all come back to life the next spring?
The wind is much stronger than the breath of any ordinary man and it had been blowing ever since man could remember. Therefore, the wind must be created by a tremendously huge and powerful man, one who never died. Such a superhuman being was a "god" or "demon."

But then as humans became agricultural gods took a turn to be about food. There needed to be like a mediator between the idea of life-force that comes down as food, feeds people and then people give back to the life-force and then it goes back again which were kings and ruling class.
The Bible used a tale of forbidden food to define all of human nature.
Mayas believed that maize was the flesh of the gods containing divine power, and at harvest time the gods were, in effect, sacrificing themselves to sustain humanity.
Aztecs belived The Earth Mother was nourished by human blood and the crops would only grow if she was given enough of it.
Incas also thought sacrifice was necessary to nourish the gods.
In China both gods and royal ancestors were offered grain, millet beer, animals and human sacrifices. etc

I always liked the Aztecs.

I think we should all adopt their religion.

And there are plenty of people of other religions to sacrifice...

The Aztecs would have had a lot of work for woman good with a scalpel.