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Just a theory
July 8, 2018 at 11:56 pm
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 I was thinking about religion (I am newly atheist) and thought that maybe religion was originally made to keep early humans in order.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
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RE: Just a theory
July 9, 2018 at 12:08 am
(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 I was thinking about religion (I am newly atheist) and thought that maybe religion was originally made to keep early humans in order.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
All religions stress two points = complete obedience and complete loyalty to the Boss. The Boss is anyone who has higher status than you. It can be an older sibling, your parents, your work supervisor, your military commander, your national leader, or a cop or a judge.
Religions create assorted deities and fairy tales to sell the message.
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RE: Just a theory
July 9, 2018 at 12:13 am
(July 9, 2018 at 12:08 am)Wyrd of Gawd Wrote: (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 I was thinking about religion (I am newly atheist) and thought that maybe religion was originally made to keep early humans in order.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
All religions stress two points = complete obedience and complete loyalty to the Boss. The Boss is anyone who has higher status than you. It can be an older sibling, your parents, your work supervisor, your military commander, your national leader, or a cop or a judge.
Religions create assorted deities and fairy tales to sell the message. Exactly! Thanks for your reply.
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RE: Just a theory
July 9, 2018 at 12:42 am
(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
Guess you missed the huge mistake you made in your post, I'll point it out.  The bold by me is your grand mistake. You have assumed up till the time someone invented religion and/or law that people were able to define bad and immoral, impossible they had no standard to go by. What makes you think that others would by your story, just look in the mirror and you will see one who hasn't even though religion and law have been around for thousands of years. It would do for you to think things through before writing about them.
By the way welcome to the forum. 
GC
God loves those who believe and those who do not and the same goes for me, you have no choice in this matter. That puts the matter of total free will to rest.
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RE: Just a theory
July 9, 2018 at 12:54 am
CG 's deluded raving hits fever pitch
Seek strength, not to be greater than my brother, but to fight my greatest enemy -- myself.
Inuit Proverb
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RE: Just a theory
July 9, 2018 at 1:26 am
(This post was last modified: July 9, 2018 at 1:30 am by The Grand Nudger.)
(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
Welcome aboard.
Some parts of every religion are normative in that way, sure. I doubt that;s why (either primarily or in a singular sense) we came up with any of them, though. Ask yourself this, what came first, the prohibition or the proclamation of faith in a divinely inspired variant of the same? By the time you find this stuff in religions it already existed in our culture and we already had plenty of ways to force compliance. They reckon that their god agrees with them, is all (they always do, lol).
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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RE: Just a theory
July 9, 2018 at 1:43 am
I had the same thoughts for some time. I think the emergence was due to many factors, and this may have been one of them. Cementing control that was already in place seems likely too.
I think it's different for each religion. For example, Christianity is a bumbling collection of stories that got patched together. Islam is a much more streamlined indoctrination manual.
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RE: Just a theory
July 9, 2018 at 3:42 am
(This post was last modified: July 9, 2018 at 4:06 am by Fake Messiah.)
(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.
You think so? Geez I always thought that pharaohs calling themselves gods, popes crowning kings, emperors of Rome calling themselves gods as well as emperor of Japan, Hammurabi claiming he got laws from god, Vatican making a pact with Mussolini and Hitler were just coincidences, but now that you said it it kind of makes sense.
"All religions are equally sublime to the ignorant, useful to the politician, and ridiculous to the philosopher." - Lucretius, c. 94–49 B.C.E.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
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RE: Just a theory
July 9, 2018 at 5:52 am
(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.
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RE: Just a theory
July 9, 2018 at 5:52 am
(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
It is not far fetched. Sociology has identified religion as the opiate of the masses.
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