How do you think religion started?

Ok, for one i do not beleiev in god a tiny bit, i dont believe jesus is our savior and i dont think george bush is the anti-christ because i dont think there is an anti-christ. But my question to you is how do you think religions with gods/godesses even started? I believe that people long ago saw rain falling and they were like, "wtf? Oh somone of a greater power must be doing this." and they like asked the greater one to help crops grow, and somehow the crops grew good that year-coincidentally. so thats how i think it all started, people just needed an explanation for things that they could not understand. For istince, say it was 1700, what would you think of if you saw a car driving past? youd be like wow a steel horse! or something like that, see where im going?...

Schmidt1989

Debunking religions 1 god at a time...

I think the first god was the Sun.
The Sun offered warmth and good vision during the day for
the dangers that surrounded early man.
And I'm sure that the Moon with it's cycles was a mystery
to early man and so became a god or goddess also.

well every religion starts off with being a cult apparently. having less than so many members.
i believe people needed reason, they needed reason why they were here, they needed reasons of how the world works, people wanted to know how it runs, how the sun, moon, stars stay up in the sky, so they made up that a supreme being or servera supreme beingsl being the reasons behind it all... over time this/these religions evolved, now some may say its more about power then spirituality. a way of control.
eg. just take medievil england for example

[edit on 12/17/2004 by cheeser]

It started by nature. And not understanding it. Go back in time thousands off years ago, and tell them there is no God, and they will respond "Stupid!! Who do you think pushes the moon??". Nowadays the response you get is "Stupid!! Where did the universe come from?? It didnt happen by chance!!!". "God" will always just be a blanket concept thrown over things we dont yet understand.

I do believe that God and Afterlife exist, but I also think that we have atributed a lot of things to God because we didn't understand the laws of nature, the forces which guide this universe. It is the order God created and that sustains itself.

The first thing that inspired people to such thinking was our own consciousness, the question how it came to be, and of course the sky: sun, moon and stars. We saw God in that mystical place above that we cannot reach, but that influences our life greatly. Through centuries we pushed God further and further away.

I think that in the future, after we have understood the visible universe, we will understand that God is not far away, the connection to him is within us all.

You wanted to know how religion got started. Hans Kolvenbach, the Head of the Jesuits in Rome was exposed in the title above, just put "who is the worlds most powerful man "it in search engine and it will come up. Jesuits seem to be responsible for creating every war, and creating many religions to divide societies and countries, so that they could eventually dominate the world.

If everyone read that then you might get a clearer understanding, of an overview of every foul deed, from the top, which is then blamed on innocent humans.

In addition, just in case there are some out there who don't know, the Australian government was ruled to be illegal, null and void on June 25th, 2004, by the Chancery Division of the British High Court. It was appealed by the OZ Gov, and the recent hearing was heard a few weeks ago, by 3 British High Court Judges. It is now listed for mention in the International World court, for a final ruling. In the meantime, every gov department is operating illegally, the ATO has even admitted they are not legal; and so no-one should pay taxes. It's a huge ripoff. New laws are being passed daily to imprison us,and if you read the Executive Orders of the Bush Admin, you will discover that the states are going to be destroyed and powers seized by the Feds. The same is happening in OZ.

If you go to www.principalityofcamside.cc

many will find spiritual aid and profound knowledge of what us, the people can do postively. The only answer is to secede, from corrupt govs, it is every human's right, and do it as quickly as you can. Then you will have retained your rights that had been taken away from you, while you were sleeping. It is truly time to wake up!

Oh, and why Oz Gov is illegal is that Queen Vic died before she signed the Governor-General's letters patent, so making all fed govs illegal, null and void for almost 100 years.
You can see the proof on the camside website.
Peace and love to all.

www.belowtopsecret.com...
Here's a thread with the same concept.

Oh somone of a greater power must be doing this." and they like asked the greater one to help crops grow, and somehow the crops grew good that year-coincidentally. so thats how i think it all started, people just needed an explanation for things that they could not understand

I agree. But whats sad is that people still believe in ridiculous things( Like god caused the Tsunami to kill homosexuals) even with scientific explanation in front of their face. It was understandabale a few thousand years ago. But how can we explain this behavior today? :shk:

I think "religion" started because man knows there is something more then this life.

I know christianity is here because the covenant God made with Abraham.

God said he will reveal himself to you so you can see for yourself (remember Thomas?)

Rom 10:9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Rom 10:10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.



Rom 10:14 But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?

Simple as that. Its a promise and you can be bold in reminding Him too. He HAS to follow through.

Ask, believing while you do .
That simple

Religion is based on fear and lack of understanding.

1000's of years ago people really didn’t have much knowledge of how things worked and effected their lives. Well, humans by nature want to understand things, and we get quite upset if we cant understand things.

Humans MUST rationalize everything they cannot understand. So, if there are no clear and obvious answers, humans make up something to fill in the gaps. Sometimes humans use logic to help guide their rationalization and sometimes they use their fear.

Its this fear of the unknown that beliefs form from. After all, people once thought the world was flat, they were petrified to look for the edge too. But we all know now that is not true.

A little kid hears something in the middle of the night. They cant figure out what it is, so now their fears take over. All of a sudden it MUST be a monster making the noise from under the bed. Now, as adults we know it isn’t a monster, but try to explain that to the child.

Now, religion is based on bigger, scarier stuff that most people still cannot answer. What happens after we die? Why are we here? Where did we come from? These questions haven’t been answered yet definitively by science, so they continue to work the fears of humans and fuel belief in religions.

Religion is the bondo of the human psyche. It simply fills in the holes. Some people need more than others, some less, some none at all.

People 1000's of years ago needed more religion as they knew far less about the world around them and their own makeup. As humans become more advanced, allot of unknowns have been answered. Someday I speculate that everything scary to humans will have an answer and religion will take a back seat.

But as long as there are big scary mysteries out there, some of us will believe (and some of us wont).

Some rationalist scholars have come up with the idea that the belief in an Afterworld was started by people's dreaming about dead relatives and acquaintances, which suggested that there was a world where the dead continued their existence and that the living visited in their dreams. This would have to be termed something like the "hypnogenic" theory of the origin of religions.

Another rationalist theory is the psychological explanation, which involves what psychologists call "projection", the tendency of the personality to project onto the outer world the several aspects of its own self, so that a stern god that threatens and punishes would be a projection of our tendency to control our animal drives with all sorts of prohibitions.

Then there's the extraterrestrial theory, which we all know about.

rationalist scholars

What exactly is that? How does it make them an authority? Just curious

Opening any dictionary is guaranteed to gratify anybody's curiosity in a most delightful way, but I can help. For example, this is what my Webster's New School and Office Dictionary says...

rationalist --one who believes in, or upholds rationalism

rationalism --a system or doctrine which, rejecting revelation, makes reason the sole guide in the interpretation of Scripture and dogma

This is not to suggest that rationalism in itself confers upon an individual ownership of the Absolute Truth. Scholars are "authorities" by virtue of their laboriously-earned erudition, not because they belong to this or that school of thought. Moreover, one can be rational without adhering to rationalism.

I know you say you don't believe in God so I'll just give you my answer for what it's worth to you. God created mankind. The first 2 people walked with God before their fall. No one else after this has seen God in His fulness. So seconhand info becomes less less as it is passed down. But mankind still is without excuse to not know that there is a God. God prescribed how man was to relate to Him and this to gets distorted because we have an enemy that seeks to destroy this relationship between God and man. But it started at the begining of creation with the first people.

Well said Macrento. Reflecting on what you said, one quote comes to mind.
"If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind is controllable-what then?". I believe Orwell said that.

Last time I checked I never heard of a caveman praying. The writings and carvings made my these cavemen did not include any godly symbols. Early humans were simple creatures who were afraid of plenty of things that they couldnt control. They struggled to answer the mysteries of the setting of the sun, lightening, fire, thunder, etc. The lack of control and the feeling of inferiority lead them to associate such powers to the supernatural. So I guess fear made man make gods and religion. You mentioned the afterlife. It is completely a human feeling to attach ourselves to things or people we love even after theyre gone. Creating a concept of heaven or afterlife can fulfil this uncertainty and fear of death. If my loved one was dying i'd have a very easy time believing in heaven. Just the thought of seeing that person again or to know they're safe gives us an excuse to ignore the fear. Its a fancy shmancy escape mechanism from human insecurity.

rationalist scholars

What exactly is that? How does it make them an authority? Just curious

Why am I not suprised at your question jake? So Jake, tell me something, who's the authority according to you? Who are you most likely to believe? What credentials does one need, according to you? Just curious.

dbrandt--

You might want to ask yourself some time what are the underlying reasons Fundamentalists of any religion have for interpreting their "revealed" scriptures in such an ingenuous and literal way. Might it not be for fear of being punished if they have the insolence to question something they believe to have been said by a wrathful god?

Having said that, I seem to have given the impression that I don't believe in invisible worlds, about which I have proof, one of them being an out-of-body experience that I described some weeks ago on a thread at the ATS website. This is meant for you too, Isis, since your stand concerning this matter sounds even more ambiguous than mine! Your name suggests an interest in the "occult", but you seem to be a hard-core rationalist, a disbeliever in things like an afterlife.

Originally posted by Macrento
Having said that, I seem to have given the impression that I don't believe in invisible worlds, about which I have proof, one of them being an out-of-body experience that I described some weeks ago on a thread at the ATS website. This is meant for you too, Isis, since your stand concerning this matter sounds even more ambiguous than mine! Your name suggests an interest in the "occult", but you seem to be a hard-core rationalist, a disbeliever in things like an afterlife.

Hmm...I'd like to be called a skeptic rather than a hardcore rationalist. There's a subtle difference. I realized I came off sounding like a person subscribing to "What you see is what you get" Thats not true. Hey I believe in electricity!! What I was trying to do earlier is to put myself in a primitive man's shoes( or sandals whatever) and explain the thought process. I dont really have to follow that thought process.
I dont believe in miracles like walking on water and all that strictly because any miracle can be explained away thru either science or as a natural earthly phenomenon. We're stupid to think we know everything. We dont. My stand on organized religion: Its man made and completely has been explained away in my book. Having said that......
OBE: There's nothing contradicting me from believing in that. Infact I'm trying to have one for the past year. The only way to prove such things is to go thru an experience which you can predict the outcome of and cannot explain it away with any means available to you. Keep exploring!

I just wanted to comment....

Spiffy avatar!

Thanks
Now I did my spiffy avatar part, you've been on vacation way too long. Come back with spiffy posts!

"If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind is controllable-what then?". I believe Orwell said that.

Saying that the external world exists only in the mind is a very mystical concept. Are you sure it was Orwell who said that? If so then he was another one of those British writers with an interest in the occult, like G.B. Shaw and Aldous Huxley (remember The Doors of Perception).

Orwell's comment reminds me of this passage in one of the Seth books:

"(...) we've taken it for granted that the image and sound already exist for the senses to interpret. (...) the senses are developed, not to permit awareness of an already existing material world, but to create it (...)." (Jane Roberts, The Seth Material, Bantam Books, N.Y., p. 13)

This, of course, has to do with the Hindu or Buddhist concept of "maya", or "illusion".

We're being unfairly rude to Jake and DBrandt and they deserve to be treated more kindly because I think they are baby souls or young souls. See what Michael says about these charming, childlike sorts of souls: "The baby soul tends to be fundamentalistic in its religious beliefs. Personification of the Godhead is strongest in this cycle." And then: "The young soul, if religiously inclined, tends toward orthodoxy in the extreme. It will campaign tirelessly against all religious reform." (Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Messages From Michael, Playboy Paperbacks, N.Y., 1980, pp. 70 & 72)

According to my personal belief,
religion was started by God.