Where did religion come from? Open to all theories......?

Question

Where did religion come from? Open to all theories......?

Answer 1

Religion is man's attempt to explain an unexplainable God.

Answer 2

The oldest form of religion is shamanism. Shamans managed to convince the tribe that they can influence the outcome of various activities (like hunting) by ritual. After the ritual, if everything went well, the shaman took all the credit, and if it didn't he had the excuse of demons or evil spirits interfering etc. It's a living.

Back then gods/spirits were everywhere, animals, mountains, trees, lakes. Then, they sort of combined into major humanlike deities, each responsible for a major aspect - water, sea, land, sun. That's what you can see in Greek, Norse and Egyptian pantheons.

Now, every god had its own followers, and the more influence they had, the more powerful the god was considered. If he had enough, he'd be called "ruler of the gods", and at some point, he'd become in charge of everything and reject all the other gods, and that's how monotheism arrived.

Answer 3

Fear of the unknown. Early man tried to rationalize why he was here and so he made up some stories. First it was about nature , and then it was the monotheistic religions. All attempting to answer the unknown questions, then science eventually answered most of them. People still cling to religion though...

Answer 4

we invented it to fill in the gaps...it is not needed anymore.

Answer 5

I think it evolved from the monkey's religion.  Kong died on the cross made from banana trees, Godzilla was the serpent, and the lip syncing was REALLY bad.

Answer 6

I actually think it's pretty simple. You know when you ask someone a question and they don't know the answer, sometimes they will make it up? I believe this is precisely what happened. For example: ancient man was asked what were the sparkly lights in the night sky. He had no clue as to what they really were, so he made up many answers, including this: there is a black cloth that covers the sky that separates earth and heaven. the lights are holes in the cloth that allow the light of heaven to shine through.  

Answer 7

hey ,

it doesent come from anything , its what people want to believe , from "gods" , it kind of tears the world apart because i dont like to think of it as different people with different religions . we are all the same . but once this asian man had a kid and he needed some blood a white man came along as a donor and offered it to him at the hospital but the father wouldnt accept it because he said that its different blood and so his son ended up dying , and that really is a sad story because he would rather let his son die then betray his religon.

:)

katiee'#

Answer 8

In the past people dealt with death on a regular basis ( life spans was shorter )  And reglion was created to deal with the fear of death.

Answer 9

Religion is man's poor understanding of our Creator ,it is the less than perfect pursuit of understanding Him and His ways which the Bible clearly states"Man's ways are not My ways" and his understanding is beyond ours and everyone prior to this posting is arrogant enough to think they have a solution to this problem, when in Truth none of us do.  We are all lost to varying degrees of separation from our Creator, some refuse Him all together, and are completely blinded by this world, this doesn't mean they are bad, just lost.  Others such as myself have found Truths, but by no means dogmatically have answers for all things, unless guided by the Spirit(which needs to be scripturally tested) for what God would have any certain person know about Him.  Faith is belief in things not seen.  Once faith is established, things begin being seen for our understanding to develop.  All other religions other than Bible are false, the devils cast from Heaven have power and have used it to convince others to believe in other things through miracles and power.  So many were/are led astray even today with the religion of "No God" it is ever the same as before nothing evil changes too much. Same process different generation, sin creates desire, desire creates unnatural desire, unnatural desire creates guilt, guilt has to be dismissed or it gets in the way of pleasing one's selfish wants so "God" gets in the way of my good time so He is banished He doesn't exist so I may practice my hedonist viewpoint on others without guilt of doing wrong. Also being forced to be ethical or moral is really a drag on my high times.  so I will believe any theory that supports my unnatural needs, and I will do whatever it takes to make my case believable to the masses, so others share my "live for today, for tommarow we surely die" mentality.

Answer 10

One FACT:

God Almighty

Answer 11

People felt that the world, the universe was something bigger than they were and needed answers. They needed some kind of orientation (that's what religion actually means).

Oh, dear, recipe for conflict - one person's religion is another's heresy.............................

Answer 12

I think a few blokes found some really good mull and wine and then sat around a campfire

Answer 13

Religion came from man and the need to control the masses

Answer 14

It came from people's desire to give a level of understanding to that which they do not understand, in order to make life seem easier to live.