Why do some people say that religion was made up because humans are afraid of death?

Question

they say that God is a made up story because we all are afraid to die, so we need the illusion of an afterlife

what does it mean? what do they try to insinuate?

how can God be made up?

share your thoughts

Answer 1

That is only one of the reasons.  Early man invented gods to expalin things they could not understand.

Answer 2

As 99% of people in the US believe in the after life, that would not be the main reason. (Dr Philip Zimbardo Transcendental Time Studies)

Also, God was talked about before the afterlife was talked about.

Some languages have God in over 3,000 root words. So God is in our thoughts everyday.

May be that's why the atheists have angst; they just cannot stop thinking about God not matter what they do.

God love you!

  

Answer 3

Strange for me the only reason to fear death is because of h**l, If God doesn't exist than maybe we don't exist after death either,sure beats burning in h**l for the rest of your life.

Answer 4

Read some Marx. Religion is the 'opium of the masses'

Answer 5

These people have an understanding of human nature and a knowledge of human history. That is why they can make such claims. Fear of death is of course not the only reason that man made up god. There are other important fears as well, but death is perhaps the primary one.

Answer 6

Some people say that there is no God because of ignorance.  They don't realize they will stand before God and be judged by the Righteous Judge who knows every thought they've ever had.

Some people because they are angry at God and think that is a way of punishing Him.

Some people because they are happy in their life and don't want to risk having to make some changes.

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Answer 7

God was made up so that people were comforted with the idea that they were going to a better place.

The reality is that you just die. Nothing else happens.

God is just like a three year old's imaginary friend.  

Answer 8

They have no faith. Prayer is a form of work and is an appointed means for obtaining blessing, they have never had success, or something in their spiritual life did not go right, did not stack up, so the quit.

Answer 9

Well that's just ridiculous.  Everyone knows that God was made up to explain why game hunting and rain for the crops was so arbitrary. Fear of death came much later.

Answer 10

The logic goes more or less like this. [This is not meant to actually follow the rules of formal logic]

1.Humans fear death and always have.

2. Our ancestors had a p**s-poor understanding of Nature and reality.

3. Our ancestors explained everything unknown as the agency of "spirits" and imagined some "spirit" within them moved them too.

4. Humans imagined some super-Spirit to rule over the lesser spirits and hence we ended up with the retarded "gods" and in time the tyrannical One God.

5. Humans dreamed and in dreams one sometimes sees the "dead".

6. God or the gods rule the dead.

7. God or the gods lack the ability to communicate directly with humans and so need trance channellers or mediums called "prophets" to take dictation.

Conclusion: And so religion was born. It is the product of fear, superstition, bad science, bad logic and gross stupidity of our ancestors.  What is even MORE stupid, is for people in OUR time to actually believe this c**p.

Nothing cures the disease of religion better than the medicine of Science.

Answer 11

"The same people who say that are afraid of God"

No, we aren't afraid of imaginary beings, sorry, try again.

God is a delusion invented by humans thousands of years ago. Just like the other two-thousand-some-odd- gods.

Answer 12

Well you have to admit that a large part of the appeal of religion is the comfort factor.  

Answer 13

there just afraid to accept God so try to prove there is no heaven or h**l, well their find out soon enough  

Answer 14

Humans are simply afraid of the unknown. So it's easy to fabricate a bunch of mumbo-jumbo to make it work in your mind.

Answer 15

because they think that way...and everyone else must think the same way as they do...so it must be true...

Answer 16

Man has been making things up forever to explain what they don't know. We're good at it. Why not gods, goddesses and supernatural stuff. We made up fairies, leprecauns and all sorts of things. It's called imagination. We saw gods in the wind and trees, why not in life and death?

But it has also allowed us to question and find answers, removing the need for many of those gods... Death is still an unknown and some need a god to make sense of it...  It doesn't make it real, that's why it's called faith...

Answer 17

If that were the case 2,000 years ago, what's the reason now?

Unless, of course, there's a whole lot more to it than even the most die-hard skeptics are willing to admit?

Answer 18

Because many "gods" have been created and destroyed throughout time, it's easiest to rationalize that a creator too is a fabrication of the mind.  

Answer 19

I don't know how more clear it can get. Fear is a powerful force. All human beings have a degree of defense mechanism called denial in relation to the subject of death. In ancient times when lack of education was a norm myths and story telling were very prevalent and used to explain things people didn't understand and were afraid of. Death was one of them. Naturally existence of god made sense for the people back then, since no alternative theory/facts were yet available.

Answer 20

The same people who say that are afraid of God

So they deny God

and if God is denied then religion must be maligned

Answer 21

That is probably the simplest way of explaining what happened. You know, someone worked out a way to exploit our fears of the unknown (death) and combine it with a way to extract taxes from ordinary people.

(Religions were the first to tax)

Answer 22

They say that because if they couldn't believe it was made up they'd have to actually consider the notion of a higher power that is rightfully their judge.

Answer 23

Why do you think all of the other religion's gods were made up (Other than your own of course)...

Answer 24

One of the few things in our lives that we are completely clueless about is what happens after we die. This is something that has been with us since humanity came into existence. Because people are aware that they are going to die, that it is inevetable, and that they do not know the nature of life after death, they become afraid of death. Therefore, they make up elaborate stories where God appears to be at the center, but the story really revolves around the concept of an afterlife.

God can be made up the same way that unicorns and mermaids can be made up.  

Answer 25

Because that is a very likely explanation.

"God was invented to explain mystery. God is always invented to explain those things that you do not understand. Now, when you finally discover how something works, you get some laws which you're taking away from God; you don't need him anymore. But you need him for the other mysteries. So therefore you leave him to create the universe because we haven't figured that out yet; you need him for understanding those things which you don't believe the laws will explain, such as consciousness, or why you only live to a certain length of time — life and death — stuff like that. God is always associated with those things that you do not understand. " - Richard Feynman

Answer 26

Think of this theory the whole time you read or re-read the old testament.  

Answer 27

You are right about the humans being afraid of death part.

People always wonder what's after death, and that is one of the factors why they believe in religion. But that's only a small part.

People can think whatever they like about God, but they can't deny that God has been around for as long as humans have been around, and he was, is, will always be a major role in human history. Scientist who try to prove evolution say the earth's life was started out from a tiny cell of a life, but they can't explain how that tiny cell came from in the first place. Nothing just appears out of nowhere. It needs to be created, and science definitely cannot prove the complexity of humans, the human body, the brain. I believe that humans and everything around us is so orderly, naturally, that it just can't come out ACCIDENTALLY by a piece of cell. I believe we are a part of creation.

And naturally, because we are a creation, our instincts tell us to believe and long for religion.

Answer 28

Most people say that God was made up to explain things in our environment that we couldn't understand.  The belief in an afterlife is what was made up because humans are afraid of death.  Not all Gods say there is an afterlife, although most do.  

As far as how we can say that God is made up, it's because there is no evidence that he ever existed.  But there's a quote I've always liked.  "For those who believe, no evidence is necessary.  For those who don't believe, no evidence is sufficient."  This pretty much describes the differences between believers and non-believers.

Answer 29

If there is no evidence to support that an event, person or deity actually exists, it would be considered made up.  We know that the big bang and evolution happened and that the creation story simply did not.  We also know that the Flood never happened and that the Hebrews as an entire people never lived in Egypt or left in the Exodus.  Basically there is no evidence that God has ever done anything in the Bible, or that He exists.

This means that the Bible is a made up story or at best, historical fiction.

Answer 30

why do some people say that religion was made up because humans are afraid of death?

    they say that Zeus is a made up story because we all are afraid to die, so we need the illusion of an afterlife aka the underworld

    what does it mean? what do they try to insinuate?

    how can Zeus be made up?

    share your thoughts

Answer 31

God can be made up just like Gandalf and Santa Claus are made up (two other characters with white, flowy beards).  Someone just makes it up and writes it down.  Pretty simple, really.

The reason that people say that religion was invented because humans fear death is because humans do, in fact, fear death.  It is an unknown state, where we have no verifiable knowledge as to what it is like.  Humans instinctively fear the unknown, and death is the biggest of unknowns, since nobody has yet come back from death to describe it (despite what some people have alleged).  Therefore, some humans decided to make up a story about how you go to this really nice paradise after you die, so that people would feel better about it.  Of course, they also added the point that if you don't do what they tell you to do, then you go to this nasty place where demons torture you for eternity.  And so the cycle of fear is perpetuated for the sake of human manipulation...