Comments on: Origin of Religion - Part I: Fear of Death

By: Student

Student — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 11:16:09 +0000

I am doing an MA on this topic at the moment- although I personally agreed with the idea that religion is a result for us to deny death, I have found that for many people the afterlife is NOT a comforting idea at all. If they strongly believe that they will go to hell it can actually increase their fears.

By: Josh Narins

Josh Narins — Sun, 29 May 2005 15:19:30 +0000

We all know of a legislative, executive and judiciary. I seem to remember hearing about one government that wanted to make the prisons independent of the others, but I am confident you get the idea that the “force” (executive) is separated from the laws (legislative) or you have tyranny. This is dealt with extensively by the oracle of the American republic, Charles de Secondat, baron of montesquieu.

A long, long time ago, there wasn’t much in the way of peer-review or facts, and yet there was still “force” (king) which begged for some reigning in. (heh, reign). Anyway, priests served this function. Henry VIII, for example, could not divorce. The King and Subjects were all to play by the same rules, and a non-corrupt Priesthood served many roles, principally being guardians of this system of laws and punishment (e.g. thou shall nots and delivering your tribe to bondage) and it’s arbiters(judges).

Now, starting a new line, let’s talk about prophecy. If a million people were asked to write down their guesses for the next 100,000 years, within 10 years a review could be done and it would be seen that many of them were wrong. It is doubtful that many will be correct after 100 years, and I simply don’t believe anyone could write anything meaningful about 100,000 years.

Switching tracks, let’s say every tribe on Earth started with a religion. All of their gods exist not only to guide them, but to protect them. Surely gods wouldn’t want their worshippers obliterated? “Protect Me and Save Me” If the tribe is destroyed, we simply remove that religion from the list. Eventually we have fewer, until the god that was protecting them obviously is more credible than before.

By: I Am

I Am — Wed, 25 May 2005 19:31:09 +0000

I actually have that book. Somone gave it to me a couple of years ago, but I never read it. Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll check it out.

By: jdt

jdt — Wed, 25 May 2005 16:42:22 +0000

Good to see an addition to the ranks of rationality and critical thinking.

I recommend reading “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind” by Julian Jaynes. He theorized that earlier man did not have consciousness or self-awareness as we know it. Unconsciously produced auditory and visual hallucinations were seen as spirits and gods on every side, directing their actions. (For any who are familiar with Jaynes, I apologize for the bad description.)

One good (and short) explanation of his theory can be found at http://www.bizcharts.com/stoa_del_sol/conscious/conscious3.html.

By: Delta

Delta — Tue, 24 May 2005 03:40:21 +0000

Athana, that is just ridiculous. Explanations of the real world are not subject to everyone’s emotions or how they were raised. Explanation of the real world comes through logic and science, not dogmatic belief. Because of that, there is one true explanation for the natural phenomena that we observe. Science allows us to explain this using reason. Atheists recognize science as the correct tool for acquiring knowledge. Religions on the other hand, don’t even try to answer the questions for how the real world works usually. It’s always “god works in mysterious ways”, “you gotta have faith”, “he has a plan for all of us”, etc. They rely on what they were told, not what current rational thought suggests.

And the inanimate universe is by no means my god. That is laughable. Fuck the inanimate universe! (would I have said that to my god? i doubt).