This page is a permanent link to the reply below and its nested replies. See all post replies »
ArishMell · 70-79, M
Yes, religion is man-made (often literally [i]man[/i]-made), but it's instructive to consider why. Most religions known, extant or extinct, have common threads and purposes.
They developed to:
- Give some sort of purpose or meaning to the natural world, if only as the whim of creative deities,
- Give some meaning to human life and its place in nature,
- Ease the fear of death and comfort the bereaved, usually by offering some form of spiritual "after-life" that in older faiths was expressed by a belief in a physical presence. (That is shown by grave-goods for beliefs pre-dating written records - but traces of linger even in modern funerals by small but significant tokens in the coffin),
- Following the above, focus remembering the dead (sometimes by ancestor-worship / honouring),
- Give a framework for social cohesion and morality - in its broadest sense, not only sexual behaviour,
- Not least, these threads pervade so many religions here or past, in so many societies here or past all over the world, that such beliefs show a universal human yearning for something ineffable far beyond day-to-day, worldly life.
'
Perhaps the only real difference from the old or aboriginal religions is that the mainstream half-dozen or so now extant, generally set a direct relationship between their gods and mankind. Even then, some still described their gods as cold-hearted dictators demanding not sacrifices perhaps, but a "love" conditional on unquestioningly worshipping them, and obeying laws ascribed to them.
The older ones tended more to have pantheisms with very vague relationships to humans but still needing a one-way system of demands and appeasement re-inforced by confusing correlation and cause. (E.g., if propitiating the being that has taken the Sun away in the evening, results in daylight returning, then "obviously" the propitiating "worked" - with no-one brave enough to test the idea.)
===
So - yes. Religion is man-made, and despite a wide range of types and expressions of faith, for essentially common purposes.
-
They developed to:
- Give some sort of purpose or meaning to the natural world, if only as the whim of creative deities,
- Give some meaning to human life and its place in nature,
- Ease the fear of death and comfort the bereaved, usually by offering some form of spiritual "after-life" that in older faiths was expressed by a belief in a physical presence. (That is shown by grave-goods for beliefs pre-dating written records - but traces of linger even in modern funerals by small but significant tokens in the coffin),
- Following the above, focus remembering the dead (sometimes by ancestor-worship / honouring),
- Give a framework for social cohesion and morality - in its broadest sense, not only sexual behaviour,
- Not least, these threads pervade so many religions here or past, in so many societies here or past all over the world, that such beliefs show a universal human yearning for something ineffable far beyond day-to-day, worldly life.
'
Perhaps the only real difference from the old or aboriginal religions is that the mainstream half-dozen or so now extant, generally set a direct relationship between their gods and mankind. Even then, some still described their gods as cold-hearted dictators demanding not sacrifices perhaps, but a "love" conditional on unquestioningly worshipping them, and obeying laws ascribed to them.
The older ones tended more to have pantheisms with very vague relationships to humans but still needing a one-way system of demands and appeasement re-inforced by confusing correlation and cause. (E.g., if propitiating the being that has taken the Sun away in the evening, results in daylight returning, then "obviously" the propitiating "worked" - with no-one brave enough to test the idea.)
===
So - yes. Religion is man-made, and despite a wide range of types and expressions of faith, for essentially common purposes.
-