Origins: Religion

I am a christian, i am not a christian out of blind faith but out of proper precaution. If the larger majority of the world believes in God, there is more of a chance of him being real than many other religions, so i say that i am christian in case Christian beliefs are correct, and if they (as well as the other religions) are not then where I place my faith doesnt really matter. Anyways to get on topic i would just like to state a debatable subject and am hoping for a reply on what you think. There is a larger chance than anything else that religion was created in the past as a method to explain the unexplained, as well as give power to the rulers of civilization and provide order to the cities and reason to the wars. What i ask is if this is so, what are the defining factors in the creation of a religion? Why did the egyptians have a polytheistic religion while the (majority of) Mesopotamians developed a monotheistic religion?

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Originally posted by brooks
If the larger majority of the world believes in God, there is more of a chance of him being real than many other religions,

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Then why not convert perhaps Islam, or Buddhism if you want to follow that logic? Truth is not relative. There is an objective quantifiable world and there are answers to those who seek them, but lies are at many times favorable to the truth in the minds of men.

Don't be a Christian as their possition is an irrational one. Islam is fairly rational, so if you're going to go for monotheism go for that religion. Buddhism is also a consistant religion, but there are so many different belief systems within buddhism that it gets a bit confusing to try to read about it.

I don't believe the Mesopotamians were monotheists, you might be thinking of the Persian Zoroastrianists(another neat religion).

Anyway on to the main subject:

I think superstition and spiritualism were created by parents to explain things to their children, religion was created by the state to explain things to it's servants.

Define "proper precaution" also...

I was baptized and even confirmed a Catholic (Christian), but then I finally decided that I had never really believed in Jesus, although I did believe in God.

Although some recent spiritual revelations have shifted my views on some things, for the most part, I identify with Judaism, and agree with it on many levels. Judaism is also a very neat religion.

http://img191.exs.cx/img191/9501/animatedshalom4rd.gif

Most religion -- barring Judaism (see this article) -- functions to explain the unexplained or unexplainable. Before modern science, even to explain such things as the weather, etc.

Also keep in mind that you dont have to fall under any specific category for religion, having a mix of beliefs is enough for some, like me for example, I believe in a lot of Christian ideals but my definition of "god" is way out there as far as mainstream religions go..

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Buddhism is also a consistant religion, but there are so many different belief systems within buddhism that it gets a bit confusing to try to read about it.[/b]

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The thing that confuses me about Buddhism is that Buddha was a Hindu, and was enlightened through Hinduism, so why not seek your enlightenment through the religion that worked for Buddha if you believe he acheived it?

As far as creating order, and reasons for war, it's the misapplication of religion, and not the purpose. I suspect most religions get 'used' more than practiced.

Religion comes about from peoples' fear of the unknown. Specifically, death. The vast majority of people fear death, and people have been fearing death for eons an eons. Ever since the first hominid understood what death was, it has been feared. So it only makes sense for evolution to develop a process to control and deal with this fear. This process is called spirituality.

You can say whatever you want about Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, etc...but they all have two things in common:
1) A belief in a supreme being of some sort of Supreme entity.
2) A belief that the "soul" is eternal and dying is the beginning of something much better.

Religion, of any kind, is simply a system to use peoples' fear of death to control them.

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Originally posted by bradybaker
Religion, of any kind, is simply a system to use peoples' fear of death to control them.

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Religion is the method by which humans attempt to understand something they feel is self evident, but cannot grasp with their outward senses.

Organized religion is a system used to try and disseminate knowledge and share practices that people have found useful in providing peace of mind and some form of understanding.

Religion using peoples' fear to control them is not religion, it's a system being exploited and manipulated by individuals with some other motive.

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Religion is the method by which humans attempt to understand something they feel is self evident, but cannot grasp with their outward senses.[/b]

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That's spirituality, not religion. Spirituality is an evolved behaviour to cope with fear.

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Religion using peoples' fear to control them is not religion, it's a system being exploited and manipulated by individuals with some other motive.[/b]

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Religion (organized religion) is the exploitation and manipulation of spirituality with some other motive. The motive? Control of course.

sorry if i didnt elaborate enough on my reasoning of being a christian, christianity where i live is more accepted than say bhuddism or islam is, i find nothing wrong with those two religions. I agree though my thoughts on god and christianity differ from many of the teachings of the bible as well as the church.

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Originally posted by bradybaker
Religion comes about from peoples' fear of the unknown. Specifically, death. The vast majority of people fear death, and people have been fearing death for eons an eons. Ever since the first hominid understood what death was, it has been feared. So it only makes sense for evolution to develop a process to control and deal with this fear. This process is called spirituality.

You can say whatever you want about Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, etc...but they all have two things in common:
1) A belief in a supreme being of some sort of Supreme entity.
2) A belief that the \"soul\" is eternal and dying is the beginning of something much better.

Religion, of any kind, is simply a system to use peoples' fear of death to control them.

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But how would that explain so man religions like the sumerian religion, and early judaism which didn't believe in any real afterlife(aside from a joyless existance in the earth which seemed more sensible than complete death)?

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Originally posted by brooks
sorry if i didnt elaborate enough on my reasoning of being a christian, christianity where i live is more accepted than say bhuddism or islam is, i find nothing wrong with those two religions. I agree though my thoughts on god and christianity differ from many of the teachings of the bible as well as the church.

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There is no reason to conform, unless of course you live in the Middle East, in that case if you weren't an Islamite you'd probably be beaten to death or shot one day.

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Originally posted by Rev. Pastora
The thing that confuses me about Buddhism is that Buddha was a Hindu, and was enlightened through Hinduism, so why not seek your enlightenment through the religion that worked for Buddha if you believe he acheived it?

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He was a Hindu in the sense that Hindu means a native of what is now called India. He was also born a prince, so it is very likely that at one time he practiced what Hinduism would have been at that time. Though I don't think he was enlightened through Hinduism. Though someone who practices Hinduism might say he was, because Hinduism views the Buddha as an incarnation of Mahavishnu (better known to us westerners as just Vishnu).

However, the life one of the highest castes offered was not satisfying for the Buddha. So he left to be an ascetic. He found this path also did not work. Determined there must be another path, and quite proficient at meditation from his days of being an ascetic, he decided to find this other path - a middle path between the two extremes. Once he became enlightened, he devoted the rest of his days to teaching and showing others how to follow this path.

So he wasn't really enlightened through Hinduism. Further Buddhism and Hinduism differ greatly on a few key points. One being that Hinduism believes in the supremacy of the Vedas. Buddhism does not believe in the Vedas. A second key difference is that Hinduism believes in the existence of what we could call an individual soul and a supreme creator. Buddhism denies the existence of a permanent self or soul and initial cause (god or supreme creator). A third key place where they differ is that Hinduism supports the caste system. Buddhism does not. The Buddha was adamantly opposed to the caste system and is known to have condemned it on several occasions. Along these same lines, Hinduism believes in 4 stages of life that have to be followed. Buddhism does not follow this and you are free to join a Buddhist order at any time if you feel you are ready. They differ in other areas too, but these are the 4 that stand out to me as the bigger differences.

A way to get an idea about Buddhism's place in history and rise, might be to think of it as a reformation of Hinduism. Around the time there were other "reformation" movements too... Jainism and Sikhism.

And what was I trying to say?? Oh yes, it wasn't the practice of Hinduism that enlightened the Buddha. It was the practice of Hinduism and failure to attain results that prompted the Buddha to seek a different path, though similar, different.

This may be a bit of a stretch, but maybe if it helps, view Buddhism to Hinduism as Protestantism is to Catholicism (please nobody shoot me for saying that. It is a very over-generalized statement of attempting to make the relationship between the two more comparable to something us Westerners are familiar with).

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Originally posted by brooks
What i ask is if this is so, what are the defining factors in the creation of a religion?

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Ok back to the topic. Regardless of what you or I may think of the terms "religion" or "spirituality" in the modern world and without getting into a pointless argument over the linguistics of using "religion" vs "spirituality", I think religions began as a means of comfort, to ease suffering, and to get a grasp on the world. Over time religions grow, cultures combine, old beliefs and religions change and combine to form new beliefs and religions.

sorry i dont think i thouroughly explained my question. I was asking what the physical events occured that helped form the major religions, a hurricane, whether they lived near a desert, and why these events contributed to the creation the way that they did.

You can contribute something like religion to just one criteria. Thousands of factors shape a religion: language, food supply, geograpgic location, temperature, etc, etc, right down to instincts and psychological natures and the like.