Why does religion exist?

Great Debates
1

Religion was something created long ago to explain the unknown. However, as countries and people become more advanced, they begin to realize that events like eclipses that mystified people in the past are now easily explained by science.

Religion has also served to identify and protect people from unknown outsiders (the fear factor). Religion was like a gang membership - you were either part of the gang or fair game if not. In a small society with limited travel and education, if you were part of the same religion, then you were probably safe to associate with.

By all rights, religion should have died out by now and would have, if not for the institutionalization of religion. This is what scares me most about religion - the religious establishment and their fanatical supporters who attack others because they don’t believe as they do. We saw this 9/11 where fanatical members of a major religion (Islam) killed many innocent people simply because we did not believe the same as they do. Throughout history, much strife and conflict has been caused by religious differences. Religions have surely been the root of more killing and torture that any other single cause in the history of mankind.

A while ago, I was watching the CBS 60 Minutes segment on Pakistan when one of the Islamic interviewee’s flatly stated, “God had commanded them to build nuclear weapons”! Say what? How exactly did their God communicate this message to them? Was it while they were smoking some potent hashish? Was there a dream? Or did God just send an email? And why didn’t their God just make things simple and give them nuclear weapons with instructions for their use? At least the Jews got some stone tablets…

But can/does religion really provide protection from the evils around us in these modern times? I think not. Jesse Ventura has been quoted as saying that religion is just a crutch and I agree with him. Like aliens and UFO’s, no one has ever produced verifiable concrete evidence that there are one or many Gods. With all the Gods in this world from all the religions, why hasn’t one of them come down, stamped his foot and said enough, I’m the true God!?

Throughout history, given the abject failure of the world’s religions to prevent strife, torture and killing in the name of their favorite God, perhaps the future would be better served without religion. Otherwise, maybe we can all agree on one religion to adopt and practice.

Since either of these occurrences are unlikely to occur anytime soon, religious based taunting, warfare, killing and justification in the name of some God will continue going forward (try giving a listen to Bob Dylan’s poignant “With God On Our Side”). Politicians will continue to play the religion card and the religious establishment will support them, because it’s lucrative for both parties and it propagates their institutions lifespan. And many people will continue to search for a safe haven by being part of their particular religious group, hoping for protection from the ugly world around them and some sort of salvation from the misery of their daily lives after they die. As long as multitudes of religions exist, we will never truly be one society, one world, despite the current pap about a global society.

Your thoughts?

2

Now, I’m not a member of any major religion, but this is what I feel.

Many people are still afraid of the unknown. Not having control over life can be a very terrifying thing. Especially when you are looking at the lower classes, where faith in a god is sometimes necessary to face adversity, or even the upper classes, where it can be just plain tradition as much as eating at a table and wearing suits.

Personally, I’m religious because I feel that there is something more. It isn’t something that can be explained or qualified scientifically, and it is impossible to expect a non-believer to understand, but there is a supernatural “magic” in life. Being in the presence of one’s god can be amazingly calming and comforting, especially, as I said, in times of distress.

I tend to view gods as personifications of emotion, so they can laugh with you, hold you when you cry, etc. It sounds silly, but it can have a profound impact on simple acts. It is a sense of empowerment.

Other people have religion largely because of tradition, or being raised to believe. That’s fine. The drawback to this is that they tend to take a me-vs-them point of view (Personally, I feel that all religions are worshipping the same thing, so it doesn’t matter, but that is beside the point). In reality, I would put my money on the same conflict existing with or without religion (look at the conflicts between the European East and West, or in Latin America), but it does make a handy pretext.

3

Your utopian dreams are unlikely to come to pass this side of the millennium.

At least 90% of any population have an urge to admire or worship something or someone.

It can be a religion as you described it, or it can be a set of secular doctrines, as was practiced in those mostly defunct communist countries of yesteryear. Stalin and the so called “personality of the cult” provides us with a good example, but also check out the North Koreans writing about their Blessed (or is it Dear?) Leader.

In recognition of the fact that the great majority of the people simply have to subscribe to some belief system, religious or political, (the difference is not great) the best policy is to accept this in the same way we all accept that water is wet. I would much prefer to let them believe in something relatively harmless and benign rather than something malignant and murderous and, with a few exceptions, most religions are relatively harmless.

Life tends to be so much more enjoyable that way, don’t you agree?

4

Had an extremely interesting course about a year ago…Sociology of Religion. We were able to attend, as observers, the worship of no less than 10 different religious groups in Chicago. Great class! The intent of this course was to ponder the sociological reason for religion, with a dispassionate view as observer. It was to the substitute professors credit that great dialogs were given room to flourish in the classroom. What I gathered is that religion has performed a crucial role in identifying social and cultural norms. It is also used to organize power under a single ideology, whether to opposed oppression or to move forward a society. Here in the great US of A we are often thought to be a Christian nation. But it is in effect a nation of blended religious backgrounds, and that is one of the things I greatly value. I tend to resist identifiying my homeland as a Christian nation just for the sake of freedom of religion.

On a more personal level, I am one of those people out there who are known to say, I am not religious I am spiritual. For me that is a statement about the dogma of religion, which is what Marx may have been noting in his famous quote that Religion is the opiate of the people. We are all seeking a way to justify, identify and qualify our existance, whether we identify with religion, culture or individuality. Religion is another tool in the process of understanding being alive, human and co-existing with others. How it is used depends on the person and the culture.

Well, thats bout it for me…just a rambling :cool:

Some questions can never be fully answered which is why we keep asking them :wink:

5

I’m an apatheist - I don’t care if God exists or not, but there are good reasons that religion remains.

First of all people find it comforting. This is quite important. There are a number of intelligent people who seeing that there are no convincing arguments either way believe because it makes them feel better.

Second people still have religious/spiritual experiences. Yes these experiences are not very convincing as argument for religion but to those who experience them they are life changing events.

Third people teach their children about religion and this creates individuals who believe in some fashion. It doesn’t always take but it helps keep religion going.

The fourth reason I can think of is related to the third, and it is because religion is deeply ingrained into our culture. It may seem to be no longer needed but cultures do not jettison “dead-weight” right away. All manner of phrases, icons and customs derived from a religion even if the religion itself has declined.

6

If you want a really good answer to your question, you’ll have to define what you mean by “religion,” because different people use the word in different ways. One definition is simply, “What people believe,” in which case it’s not really a thing that could cease to exist.

Are you religious? When you talk about “the evils around us” or object to certain things as being evil, you are using religious language. The things that you call evil: do the people who do them consider them evil as well? If not, then you and they have different religious beliefs (i.e. beliefs about what’s good and what’s evil)—it’s not that they have religion and you don’t. If, on the other hand, the people who do them do consider them evil, then they do them in spite of, not because of, their religion.

Surely you know that some of the world’s major religions teach peace, love, and mercy. How does this fit in with the OP? Are they part of the problem?

I suspect that a lot of the evil that gets done in the name of religion would be done anyway, even without the religion. The religious justifications are just excuses the evildoers give.

7

I agree with the OP in that religion is often used as protection from something, and that an important question to ask is, What do people need protection from these days?

Society is changing constantly, and increasing technology makes humans more and more powerful, so it might seem that one day we won’t need consolation from religion.

But I think religion will always be around because the one thing we can never defeat (and therefore the thing we will always fear) is death. I guess I would classify myself as agnostic, and I sometimes get to thinking about death and the afterlife. And when I really let it get to me, the idea of death as the end of all conscious existence is absolutely terrifying… the scariest, most horrible thing.

There’s only one hope for that: the possibility that maybe we have an afterlife. The idea of an afterlife is the only thing that can calm our most primal fear, so I think humans will turn to religion for as long as they exist.

8

Given the rapid advances that are being made regularly in medical technologies, I believe it is reasonable to project that death might not be something that we have to worry about too much longer. Discover magazine ran an article a few months back saying we should be able to reach 150 or so.

Staying Alive
A century ago, most Americans lived to be about 50. Today people over 100 make up the fastest-growing segment of the population. As some researchers bet that children born today will live to be 150, others say there is no upward limit on longevity
By Karen Wright
Photography by Mary Ellen Mark
DISCOVER Vol. 24 No. 11 | November 2003 | Biology & Medicine

A few years back, biodemographer Jay Olshansky called his friend Steve Austad, a gerontologist, after reading an outrageous quote attributed to Austad about aging. Olshansky, at the University of Illinois, and Austad, at the University of Idaho, have long shared an interest in the human life span. But they differ on some points. Austad had been quoted as saying that someone alive today could survive to the unprecedented age of 150.

Staying Alive Link

We’re probably 50 years or less away from being able to fully clone people. If we can then figure out how to transfer memories, then eternal life might be attainable here on Earth by getting a new clone whenever the old body wears out.

So addressing your original statement, will removing the spectre and fear of death from the human vocabulary remove one of the biggest attractions for religion?

9

No.

At least, I certainly don’t fear death, and I’m still religious.

If anything, that proposed “immortality” (if possible) would bring up religious and philisophical debate for CENTURIES. Though, as a student of history, I think I’d have to bite simply to see how history turns out. I hate not finishing a book.

10

From iamme99

How were these figures derived?

Statements by magazines like ‘Discover’ that claim, probably accurately, that the average age of the population of … wherever. Say ancient Athens at the time of Pericles, was about 18 years. What does this mean?

Considering that calculating an average age of a population factors in the very high infant and <5 y.o. mortality rate that prevailed in all pre-industrial societies, of course the “average” age would be dragged down, but many people lived well beyond the average age of their time.

A town scene of the period would include the full spectrum of ages, children, middle aged and older people, although probably not the nursing home type of person whose life span in modern societies is often extended well beyond the optimum maximum life span. (by this convolution, I mean the age/condition I would not want to live beyond)

It does not follow that we are likely to be able to live beyond what appears to be our genetically inherited maximum age – about 75-80 years - to something like 150 years. As if that’s desirable (especially considering the range of good quality wines I like to imbibe. Even at the current moderate rate, I would end up with Korsakoff’s Syndrome well before the age of 120, if not sooner).

I tend to take the ‘Gee Whiz’ claims of magazines like ‘Discover’ with a bucket of salt when it comes to matters scientific.

Why should having a long and probably increasingly helpless life span have any bearing on the religious impulse anyway? Those who believe in a religious destiny should be indifferent to the prospect of living an unnaturally long life span, so it should not have much relevance to people who are prone to be religious, whether by upbringing or by personal inspiration.

How is cloning supposed to remove the fear of death? I would have thought that a belief in reincarnation, would have a greater claim to doing that, although the fact that hardly anyone who is supposed to have undergone this process remembers a damn thing about their previous life without the assistance of a hypnotist means, in effect, that the supposed previous existence might as well have ended up in oblivion.

11

I think that religion exists for the same reason that any government does. There are people who seek power over other people.

12

Ummm, did you read the whole article?

Again, mentioned in the article that there might not be any “predetermined” limit.

That’s your prerogative. You COULD Google the web and find other references that say the same thing if Discover isn’t “elitist” enough for you. :rolleyes:

Did you READ the quote I was replying to? You should take your contention up with that person who it appears, might just disagree with you.

Again, failure to read what has gone before before shooting off your post. How does cloning remove the fear of death you ask? As I said, IF they perfect memory transfer, then you would technically never die. You would have the same memories in a new body, forever and forever and forever…

13

I’m another one who has never had a fear of death. Life is scary enough for me, thanks, I’ve always considered death to be a release from the troubles of this world.

I’ve only been religious in the formal sense for about six years. I think human beings are naturally religiously inclined. Even the majority of people who don’t practice any particular religion believe in God, although they may have formulated their own conceptions of who or what God is.

I will say that even during the phases of my life when I totally detested the idea of formal religion, I still had a sense that there was an All-Transcendant Whatever-It-Is that makes the universe go, and felt that my life would be better, or at least I would be more at peace, if I could somehow connect with It.

I eventually found my way into the Catholic Church, and I will say that I’m generally more at peace with my life. I’ve gone through some pretty severe depressions, especially within the last two years, but I’ve come through pretty much psychologically intact. I think that if I didnt have the beliefs that I do, and a feeling of responsibility to Someone Greater than myself, I probably would have committed suicide rather than stick around to see what was on the other end of that dark tunnel.

So, yeah, I do think religion serves a useful purpose.

14

As I said, this opens a whole new Pandora’s Box, philisophically and religiously.

What defines the individual? Identity? Memory? Experience? Soul? Would an exact replica of a person BE that person? Would it behave or act differently? What are the legal implications? What is self-consciousness? Would you as a thinking entity be transferred to that new body, or would it just be a body with your memory? People would still fear conscious extinction. What would death mean? Clearly, there could be a theoretical end to your life, even with cloning, even assuming that the conscious “you” was transferred, by means of some kind of horrible accident, not being able to afford cloning, etc. What of the people who reject the premise? They will likely become highly religious. Who controls the cloning?

You don’t “solve the problem” of religion by eliminating death - you just create more questions.

Additionally, this does nothing to address the circumstances of “helplessness” in daily life that drive some people’s religion. Cloning does nothing to solve that problem.

15

I agree. The questions as to if there really is such a thing a s a soul or what self-consciousness is may be byond anything that science can help with (at least at our present state of knowledge). All cloning/memory transfer does is remove the spectre of physical death. Whether such technology is judged good or bad, useful or not, will be up to society to determine. I’d be happy to give it a try though. Then I’d have time to build a nice retirement nest egg. :smiley:

16

I would agree that Religion has more often that not turned into that.
However, would you say that both Religion and Government both arose from necessity?

For the little my view is worth, i also hold that humans have a natural inclination towards the religious (the Christian in me would say that God made it that way ;)), which can go wither it will.

Thats a nice way of summing that up :slight_smile:

I know some that profess that, for them, the complete removal of Religion/religion would be the creation of a much more perfect world.

How you’re gonna explain that to the market economists however, is another thing altogether :wink:

17

Removing religion would no more make the world a “more peaceful” place than if women ran it (to use the popular phrase).

18

Religion exists to give the human race hope and history. Without hope people see no end for fighting their personal battles. Religion exists as a way or path that tells us it is our job to watch over our neighbors, friends and Leaders. Religiion gives even the smallest of age and or the measurement of height , the relm of possibility that they have someone watvhing out for them.

19

Since when? You people are generalizing “religion” a lot.

20

Really. Or rather, several of the posters are offering up their particular “definition” of “religion” and offering their explanation for it – which may or may not come bundled with the sound of grinding axes.

Not all religions follow the same “legalistic” track familiar to Westerners from the Judeo-Christian-Islamic traditions. Not all religions require institutionality or hierarchical obedience, either. Neither is religion solely about “explaining” that which is factually unknown or merely hard-to-explain-simply - that’s either myth, which can exist by itself, or the “God of the Gaps” which is an unsatisfying explanation since it is the Incredible Shrinking Deity.(*) Religion, stripped of the ceremonial foofraw, can be just a way to seek understanding man’s existence in his universe in a manner that transcends physical nature. Good luck having that impulse expunged from the collective mind.

Interestingly, I just picked up the current (March/April '04) issue of Skeptical Inquirer, where one of the “themes” of the month is Religion and one of the articles (which I’m only partly through) discusses the idea that “religion” experience may be itself a natural phenomenon, an external manifestation of an emergent property of the evolution of certain cognitive processes in the human mind – we’re “wired” for it, or for something very similar, even if whether or not and how it actually develops is contingent on circumstance and stimuli. The article’s conclusion is, of course, contrary to iamme99’s conclusion that “by all rights” religion should go extinct (since that which is not selected against, does not go away).
[(*)To Westerners, familiar with the 3 “Religions of the Book”, it seems like necessarily religions should include specifically laid-down dogma on mythology AND cosmology AND morality AND rules of social organization AND obedience to authorities AND a promise of reward/threat of punishment about adhering to the whole package. But that’s not even mandatory within the 3 Abrahimite traditions – many Christian churches accept the nonliterality of Genesis, for instance]