Origin of Religion and Superstition

[Baruch]

Never fear ... capitalism's influence over politics is writing laws forbidding investigative reporting on the food industry (see bioethics again) and even making factual defamation a pre-crime to keep old reports from circulating.  With proper bioethics, mad-cow disease would have never happened.  Now many people outside of the US at least, have been victimized by this error.

[jonb]

You can't have a free market unless the main players are not the adjudicators or pay the adjudicators. A market where the players control and can restrict access is just a guild.

[josephpalazzo]

You can't have a free market unless the main players are not the adjudicators or pay the adjudicators. A market where the players control and can restrict access is just a guild.

Do you have to turn every thread into "Capitalism is bad"? Do yourself a favor: stop being like drunkenshoe and turn every thread into a one-pony thread. It's getting boring.

[jonb]

ISIS; we don't want to hear what conflicts with our view,
. . .even if we have no argument against it.

That seems to be a fundamental building block for most priesthoods.
See you have nicely brought back to the subject.

[josephpalazzo]

Here's an article that resonates for me.

http://news.yahoo.com/origins-religion-supernatural-beliefs-evolved-173454622.html


The article continues with a theory of how religion benefits the group.  It's not as long as the above.  Most of us have thought about this already, but it's an interesting read, I thought.

One feature of religion has always been to establish and maintain authority. That's the reason why in most primitive society, the leader was often given a divine status or divine attributes since he was the one deciding what is right, what is wrong, and punished the offenders. He was legislator, judge and executioner. For this to work, you cannot be just human. Otherwise many will challenge the leadership and that group would be vulnerable to attacks from other groups. So religion/morality/authority had to go hand-in-hand. And atheism was the enemy that could expose that duplicity. So it had to be stamped out. It's only in the 19th century in Europe that atheism began to emerge and had some success to escape the vile punishment reserved to it. It is still a struggle, though considerable gains have been accomplished.

[jonb]

One feature of religion has always been to establish and maintain authority. That's the reason why in most primitive society, the leader was often given a divine status or divine attributes since he was the one deciding what is right, what is wrong, and punished the offenders. He was legislator, judge and executioner. For this to work, you cannot be just human. Otherwise many will challenge the leadership and that group would be vulnerable to attacks from other groups. So religion/morality/authority had to go hand-in-hand. And atheism was the enemy that could expose that duplicity. So it had to be stamped out. It's only in the 19th century in Europe that atheism began to emerge and had some success to escape the vile punishment reserved to it. It is still a struggle, though considerable gains have been accomplished.

So are you saying that the atheist voice is explicitly intertwined with being anti authoritarian?

[Baruch]

Cause/effect mixups.  The people posting here are mostly bohemians (not Czechs) ... and some bohemians are anti-religion and some are anti-social in other ways.  But some authoritarians (Stalin but not Hitler) find religion too threatening to their regime, and so call for atheism as a dogma to fight their opponents.  Others co-opt religion to support their authoritarianism (Hitler but not Stalin).

[josephpalazzo]

So are you saying that the atheist voice is explicitly intertwined with being anti authoritarian?

Part of it might be that, but it's definitely not the whole story. I think that many atheists reacted to the falsehoods that underlies religion. And since religion is linked to morality/politics/authority, an atheist would be seen as a danger. How many atheists do we know in Europe before Nietzsche? I'm sure they were, but not many made history.

[jonb]

Part of it might be that, but it's definitely not the whole story. I think that many atheists reacted to the falsehoods that underlies religion. And since religion is linked to morality/politics/authority, an atheist would be seen as a danger. How many atheists do we know in Europe before Nietzsche? I'm sure they were, but not many made history.

This is true but there are references that go back a long way to those barbarians of northern Europe with their fine metal work and improved iron plowshares (that could plough land the more primitive Romans could not use for arable) and other developments, having men who had no gods, and certainly men fighting gods or being at odds with them are not unknown stories in northern folklore. This I think would go with cultures that had a strong belief in gruff independence and seems to have been built around principals of free expression and argument among peers leading to decision making and proved to be the foundations of the English Parliament, and the Icelandic Althing which our current democracies are derived from.

Under the cristard domination of Europe anybody openly saying there is no god was burnt at the stake to save their souls, this kindness of the christards tended to silence atheism being openly acknowledged.

Just in passing I think it is worth mentioning  the middle eastern Omar Khayyám


Now there is an atheist that did make history.

[Baruch]

Part of it might be that, but it's definitely not the whole story. I think that many atheists reacted to the falsehoods that underlies religion. And since religion is linked to morality/politics/authority, an atheist would be seen as a danger. How many atheists do we know in Europe before Nietzsche? I'm sure they were, but not many made history.

Pesky Frenchmen, but only when safely dead, and free from the threats of the Inquisition:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Meslier

[g2perk]

Oh and I did not think I could find this, but here it is

https://youtu.be/C5RiHTSXK2A

Questions for theists there about the special place of man in the Universe.

What's your question?

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[jonb]

What's your question?

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Why are you incapable of understanding a simple statement?

[g2perk]

Maybe because it was not clear to me...See that's the problem with people. Do you think everyone thinks the same as you.

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[g2perk]

Why are you incapable of understanding a simple statement?

Do you not know why you are special.?

This is true but there are references that go back a long way to those barbarians of northern Europe with their fine metal work and improved iron plowshares (that could plough land the more primitive Romans could not use for arable) and other developments, having men who had no gods, and certainly men fighting gods or being at odds with them are not unknown stories in northern folklore. This I think would go with cultures that had a strong belief in gruff independence and seems to have been built around principals of free expression and argument among peers leading to decision making and proved to be the foundations of the English Parliament, and the Icelandic Althing which our current democracies are derived from.

Under the cristard domination of Europe anybody openly saying there is no god was burnt at the stake to save their souls, this kindness of the christards tended to silence atheism being openly acknowledged.

Just in passing I think it is worth mentioning  the middle eastern Omar Khayyám


Now there is an atheist that did make history.

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[aitm]

As to the OP, I have written many times that our archeologists and anthropologist have done a pretty good job of showing how human religious thought evolved from simple animism to totems to shamanism into deities. We can watch the same evolution in a childs cognitive development as they begin to understand what it real and what is not and still invent imaginary creatures and friends in inanimate things. My 4 yr old GD has a particular stone that she calls her friend and plays with it and at night puts in back in the rock garden so it can be with its family. Imagining how religion came to be is a pretty simple exercise in common sense. Religion is bountiful, common sense, not so much.