Where did all these religions come from?

[French Cuff Consignment]

I was visiting a new acquaintance over the weekend who happens to be a solar astronomer. I noticed while in her Lab that she had a lot of books about the Baha'i religion, which I knew next to nothing about. I was curious. During our discussion she told me that the Baha'i accept the teachings of most all the major religions as ingredients that make up one big pie. But then I began to wonder, where did they all come from? There seem to be a lot of similarities Hell? Angels? Satan? An original Paradise etc Lately the nefarious (though interesting) influence of the Catholic Church has been highlighted in movies like National Treasure and the Da Vinci Code, movies I know are fictionalized...but do they touch on grains of truth? How heavy of a silent influence does religion play today? ...outside of Al Qaeda of course!

 

[Tokyo Slim]

The Bahai are nice people, I've had some involvement with them in the past.

There are a couple theories regarding the similarities and yet divergent nature of major religions.

1: they are all diluted and slightly divergent forms of a much older "master religion" or conglomeration of theologies that a ruling class or government either devised as a method of keeping control over a populace, through fear of eternal punishment, instead of corporal punishment (which has never been a sucessful deterrant).

Or that the populace created to deal with the psychological and ethical questions that arose when a coda or law was adopted in opposition to what many would claim are our natural animal instincts,

IE for the greater good of society, you aren't allowed to kill other men or steal their wives. If you screw up, you will burn forever in hell.

There are newer models and older models, and they have all stolen peices of each other over time, but they are basically a man-made creation that just keeps getting refined or altered to fit over time.

2: God keeps telling people what they should be doing, but the nature of man always seems to muff up the translation and recording of the word of God in different ways in line with the recorder's cultural biases. People who believe in God either believe this theory, if they are open minded, or believe that the particular religion that THEY JUST HAPPEN to belong to is the only one with a key into the kingdom of heaven, and that all other religions are false and therefore the practitioners are going to hell.

I'm not sure if that answers your question or not, and it really depends on whether you believe in God as an actively participating deity or not.

I could most likely write a completely nonsensical and illogical thesis on my veiwpoints on the matter, but I'll save that for later.

 

[designprofessor]

The psychological theory: archetypes -Carl Jung.
"The Mythic Image"

 

[GQgeek]

I buy in to the psychological theory. I think that fundamentally, a lot of people needed to believe in this stuff. Religion provided answers to questions that couldn't otherwise be answered. Later on, it was adopted by men with or in search of power and used as a control and political tool, but I don't think that's how it started.

 

[Edward Appleby]

Originally Posted by designprofessor

The psychological theory: archetypes -Carl Jung.
"The Mythic Image"
Joseph Campbell also sheds light on the question from a more literary perspective.

 

[Tck13]

Originally Posted by GQgeek

I buy in to the psychological theory. I think that fundamentally, a lot of people needed to believe in this stuff. Religion provided answers to questions that couldn't otherwise be answered. Later on, it was adopted by men with or in search of power and used as a control and political tool, but I don't think that's how it started.


Deepak Chopra's "Understanding God" shows the relationship between religion and people's needs throughout time. Religions fit just what people needed during different time periods.

Lately the nefarious (though interesting) influence of the Catholic Church has been highlighted in movies like National Treasure and the Da Vinci Code, movies I know are fictionalized...but do they touch on grains of truth?

If one does even the slightest amount of research, one can find that even Jesus' walking on water was taken from earlier religions and added to Christianity. From what I remember, this was added by someone to give Jesus a more supernatural and godlike appeal. What is a savior without incredible powers?

 

[odoreater]

Originally Posted by GQgeek

Religion provided answers to questions that couldn't otherwise be answered. Later on, it was adopted by men with or in search of power and used as a control and political tool, but I don't think that's how it started.

I'm not sure I follow. Are you saying that people who have adopted religion are in search of power and control? While that's a nice theory, it goes against reality.

 

[Tck13]

Originally Posted by odoreater

I'm not sure I follow. Are you saying that people who have adopted religion are in search of power and control? While that's a nice theory, it goes against reality.

I would agree with GQ. While you are correct (odoreater)in that many people don't seek out religion to gain "power and control", think about the history of religion and what religion has been used to fight against by those involved. Rock and Roll, gay marriage, Halloween, abortion. Also, throughout history, those in charge of religion were basically (I'm being general) in charge and leading the people. Telling people what to believe, how to act, who to kill and so on.

I guess one could say that most were just going along with the church (accepting what they were teaching and being taught as fact) and not really consciously thinking that they were trying to control and manipulate people, but they were.

 

[faustian bargain]

Originally Posted by Edward Appleby

Joseph Campbell also sheds light on the question from a more literary perspective.

His Atlas of World Mythology lays it all out. But almost all of his work contains the theme of the 'monomyth' and how it has been variously inflected around the world.

BTW the sense of the 'world of opposites' most of us grew up with, (you know, the whole "good and evil" thing)...it's enlightening to note that there are other ways of seeing the world, and also that the Judeo-Christian tradition got this dualism mainly out of an older religion, Zoroastrianism.

 

[odoreater]

Originally Posted by Tck13

I would agree with GQ. While you are correct (odoreater)in that many people don't seek out religion to gain "power and control", think about the history of religion and what religion has been used to fight against by those involved. Rock and Roll, gay marriage, Halloween, abortion. Also, throughout history, those in charge of religion were basically (I'm being general) in charge and leading the people. Telling people what to believe, how to act, who to kill and so on.

I guess one could say that most were just going along with the church (accepting what they were teaching and being taught as fact) and not really consciously thinking that they were trying to control and manipulate people, but they were.

Speculation and nonsense run amock. Did the early Christians get eaten by lions because they were trying to get power or control, or did they do it because they truly believed in what they were dying for?

The old "religion was created for power and control" is the oldest, most useless argument in the book. All it really shows is a lack of depth and understanding of a very complex topic. It's the playbook answer to the question the OP posited.

 

[Tck13]

Originally Posted by odoreater

Speculation and nonsense run amock. Did the early Christians get eaten by lions because they were trying to get power or control, or did they do it because they truly believed in what they were dying for?

Maybe you should re-read my post.

Originally Posted by odoreater

The old "religion was created for power and control" is the oldest, most useless argument in the book. All it really shows is a lack of depth and understanding of a very complex topic. It's the playbook answer to the question the OP posited.

I never said "religion was created for power and control" and I don't know what argument you're talking about. Maybe an arguement for why religion exists? I don't think Religion is some conspiracy theory to control people (if that's what you think I'm saying).

I'm saying it has been used THROUGHOUT history by people to either placate a society (large scale) or by individuals to deny or twist their reality to fit their (sometimes distorted) beliefs.

 

[odoreater]

Ah, ok, then I guess I misread. The original post asked about where all these religions come from. The response you always here is that "religions were created to control people." I thought that was the argument you were making as well and I was pointing out that that argument is nonsense. Apparently it wasn't the argument you were making. My apologies.

 

[globetrotter]

I'll take a stab at it - people are social animals, with a need for hirarchy. if you have a top dog, it makes sense to be thinking in terms of their being an even higher authority. as far as we can tell, every society has had some type of religious practice.

what we don't think about too much, is how much time there was before history - conservativly, man was talking for about 1,000 generations before we thought to put things down on paper in a way that we can read it today. that is a long time for legends to form and travel around. for much of that time, the problems were the same - getting laid, putting enough food on the table, keeping animals from eating your kids, the weather. the basic concepts of religions moved around, and merged. in most of antiquity, the concept of an exclusive or jelous diety wasn't common - if you heard about a deity that sounded good, you worshiped it, in addition to the ones you were already worshiping, and no body minded.

it seems that there are a few different groupings of religions. they fall, logically enough, in geographic divisions. you have the western religions, that have come out of judeo christian / muslim concepts, rooted in the middle east. you have the group of religions that are rooted in india and south asia, with varietions across the pacific rim. you have african religions, and traditional american religions, which are pretty much permanantly altered and currupted with christianity.


If I were shoping for a religion, I would go for hinduism, myself. but i am not in the market for a new religion, right now.

 

[Tck13]

Originally Posted by odoreater

Ah, ok, then I guess I misread. The original post asked about where all these religions come from. The response you always here is that "religions were created to control people." I thought that was the argument you were making as well and I was pointing out that that argument is nonsense. Apparently it wasn't the argument you were making. My apologies.


No big deal, I didn't realize that there was an argument like the one you described. I hadn't thought about that. Sadly, I would imagine that what you are saying is true and some really believe that religion was actually consciously started to control people.

If I were shoping for a religion, I would go for hinduism, myself. but i am not in the market for a new religion, right now.

Would you even consider Hinduism / Buddhism religions? I've often heard them described more as philosophies to live by. (And I agree, if I had to pick one, I'd choose one of the two).

 

[globetrotter]

Originally Posted by Tck13

Would you even consider Hinduism / Buddhism religions? I've often heard them described more as philosophies to live by. (And I agree, if I had to pick one, I'd choose one of the two).


I am not a comparative religion scholar, if I were to put a label on this in a conversation, I would call hinduism a religion, or meta-religion, and budhism a philosophy that assumes a religion as a base, that is traditionally overlaid on the hindu religion(but can be overlaid on shintu, or the chinese dieties, or even western religions).


hinduism is a belief system, a way of life, that includes the worship of various deities. I guess you could stretch it and say that you could be a good hindu without practicing worship, espectially if you were not born a hindu and had no specific obligations to any dieties, but I don't know if that would work.