Director Roger Nygard traveled the world asking theologians, scientists, skeptics, and everyday people 85 tough questions to try to understand The Nature of Existence! Now that he’s asked the experts, it’s YOUR TURN! To offer your own insights on today’s question, “What is religion?“, Leave a Reply below!
Director Roger Nygard traveled the world asking theologians, scientists, skeptics, and everyday people 85 tough questions to try to understand The Nature of Existence! Now that he’s asked the experts, it’s YOUR TURN! To offer your own insights on today’s question, “What is religion?“, Leave a Reply below!
42 Responses to “Question #7: What is religion?”
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According to some evolutionary theories (Schellenberger, Michael P. Rose and John P. Phelan, Taner Edis), early humans who thought that everything had agency (i.e. a spirit, something operating it) had a greater chance of survival. If you thought a rock was determined to fall on you, you would avoid it, the guy who thought it was just a rock had less of a chance of surviving. Early hunters probably had some feeling about how, in order for them to survive, they were harming a living creature with a family and feelings just like them. Rituals and dogma developed to explain and deal with this. Unfortunately, these natural feelings are also sometimes exploited.
It continued partly because a power structure will always have an ability to perpetuate itself, but it is also is a means by which we attempt to explain and deal with these questions across generations. One generation leaves us with a set of rules and rituals, and the next generation adopts them and hopefully evolves them. That process is not always pretty, especially in times of rapid change.
Religions are man-made world-views that help those in charge to control the masses. They are completely and utterly useless.
Organized Superstition – according to the Atheists.
I think that religion is a way of controlling people. All over history “prophets” appaered saying that they are the messenger of god or can speak to them or whatever but all they had was charisma and they said what people wanted to hear. I guees most of the poeple out NEED so much to have a purposed or guidance to live their lives that they will belive almost anything thats fits with thieir mind set…
Religion is man made nonsense. It was created to deal with the unanswerable questions of existence and mortality. But hey, if that’s what you need to get you through the day knock yourself out.
When discussing religion it should be clear whether we’re talking about the spiritual aspect of religion or the organized institutionalized aspect of religion.
While the first one can be explained through a range of evolutionary theories (for example the Big Angry Ape theory of Desmond Morris), the second one mainly exists as a political instrument to control the masses.
The human brain has problems handling abstract ideas like infinity, or extra dimensions. Also the idea of being completely alone is not acceptable. Therefore it creates an entity to fill up the gaps.
As the brain also constantly is making connections between random events to analyze and find patterns, it has a strong need to find purposes for anything. This also applies for itself, hence the question arises “why am I” and a answer has to be found. Religion fills this gap.
It all comes down to the ongoing evolutionary process of the formation of our brains. Our primary brains need religion, therefore it exists.
Religion is the practice of a series of proscribed rituals and incantations designed to allow humans to experience the divine and impose an artificial order on what is actually a chaotic universe.
Religion, for individuals, is an attempt to make sense of what we really cannot make sense of.
Religion, for those in power, is a means of directing those without it.
Religion is an invention of man to explain the cause behind effects that had no other explanation at the time. If you can figure out the cause, then there’s some hope of changing it to alter the outcomes, even if it means appeasing some god.
Religion is a transference of the child-parent relation, a desirable extension of the times when all is provided by parents, and who can be both angered and pleased by the child’s behavior, and who in turn tend to either punish and reward the child. Thus, a religious person strives to please and not anger God (so as to be rewarded rather than punished), and ascribes all creation and providing (of both ill and well) to God.
However, while parents manifestly do exist, they are not the omnipotent beings the child once thought them to be. Whence it is “only reasonable” to transfer the previous foundation of one’s Worldview to a being whose existence is necessitated by the very Worldview. In many religious families, this transference is coached from the beginning of the child’s life. Conflated with this is the induction of the belief that “everything must have a purpose,” which later serves to defer the ultimate purpose to God’s will, which itself is declared unfathomable—much as the reasons for the parent’s decisions are essentially unfathomable to the child.
Religion si waht happens when men tokk the teachings of a master and make a system to preserve them… unfortunately men´s consciousnes produce a degradation of that pure flame and love of a Master… and becomes rather than a source of love and inspiration, a rigid frame of laws that become more a cage for the soul, than a shrine to the path…
Religion is man’s first attempt at philosophy and first attempt at science. Now that we have both it is a museum exhibit.
Religion is a system of doctrines, dogmas, creeds, and rituals, usually relating to a supernatural belief of some sort.
Religion is humanities collective memory. Stories and myths tying to explain what we have no way of knowing. Over time these myths get codeifed and institutionalized until the institutions become more important than the stories they tell.
Religion offers an explanation of where we came from and where we are going. As human knowledge has increased religion’s explanation has become less plausible. Most have abandoned the ideas of the sun or stars being God, yet it is difficult for most to think that we just ARE, and when we die we just end. Very few people believe in their religion based on independent adult research. They learned about God from parents or others they trust, so it is just something they learned. My position is that EVERYTHING we know, we Learned. Many of the “facts” we learned, often turn out under careful examination, to be just another opinion.
Religion, in its simplest form, is a quest for understanding the concepts of “being”. That is to say, who we are and what we are. This encompasses all that is around us and how we relate to it. Hence the need for a higher being that can’t be defined.
All religions, so far as I know, are links in a chain which connects heaven and earth, and which is held, and always was held, by one and the same hand.
What is religion? Two things: one, a simple source of comfort against the terror of chaos and unanswerable questions; and two, a simple tool for manipulating money and power.
Religion is fairy tales made up to explain the things people could not explain. We can explain them now.
Fundamentalist religions are dangerous and they are not being held in check by the moderate branches of their respective sects.
A useful tool for organizing societies and communities early in our social evolution, and a means of explanation for that which had no answer.
The extent that it still holds is a reflection on how far we have yet to go. This is not surprising given that that even if you go back to Issac Newton’s time, this is a drop in the bucket of the overall span of human history. In other words, it wasn’t all that long ago that we began to get some idea of how to think rationally and make sensible observations about the universe, so it’s not so surprising that a tendency towards religious belief still holds.
But like any other evolved characteristic, it can reach a point where it is no longer useful. Beyond that, it can also reach a point where it is a hindrance to further growth. One needs look only at the effects of religious extremism in modern times to see that this is already happening.
Religion is something that I hope humanity survives long enough to outgrow.
The approach through its application to succeed in the test … And the test here is the life
Religion is sometimes a necessity for some people to make sense of life. It’s helpful for people to explain those things outside of their control; it makes life more bearable. Hopefully we will be OK one day with our spirituality and not trying to convert people who don’t believe like I do.
Brushing your teeth every morning is a religion! It’s meaning is a ritual.
A spiritual religion is a soul searching for it’s true self; finding it in each other in a community through whatever experience they come in contact with. This often has to do with one’s environment/country/culture; all part of the life purpose which is experience. Religion is a vague understanding that we are part of something much greater than we perceive ourselves to be.
Coercion.
Religion is the practice of a series of proscribed rituals and incantations designed to allow humans to experience the divine. Mostly they are worthless. They fall far short of their design. These attempts to reach God do not work.
Religion is dirty, man made business, with superstitious people.
Religion (if I understand what you mean by the term) is one of the ways humans cope with the inescapable fact that we are going to die.
Religion as a concept is a result of the first most primitive human species having the capacity of abstract and critical thinking, but no knowledge base upon which to describe the events they observed in their lives. Thus, the concept of spirits was born. At its most basic level, this idea is merely an expression of “Just because”. When they didn’t know the cause or circumstances of an event, then the spirits did it. Also, with our budding self-awareness came the capacity to contemplate the potential possibilities of what might be true when our lives end, which is well known to be a terrifying concept to most even now. And so we grew to have spirits of our own, and all these concepts changed and merged and split and so on over hundreds of thousands of years.
At one point though, religion became a matter of control, once certain individuals began to claim favor with the spirits, and utilizing what people believed as a means to ensure their compliance. While for a long time many such individuals genuinely believed what they taught to their peoples, their were just as many if not more who used it simply to get what they wanted.
In modern times little has changed but the beliefs themselves. Religion still either answers questions to things we currently do not understand, and/or it is abused to control masses of people to questionable ends. The unfortunate reality is that it is mostly about control now, as most of the answers that most religions offer are demonstrably false through scientific experimentation. I don’t think that leaves no room for a sense of spirituality though, nor a means of organizing many of similar beliefs for support and discussion in their respective searches.
I think now that we’ve reached a point where religion is no longer suited to providing answers, because science has long surpassed it. But perhaps spiritual religion can now become the means by which we learn what questions to ask in the first place.
Religion is simply the stories we tell ourselves to reduce our fear of the darkness.
Rather than religion, I would like to see people embrace community and the lights of science and reason to overcome the dark.
For someone who is thankful at having been spared childhood indoctrination, religion is an alien creed dragged forth from antiquity. Something dreamed up by pre-scientific men who had no knowledge of bacteria. People listened to stories told about creator deities (whose names change according to geographic separation and the passage of time) who didn’t know the shape of the world they had created.
Religion is a mechanism of control. It has evolved and flourished as a mechanism of survival and hope throughout history. It served it’s purpose for our early ancestors, who had not developed the sophisticated scientific knowledge we have today.
In our current world, religion serves as a social and political tool for the manipulation of human consciousness. It suppresses the undeniable facts revealed to us by scientific exploration. As an intellectual prison it binds the minds of humanity, leading us to a species holocaust. We have not learned from the past. It seems we are doomed to repeat the past.
First, it is necessary to distinguish between churches and religion. Churches in the west care more about the survival of the church than they do about the spiritual growth of the indidivual. I think that most teach obediance rather than growth, and they deserve there criticisms.
Religion is different. It is the relinking of the individual to the whole thing. It is the relationship between the individual and the immanent and transendent universe. It is more than one’s understanding, more than your image of reality. It is the relationship.
A structure of beliefs pertaining to the nature and existence of god and all creation.
Religion is a belief system generated by primitive people to explain what they do not understand. It gives them false hope of existance after death.
A religion is any belief system that makes a supernatural claim and then attempts to convince others that their claim is true without a single shred of evidence to support it.
improper understanding of the reality is religion.
That’s what the dictionary is for.
It’s the one topic that we told ourselves we would not bring up at our family Thanksgiving dinner party, again.
Seriously, it’s a collective, cultural idea that their is a God and he wants something from us. Religion then is having a conversation with ourselves and among ourselves about what it might be…
…Oh, and for those who are saying it’s to control the masses. Police & soldiers with guns are my best candidates. If it were so the clergy would be far more feared than the Pastors & Priests of today.
Religion is a prehistoric ancestor to philosophy. In the same way that there was astrology before a proper science of astronomy existed. And how there existed alchemy before chemistry was organized.
It was mankind’s first attempt to explain the frightening and confusing world around the.
Religion is hard-wired adaptive mechanisms in our brain which we must either deactivate or adapt if we are to survive. What once aided in our survival is now an impediment to it.
The meaning of religion is to re-align with our spiritual nature. Sadly most religions fail at assisting the individual with spiritual self awareness and growth. Most if not all of the worlds major organized religions have become institutions that limit growth and development of the spiritual self.
Religions are popular with so many people because there is a deep hunger for life’s answers and like sheep its a habit to follow others without real self examination. On the positive side religion has keep mankind from complete destructive behavior. On the other hand religion often leads to prejudice, violence and dogmatic rituals. Religion at it’s best can help to hold societies together and promote good will but, often religions fail miserably and tear societies apart.
Religion will continue to be necessary for most people until the human race can develop beyond its present irrational emotional condition. We can only be free from religion as we now know it until a critical mass of humanity can take full responsibility for our actions.
a delusion that makes life better (supposedly) for some people. a relusion