• Philosophy and Spirituality
    Welcome Guest
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
    Threads of Note Socialize
  • P&S Moderators: JackARoe | Cheshire_Kat

Did society create Religion

doctorcodone

doctorcodone

Bluelighter
Joined
Dec 26, 2015
Messages
50
I've been doing some thinking, I came to the conclusion that society set up religion. Religion has been around since the dawn of humanity and it ALMOST always had a set of rules you must follow to get here or to not be there. I feel like the past and current societies have create religion to control the masses. My though process is, When people were contemplating doing something they would think, "if I do this, will I face consequences". Many would say yes. But the major fear factor was spiritual consequence.
Even a few 100 years ago if you practiced homosexuality you were going to "hell". Obviously now we know you cannot control whether you are gay or not. If it wasn't for religion manys peoples actions would likely change. Anyone have any thoughts on this??
 
Last edited:
Good question. A very brief initial retort; by what other means would religion be created? I don't believe religions have ever had divine origin, so it has always been human societies creating it.

doctorcodone said:
I've been doing some thinking, I came to the conclusion that society set up religion. Religion has been around since the dawn of humanity and it ALMOST always had a set of rules you must follow to get here or to not be there. I feel like the past and current societies have create religion to control the masses.
Click to expand...

I agree in part; I think the reasons for the creation of religion are/were twofold. Firstly, I think religion was created as a way to create commonality between strangers. Bioloigcally, we are not disposed to assist or even tolerate strangers. And yet, the vast majoirty of us are forever strangers to one another. This did not matter when we lived in smaller tribal bands, comprised largely of extended family, but became valid when civilisation got larger, more complex. There need be no reason given to protect a member of ones family, but there needs to be something to inspire us to help/tolerate complete strangers. Shared 'important' beliefs would help. Which is why with the decline in religion in the west over the last 200 years we have seen the rise nationalism, patriotism, etc. Humans are uniquely able to not only believe in things for which there is no objective "reality" (like god/money) but to fight for and die trying to further them.

The second reason relates to moral control. Humans often have vastly different values to each other, so much that this suggests that there really isn't an objective morality. If there is no objective right/wrong, how to prevent chaos? There is no reason to believe a supernatural entity would care about the motivations for our actions, and yet most religions posit that this is so. Linking a culture-specific moral code with the 'objectivity' of a supernatural decree makes that moral code universal/absolute. Society becomes 'predictable' if we can determine what behaviours people won't engage in; it eliminates a variable. Of course, we see that religion has been unable to eliminate much of what it proscribes. Human nature will always win.

And yes, I think religion exploits that innate sense of awe we have when confounded by nature, a sense that I call spirituality. It seems that we really evolved this potential to see things as being greater then ourselves, and evidence of the might and mystery of existence. Its a beautiful part of being human, our sense of wonder and our awareness of our own insignificance. Its frightening and liberating.

My though process is, When people where contemplating doing something they would think, "if I do this, will I face consequences". Many would say yes. But the major fear factor was spiritual consequence.
Even a few 100 years ago if you practices homosexuality you were going to "hell". Obviously now we know you cannot control whether you are gay or not. If it wasn't for religion manys people's would likely change. Anyone have any thoughts on this?
Click to expand...

I think this speaks to our innate binary response to punishment and reward. An understanding of that is hardwired into us. That certain behaviours or actions elicit affirmation, others total rejection. Perhaps religion is exploiting this too?

I am pretty against religion and don't see much use for them anymore. I still appreciate (deeply) that sense of spirituality, unfetterred so to speak. :)
 
I don't believe all religions were created with the intention of controlling the masses, that to me is a side effect of having any kind of hierarchy or organized grouping of human beings.. it doesn't matter how noble the original group, eventually one person will turn or a corrupt individual will join and rise to the top. Once that happens its not long before the group itself begins to function on that level. But to say religions exist to control the masses, well, they may have that essence in the modern era.. but one can only assume it has always been like that. Maybe it wasn't?

Personally I don't subscribe to the idea it was always about control. I think there is real psychological guidance, an accurate morality for human living on an individual and group level, buried within most religions deep at their core, which is what the original kernel was that started all of them.

Like the shamans in the jungle, originally there was some connection to psychology and/or spirituality for the individual and the tribe. Somewhere along the way things got muddled. That's my take on the whole thing anyway.
 
^The problem with that is that most religious explanations for the inexplicable raise a whole host of new inexplicabilities.
 
To me religion is a set of beliefs and morals. I don't follow any religion but do believe there may be something greater.

I'll prompt and greater question, since it seems to be going this route. Why was religion created, And how has society impacted it?
 
doctorcodone said:
To me religion is a set of beliefs and morals.
Click to expand...
a set of beliefs and morals held by people? and people, collectively, are? society, right?

i guess i am having difficulty understanding what the alternative to "religion created by society" looks like. if religion was not created by society, how was it created?

alasdair
 
Not how was it created but why. I understand society create it. But what was there motive.
 
Religions and spiritual movements, were likely not directly created by states or societies in most cases. But those that hold authority or desire to do so are almost always trying to have a formative role in spiritual movements both established ones and new movements.

If your desire is to curb fornication for whatever reason anti-fornication Gods and cults opposed to fornication likely seem positive. If you own slaves movements that call slavery slavery immoral and evil are likely going to be opposed by you.

Society is a little too general. Clans, cliques, and individuals tolerate, oppose, join, or ally themselves with various new movements, "spiritual" or otherwise based mostly on their own interests. Sometimes their might be a conversion where someone gives up their old interests for a new set of values. Usually that isn't the primary thing going on though.
 
Last edited:
Religion was, and is, an attempt to codify and formalize practices that are deemed to work for strengthening divine connection and providence in one's life. I believe that, at their core, religions are still earnestly trying to do this because you can find practitioners in every faith who understand this purpose and are carrying it out. People love to criticize the dark side of everything. Most of these people have only taken a cursory look at religion without even attempting any of the practices. Even reading about a practice is completely different from actually attempting the practice, and letting its processes affect your consciousness. Yes, religion has its corruptions, but it has its virtues too. There are many good people in the world on the spiritual path. Religions are road maps for many.

To some extent, religions are also an attempt to document realization and epiphany as espoused by certain humans who achieved a high degree of attainment and attempted to transmit it to followers. The practices then became non-individuated, then they became tradition and culture, and then they became dogma. Nonetheless there is a seed of truth in every faith system, but you almost have to find it in yourself first before you can recognize it universally.
 
My family is Jewish and at a young age I started going to herbrew school, I am even bar mitzvahed. and I can understand how religion has postative aspects and they shouldn't be ignored. at age 17 I started to stray away from religion mostly due to my psychedelic use, and it opened my mind to new ideas, I questions wether religion was right or wrong. Religion defienlty isn't all right or wrong, it's helped many people but it also has create more closed minded individuals.
 
Religion is an intelligent design key. It moves people to create a playable universe instead of forming like natural life. Imagine this scenario:

1) You become advanced enough in science to create virtual realities and put natural-like physical shapes in them.
2) You want to create "perfect playable lives".
3) What you find when you create universes with life in them and make the life think it is real, they go on a separate path then you want them to go on (they don't build the cities you want, they don't build the governments you want, they don't make the video games you want, they don't make the TV shows you want, they don't build the ski resorts you want, etc. etc. etc)
4) This leads you to final step, create knowledgeable interactions with the people inside of the universe to put them into the proper positions to adjust the outcome of events to create the perfect playable character scenario.

This is what religion is actually for. Religion is not the only key, different forms of government can be used, different forms of economy, secret societies, divine inspiration through several differing methods like drugs, other art, war etc. All of it is to create the perfect playable scenario for this universe's playable character.
 
^What is a "playable universe"?

If you think the universe is a simulation or video-game, I don't understand to what you refer when you say "natural". Do you think there exists a true physical universe behind all of this?
 
The idea is that without religion and secret societies and preset governments guiding the people into proper places, they would more quickly become aware of themselves as life and assume that they could be a natural phenomenon. This would lead them along the path of trying to solve science quicker instead of building the target "intelligent design" planet. Like without religion life would assume it was natural.
 
MajorBong said:
The idea is that without religion and secret societies and preset governments guiding the people into proper places, they would more quickly become aware of themselves as life and assume that they could be a natural phenomenon. This would lead them along the path of trying to solve science quicker instead of building the target "intelligent design" planet. Like without religion life would assume it was natural.
Click to expand...

Totally impenetrable and meaningless and you didn't even try to answer my questions. You are omitting a lot here and seem to assume that your audience knows all the pre-existing concepts that you freely refer to. I certainly don't.

If you are high/tripping right now, maybe take a break from Bluelight. :)
 
willow11 said:
Totally impenetrable and meaningless and you didn't even try to answer my questions. You are omitting a lot here and seem to assume that your audience knows all the pre-existing concepts that you freely refer to. I certainly don't.

If you are high/tripping right now, maybe take a break from Bluelight. :)
Click to expand...

I'm definitely not high >_>

Let me explain it a different way: God wants to build a universe for a specific purpose and needs the people in the right locations doing the right things. How does God get the people in the right jobs? How does God get the people in the right buildings? How does God get the people in the right social groups?

You must use certain social engineering tactics to get the people into the right places so you don't have to invade their normal thought patterns, because a good intelligent design keeps all bodies as "life-like". Religions and governments are tactics that you can use to get the right people in the right places so that the life builds a proper "intelligent design".

I thought I was explaining it pretty simple.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top