Petrus
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Why do religions exist? I can only speculate, but I think there are a few different reasons.
The first is probably that communication (in pretty much any form) is very often imperfect. One of the central elements of most religions is that they have their sacred scriptures...their particular book or group of books, which their adherents believe describe more or less the nature of reality in general. There's the Bible, the Qu'ran, the Vedas/Gita and so on.
The thing to realise about all of these texts is that they were usually the product of what we now call channelling or spiritual inspiration, in the sense that a person was in contact with a spirit or group of spirits and attempted to record what was sent through to them. However, the material also had to get filtered through the author's mind, and Bruce can tell you how bad the Interpreter function of people's minds can be with such things.
Another major thing about all of these books is that the ones in the major religions are all very old, and have generally been translated into various different languages. These means that the channelled/inspired material got filtered through not only the original author's mind, but also the translator's minds as well.
Then even within each religion itself, you will have people who want to either interpret the scriptures in different ways, or they will often each think that certain parts of the writing are more important than the rest...this was typically why denominations were formed in Christianity, and why other religions can have sub-sects as well.
Another reason for religions existing is that human minds deal very poorly with novel (new) situations, and so many of us try to live as much of our lives as possible as a series of repetitive sequences of behaviour which can be executed without conscious thought. Another word for these sequences is a ritual.
The leaders of early religious groups noticed how much human beings find ritual comforting, and in order largely to become more popular, they decided to incorporate ritual elements into their church services. Another thing early religious leaders noticed was that people are often very insecure about whether or not they're accepted by God, and so by first inventing rituals and then claiming that the performance of them pleased God, they were able to fold two major ways of becoming more popular into a single activity.
Yet another reason why multiple religions exist is because we all have had different backgrounds and experiences, and filter/interpret information from the context of those experiences. Because of this, certain people would sieze on a certain scripture or piece of channeled information, interpret it in a certain way based on their own background, and then declare it the truth. Exclusivity, or the claim of something being the only truth was used primarily to enhance the feeling of importance within a particular group; it allowed both leaders and followers to believe that they knew something which nobody else did, and thus allowed them to feel very special.
Yet another reason is that historically, human beings have been averse to self-responsibility, and instead greatly prefer the idea of a teacher external to themselves (Jesus, Mohammed, or whoever) outlining exactly how reality is, and what each person's role is within said reality. A lot of human beings really love this, because it means they don't have to do any thinking or accept any responsibility themselves whatsoever; they can simply take a pre-arranged place in a group and live their entire lives like that, with a minimum of mental effort.
There are many other reasons, but these are probably the major ones.
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Why is there religions and are they right/wrong? (Read 4471 times)
