Was religion created to meet a human need?

[ElieG12]

"Religion" is the same as "form of worship." It is connected to the recognition of God, and formed by a set of intrinsic beliefs and practices.

From my point of view, religion existed since the creation of Adam, because he already had a direct relationship with his Creator, because he spoke with Him, and he had to obey his command as a son obeys his father.

When Jehovah called Abraham to make him the ancestor of a nation, He gave him orders such as leaving his homeland, wandering into foreign territory, circumcising all the males in his family, etc. Abraham offered animal sacrifices to Jehovah as part of his worship to Him. He taught his descendants about the true God, as Isaac his son and Jacob his grandson continued to worship and serve Jehovah following the tradition inherited from their ancestor.

As the people of Israel grew, they continued to worship Jehovah and offer animal sacrifices to him. They had different moral standards from the rest of the world and they took them seriously, as shown by the way Joseph acted when faced with the provocations of his Egyptian master's wife. After the Israelites left Egypt with Jehovah's help, their form of worship was formalized through a set of written laws.

So, no, religion is not an original human invention, but the form to relate of men with God, the true One, or otherwise, their other gods.

 

[Jack]

"Religion" is the same as "form of worship." It is connected to the recognition of God, and formed by a set of intrinsic beliefs and practices.

From my point of view, religion existed since the creation of Adam, because he already had a direct relationship with his Creator, because he spoke with Him, and he had to obey his command as a son obeys his father.

When Jehovah called Abraham to make him the ancestor of a nation, He gave him orders such as leaving his homeland, wandering into foreign territory, circumcising all the males in his family, etc. Abraham offered animal sacrifices to Jehovah as part of his worship to Him. He taught his descendants about the true God, as Isaac his son and Jacob his grandson continued to worship and serve Jehovah following the tradition inherited from their ancestor.

As the people of Israel grew, they continued to worship Jehovah and offer animal sacrifices to him. They had different moral standards from the rest of the world and they took them seriously, as shown by the way Joseph acted when faced with the provocations of his Egyptian master's wife. After the Israelites left Egypt with Jehovah's help, their form of worship was formalized through a set of written laws.

So, no, religion is not an original human invention, but the form to relate of men with God, the true One, or otherwise, their other gods.

Jehovah / Jesus, the Same!

 

[Starise]

In my opinion there is both religion to the true God and replacement religion which seeks to fill those gaps in different ways.

Jesus said true religion really boils down to two commandments. Love the Lord with all of your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.

 

[Chadrho]

- Is religion a response to an encounter with God?
- Was religion created to meet a human need?
- Or was religion an attempt to explain what we observed about our human predicament?

Let's discuss.

/ cc: @Chadrho

I'm going to offer a suggestion for his last query regarding the advantage of religion without the "bugs." Answer- pursuit of the good.

The options offered in the video, adaptation and memes (bugs within an advantageous, cultural framework) both assume the reduction of religious phenomena to something not-divinely related. Also, religion is a phenomena that occurs within an evolutionary framework that frames any explanation within that particular domain. Within that framework, pursuit of the good is a tacit assumption, and the good is whatever promotes survival of species.

If we allow for divinity as a feature of the explanation of religion within a loosened evolutionary framework, pursuit of the good has the same evolutionary function as well as a transcendent function.

If we allow for a more fundamentalist understanding of an explanation of religion, pursuit of the good is still a primary function of religion even if understood in strictly transcendent and individual terms.

So I think pursuit of the good is a primary candidate for an explanation for religion without bugs. I would also say individualism is a bug that needs to be removed. The pursuit of good must be for the whole, which entails the individual and upon which the individual depends. Other than that, it can be understood differently depending on one's framework of understanding and the assumptions one brings to the table. If we want to reduce to the simplest and most likely explanation, I think that's the starting point.

Now the question is in which direction do we reduce? The ancient tendency was to reduce up. The Good is an intelligent property identified with God so that the good we see and seek participates in the divine goodness. The modern tendency has been to reduce down. The good we see and seek is an evolutionary function within a material world sans divinity.

Both positions entail a metaphysical assumption regarding reality, and the historical conflict between these assumptions can't be resolved by any way of knowing to which we have access. In the video, his candid admiission that even the positions in the video cannot be resolved is rooted in the same problem. The short of it is this imo: metaphysical assumptions will be made, and those assumptions will create intractable disagreements because we cannot know enough to eliminate all metaphysical assumptions for the sake of one truth. This is why Hume thought books on metaphysics should be thrown in the fire. But he assumed we can do without such assumptions, which is not possible imo.

I generally reduce all of this to one problem: Is the good real? If our pursuit of good is a function of survival, that doesn't mean it's not also a transcendent feature of reality. One must assume it's not, which is a metaphysical assumption, to say it's only a function of survival. Science can never navigate this quandry since value judgments are outside its domain, e.g., Hume's is/ought distinction.

I assume the good, along with other transcendentals, is real. That is a metaphysical assumption on my part, but it is the most beautiful of the live options on the table. lol

 

[St. SteVen]

I generally reduce all of this to one problem: Is the good real? If our pursuit of good is a function of survival, that doesn't mean it's not also a transcendent feature of reality. One must assume it's not, which is a metaphysical assumption, to say it's only a function of survival. Science can never navigate this quandry since value judgments are outside its domain, e.g., Hume's is/ought distinction.

I assume the good, along with other transcendentals, is real. That is a metaphysical assumption on my part, but it is the most beautiful of the live options on the table. lol

Wow. Nice summary statement. That's a great way to look at it.
To what end is anything "good"?

/

 

[ElieG12]

The GOOD is not defined by ourselves according to our own personal interests... It is a concept that only our Creator Himself can define. Something that may seem necessary, sufficient or beneficial to us could be exactly the opposite. If we ask our God, He will tell us what is really best for us.

Atheists and false believers take God out of the equation of life; They are not interested in whether God (if he existed as a possibility for them at all) has anything to say about anything... They believe that humans are the ones who have to decide what concerns us. But that is not true: God is the only one who can give us the manual on how to function better, since He is the one who created us, and not us ourselves.

If we truly trust that God is wise and almighty, that He loves us and wants the best for us, we will seek his point of view on all things, so that every thing may go well for us.

I see a lot of people here telling others they should decide by themselves about what to believe and how to live... The only decision we can make is: Will we really take God into account or not?