I was always a History/philosophy buff. After forcefully being moved towards sciences to become an engineer, I still feel nostalgic about the discussions I used to have with the best teacher I ever had (Late Mr Surendranath). Here is a brief synopsis of what I understand/learned of the origins of religion, A touchy subject indeed... but worth the thoughts n time.
Culture is a way of life. Its a set of rules, a society formulates for itself to get by. Religion originated as an enforcement of culture. It was the shield of fear created around these rules.
Religion is just a belief thrust upon us by our ancestors to keep us in fear of god and hence socially abiding. In short Religion is the best marketing ploy anyone in the human history has ever dreamt of.
Taking Hinduism as an example, As Aryan civilization flourished, our ancestors had pretty good grasp on how to lead a fruitful life. They mastered pottery, cultivation etc.. that they borrowed from the Mesopotamian culture. They were pretty savvy with health studies.(they invented Yoga and surgery for heavens sake :O). What to do next? How to have everyone buy into these wonderful life principles?
Back in those times the favorite (Only) pastime was story telling. The village would gather and the elders would tell stories of legends. Most of them obviously were made up. The elders used this as an excuse to pass on their knowledge in an entertaining way. But obviously there would be skeptics and to convince them, they took the easiest way.
Its the equivalent of what you would do to a kid, when u tell him dont go into the backyard alone, he obviously will not listen. But if u tell him a ghost will grab you, he will wet his shorts at the thought of backyard. What would you do to a adult? You make him believe in a entity called god, make him supernatural and put the fear that if you dont follow the laid down principles he will unleash his wrath on u. Everybody followed suit.
Around 1000 BC Vedas were written and within a few hundred years, at the height of creativity Ramayana and Mahabharata, arguably the greatest literary works in human history were written. To convince people to f*ck just one person, be monogamous and to obey your parents, Ram was made a god. Everything a man could feel or touch was made godly. They used Nature to its full extent as their accomplice, making up stories like how "Gas" god just by looking can impregnate godly whore 'kunti'.
In Parallel events Homer wrote 'Elliot' and other European epics, which by the way are very similar to ours. If you are familiar most of the religions have similar praying practices. 'Sandhya vandanam' of hindus, 'Namaz' of muslims, 'Tefillah' of jews ; all are very similar and preferred to done 5 times a day.
Every-time I order at subway when I take the 9 -grain honey oat, It gets me thinking, In 1000 B.C, 3010 years ago to be exact, when they wrote Vedas, Aryans realised eating 9 grains is healthier. If you are familiar with anything related to Hindu mythology, at every auspicious occasion we do a 'nava dhanya' pooja, which is nothing but a reminder to eat all 9 whole grains. To put it in context this was 1000 years before a certain asshole christened himself as 'Son of God' and 1600 years before a "Cant take your name" MOFO called himself messiah of god.
So the intent was served, people bought into the life principles while being entertained with great story telling. But our good hearted ancestors didn't anticipate the emotional aspect of their progeny causing side effects:
1) Hope - Instead of accepting gods as role models to follow, humans rested their hopes in a blind belief that god will take care of them if they just pray and eat prasad. This left hard-work and reason out of the equation.
2) Greed - People started cashing on others belief, by creating their own versions of myths, superstitions and practices. Gods like Sai baba who washed his own intestines instead of simply crapping like a stupid normal human being, became popular.
Brahmins all through the old ages, to Politicians and Imams of today have repeatedly used religion to gain advantage.
Weakness of human mind paved way so that these two emotions added with the geography factor, left too many religions and rival gods. From the days of startup civilizations practicing voodoo to dark middle ages of sati and witchcraft, to this day of molesting church priests, religion has done more harm than good. Of course it helped in sustaining some of the best laid principles that have helped humans grow as societies. But it has caused so much bloodshed that if it continues, the very human existence it was created to support, is at risk.
Here's hoping that good sense will prevail and that cultures and traditions will be taken further with no strings attached, making religion and god an obsolete nightmare of past.
