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Hey, so I actually have a degree in anthropology! We don't exactly know why religion was created, but we can infer based on archaeological evidence that the earliest religions were actually animistic (the belief that everything in nature has a spirit/sentient consciousness), rather than actualized deities. These were not the organized religions of today. For me, I think that while some aspects were created to explain the unexplainable, the purpose was more of a respect thing for the environment we lived in, as well as a way to cope with things such as death. It also acted as a way to create a sort of social cohesion. Life back then was extremely hard, and we were nomadic for most of our history as a species. We only started settling down around in villages, and eventually cities, 12,000 years ago out of the roughly 300,000 years we have been around! Death was a very close threat for everyone, and so it's easy to see that religion functioned as a way to cope with that. Our first piece of evidence for religion isn't even human, but rather from our non-human Homo ancestors. At one archaeological site in Spain (Sima de los Huesos, part of the larger Atapuerca site), there is evidence of intentional burial, starting from around 530,000 years ago, with the youngest being from around 350,000 years ago. These were around 28 Homo heidelbergensis individuals (it's disputed whether or not they're a separate species from Neanderthals or just early Neanderthals), but some of the material culture present, namely a red quartzite handaxe, suggests there was some sort of ritual involved, with the handaxe being used as a grave good. This, as it stands, is our first archaeological example of potential religious beliefs. We have more examples from the paleolithic onward with grave goods (things left with the dead) serving as a marker of, at the very least, respect and care for the deceased, if not a belief in the afterlife. This started around 100,000 years ago, and this is something we see going forward in our more well-known civilizations (Egypt comes to mind, but also Viking/Medieval age Scandinavia, Ancient Greece, Ancient China, etc etc). Religion isn't necessarily just the beliefs, but also what you do with the beliefs in a practice sense. Religion, for much of our history, has acted as a way to bind people together. We are highly social creatures, and so having something that lets us gather as a community is incredibly important. Religion was just one way to do that, through social gatherings and rituals. I do think that organized religion like we see today, which is still pretty new all things considered, has kind of strayed from this original purpose. While it does still connect people, it is being used more and more to justify hate and greed. We will truly never know if there is a god, or multiple gods, or anything, but religion does stand to comfort and unite people which I think is its ultimate purpose whether that's a conscious decision or not. TLDR: Religion was created for many many things, and archaeological evidence shows some really fascinating insights into this part of our history as humans. Organized religion we see today sucks, but it still functions as a way to comfort and connect with each other at its core. It's just not doing that very well at all. Sorry for rambling, I'm very passionate about humans. I hope, at the very least, you learned something from this (and that it wasn't too dense of an, albeit short, read). |
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I think religionsas we know them are Man made, or at least on they're majority, but I do believe there's something bigger than us, like a god, but not like its written, we live in a MASSIVE universe, I think it would be uncommon for a "god" to be alive somewhere, ofc |
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thank you very much for your response! being an anthropologist seems so cool. and yeah, i see how religion also is used as a way to connect and comfort people. it can be wonderful if we used religion in a better way nowadays, not to spread hate. i think religion can be so beautiful, i especially love learning about the beliefs of ancient egyptians. i think my blog was a little too negative about religion, for i didnt go too deep into my actual thoughts on it. i do believe that religion can be a good way to connect people and to respect our mother nature. religion can be great. i personally just dont really like the modern religion, believing in a god and having to do what your bible tells you to do and that you cant do this cant do that. i think it does connect people but it also doesnt. it tells people that you should not support lgbt and that women shouldnt really have rights. im talking specifically about christianity right now as its the one i know the most about, ive read verses that basically say women should stay quiet and cant assume authority over a man. i just think this is a bad example of what religion should be. it should be about connecting people and that everyone is equal and all nature has a spirit and to respect everyone and everything. thank you very much for your response again, i appreciate your words. i hope i understood what you were saying and wasnt too vague with my response. im very bad at writing ill admit so i apologize if it sounds like a 3rd grader wrote this.
by evaland09; ; Report