From: keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: The origin of Religion
Date: 5 Nov 1992 00:11:06 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
NNTP-Posting-Host: punisher.caltech.edu

ednclark@kraken.itc.gu.edu.au (Jeffrey Clark) writes:

>michalek@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Libor Michalek) writes:

>>ikonen@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Ian Konen) writes:

>>>I was thinking about this last night, and since I don't think it's been
>>>discussed here, I figured I'd start a new thread.

>>>    How reasonable is it to expect a person with almost no scientific knowledge
>>>to spontaneosly come up with the concept of god(s)?  Specifically the person in
>>>mind is the original person or people who first came up with religion.  Most

>>I think that religion stems from the fear of the unknown which exsists in all
>>men in some degree. It's not too difficult to believe that primitive man
>>was subject to the same fears of what happens after death. Also many things

I think that religion began because of man's inability to control the
environment.  This becomes especially clear if you examine the early
religions.  Most of the gods take forms from nature--the sun, moon,
animals, etc.  Later gods were more sophisticated, representing some
profession or act that was considered important--gods of music, the
harvest, etc.  The modern religions are removed even further.  Now the
gods represent some abstract concept.  However, they still have material
powers.  The most advanced religions, though, entail an entity that is
vague at best.  A force or power that may even be within each of us.

>>that we take the knoledge of forgranted until recently were considered magic
>>by most people ( like your example of lightning ). I'd imagine that back at
>>the dawn of man there were many things that he did not understand so he
>>invented explanations for them, explanations that he could understand. Man
>>has a natural curiousity and we all know how anoying it can be when we do
>>not understand something ( unlike the xians some of use deal with it better )

That's right.  He didn't understand nature, so he explained the it best
he could.  Most anything that is not explainable by the current level
of science may be considered magic.

>> I personally believe that since religion began there have been atheists
>>people who didn't take the easy explanation for strange occurences and 
>>went out and discovered how things worked( personally I feel these are the
>>people that have kept the human race around ). 

Yes, probably many of the Greek philosophers and such were atheists.  This
is evident merely by glancing at some of their writings.  "Homer" even
was probably an atheist.

>> A second reason that I have always thought possible is that someone in the
>>past long before Jesus decided that he could control his fellow man if he
>>could explain things they did not understand. by using thier fears against
>>them he could easily become powerful by telling them things such as if you
>>do not follow Gods rules( which were actualy his ) you will be in misery
>>for eternity but if you do what I say you will be happy once you die even
>>if your not happy now. This way no one could ever say he was wrong because
>>he could not be disproven. Its been suggested that this is how Christianity
>>came to be and that the deciples were the master minds of the bible( this
>>may explain why the church in the first 1400 years destroyed so many writings
>>about who knows what Maybe the dead sea scrolls are some how tied into
>>this( I don't know enough about them except that since the 50's very few
>>people have been allowed to see them. I wonder why ). 

Well, it is possible that the disciples were con-men.  I don't think though
that the church destroyed papers that would reveal this.  By the time
the churches were organized, those involved truely believed.

>> A third reason religion, this one is the biggest strech of the imagination.
>>occured is contact by early man with alien life forms. When man sam the
>>technology of the aliens( or time travelers ) he could only explain it by
>>putting these aliens on a level far above himself and assuming that they
>>were the ones who created man. Maybe this would explain why heaven in so
>>many religions is considered to be the sky. 

Have you read the Erich van Danikken books?  He ties almost every religious
event (from all cultures) in the past to some sort of extraterrestrial
phenomenon.

It is all very intersting.  One alien encounter (with primative man)
could easily foster a religion that would last thousands of years.
Basically, such an encounter would totally alter a civilization.  I
would hope, though, that any aliens would be wise enough to avoid this.
I guess if they screwed up just once, though, the effects would be felt
for a very long time (even today).  If a religion has a strong
starting point, the psychology of the whole thing will permit the
religion to thrive long after people have forgotten about the original
encounter.

>>  Personally I believe in the second theory and have lately been exploring
>>the possibility of christianity begining this way any input( positive or
>>negative ) on this theory would be appreciated.

>How about this as a theory for the origin of Christianity:

>	The Pharisees, whom were the dominant Jewish religious force and
>held quite some political sway in Ancient Roman times, felt mightily
>constrained by the Roman dominance of their constituency.  Their culture was
>far older than the upstarts from Rome and they felt that power rightfully
>belonged to them. Besides there was the questions of taxes and slavery and
>Roman justice (and myriads of other Roman evils which I'm sure your average
>historian could fill you in, whilst also telling you of the benefits that
>Rome had brought Judea). So here's the plan. Let us find some bloke who
>beleived he was our foretold messiah but was harrassed by the Romans (there
>were plenty to choose from, many of which the Pharisees themselves had
>instigated in the removal of).  Make it a little while ago so that people's
>memories of such a dude was beginning to fail.

>	Then we'll imbue this guy with the honour of the son of God (I mean
>most of these whackos claim it anyway) and we'll back this claim with some
>miracles. But, most of all we'll say that one of us, how about you, Paul,
>actually travelled with him and recorded his godly words on how to live
>life and is now in charge of spreading the words so to speak.  We'll find
>some of the other blokes that travelled with him and write some books in
>their names that corroborate with what Paul has to say he did (this might be
>tough for some to swallow as most of the followers of these guys are
>illiterate. Bah, the flock aren't that smart!). So, basically we'll set up a
>church for infidels, including Romans, not just Jews, which we control
>through Paul, here. If we play our cards right, and use the mind-bending
>wisdom of our predecessors eventually we'll overthrow the mighty Roman
>Empire by establishing a church in Rome itself.

Well, I have often wondered if John wasn't behind the whole thing.  OF
course, Jesus would have to be in on it too, but I think John may have
been the kingpen.  Jesus was apparently a bastard child of some Roman
legion.  What better person to use as the son of a virgin (which was
predicted by many prophecies, and is present in other mythologies--
just think of Perseus... Zeus came in a shower of gold, etc.).
 
I wonder though if Jesus actually thought that he was the son of God.

It is pretty obvious that there was a person named Jesus that was
executed.  This is recorded in Roman history, I believe.  He probably
was causing some unrest, and was killed as a traitor, probably.

>	Hmmm, who's a good prospect for the true messiah?
>	Well, that's what they did. (By the way for the thickhead fundies
>who haven't been following this: they chose some bloke called Jesus
>of Nazareth). The whole enterprise was enormously successful (though a little
>slow) even though thousands of Jews were killed in multiple uprisings no
>doubt instigated by the Jewish churches' plans B and C. Eventually Emperor
>Constantine (was it the 4th century) declared the Roman Empire was Christian
>(or so the story goes, remember many of the records we use in history have
>been recovered from the doctoring hands of Benedictine monks, whose
>remarkable copies may not have been quite as accurate as photocopies,
>especially in translation from Hebrew and Ancient Greek and Latin). Paul, I
>think everyone would agree is one out of the box. The Christian church owes
>more of it's solid establishment to him than to anybody else (even Jesus).

I have heard that only one of the 4 NT books are original, and that the
other three were written based on the first one.  All of them
were written at least some fifty years after the execution.

>So what do you think? Probably someone else has come up with this conspiracy
>theory of the origin of Christianity before, I've just never read anything
>about it. I bet you most religions have been started for some political need
>somewhere (eg to be able to get rid of an infertile Queen - Anglican church,
>to leapfrog the church heirarchy - Martin Luther, to reestablish the caste
>system - Buddhism, I bow to the superior knowledge about these subjects of
>others).

I would find it hard to believe that a large group of people were behin
a conspiracy.  It is more likely that a handful were.  A few staged
miracles later, you have many people convinced that you are who you 
say.  Besides, they were oppressed by the Romans and were just looking
for a saviour.  Unfortunately, the Romans caught wind of the uprising, and
executed the leader.  Of course, now there was a martyr, and we all know
how powerful the memory of someone can be, especially when there was
no modern communication.  Tales get quickly exaggerated over a few
generations.

keith
d