I wrote a rather enthused reply to the post above me, but it got swallowed up by the God of Internet, when I tried to hit the post button. :( Anyway, sorry about Tokyo, it's a city in Japan; my mistake. And I was just trying to make the leap of logic that faith and belief are two different things. With regards to sonikjuice's post, wealth is a significant factor in the level of contentment in an indiviual's life. Present times have more wealth, therefore, less of a need to pursue the historical reason for religion, which was a reaction to the discontentment and disparity evident then. There is also no need for a tribalistic unburdening of grievances, as culture and society has expanded to a much more advanced, enlightened state so as to not require vents that are as intricate and finely-weaved as religion.

You might argue that religion has a traditional basis, values passed on from generation to generation; if so, it is anomalous, having survived at least since Sumerian society, its longevity comparable to the wheel or writing. As with regards to developed brains being mostly aesthetic, compare Albert Einstein, who held a firm belief in God. I don't deny the validity of your view that if God existed only because he is believed in, then God is invalid; in fact a God like that would only be a God Of Convenience. The God Of The Easy Way Out. Which, tempting as it may be, is an impossibility.

It isn't the myth of God it's the myths of gods. All cultures don't beleive in one god. Many cultures believed in many god's that did not represent each other in other cultures.

Maybe if someone here was an anthropologist/theologist then maybe we could get some clearer perspective on this whole duscussion. I don't know why people believe in god even from a very ancient stand point, but by your logic, if people who believed in gods were correct, then there wouldn't be just one god, there would be literally thousands of gods. Every culture's religions would be correct. Their would be many gods of the harvest, of the rain, the sun, the earth, rocks, trees, everything would be represented by separate gods. I know that you believe in one God, the christian/jewish/muslim God Yahweh, but if all people who believed in god/gods were inspired by the divine then the heavens would be littered with many different gods. How come you dont belive in all those gods? Why do yuo rest your faith in just one? You have a veritable pick of the litter from which to choose yr deities.

religion is time consuming.

And to answer your question about how religion was passed along to other people, we have to remember at one point, many many thousands of years ago, humans lived in Africa and stayed together mostly. Religion could have spread through small groups of people through word of mnouth and by trading with other groups.

But really, we'll never know why people started believing in gods and goddesses. We can only examine the facts. And the facts just ain't there. We won't ever have any proof of the existance opf gods and we can only stay here on planet earth with our thumb's up our asses running around blind wondering "is there anybody out there"?

It suuuuure is. Too time consuming. If we spent less time thinking about the Rapture and divine will and focused more time on mending political and cultural differences between feuding nations and trying to fix the ozone and find new sources for clean burning fuels, we would all be a lot better off.

I say we kill this thread. It's lost it's appeal.

religion threads all together suck now.

Yes, they do. You can never really win an arguement when it comes to religious beliefs. It's a tiring bore.

goodness that's crayzy

in 4000.. will the world be around?

porbably

i say possibly.

I doubt it

perhaps that is a better word

none of us will ever know...

but thgeres many things i'd like to ask about 4000. like are humans still around (either evolved or gone altogether? what about animals?)

cockroaches will still be there. those silly bastards

i say the world will be around, but it will be either uninhabited, or humans will be long gone by then.

ugly motherfuckers. silverfish will die out though. (i hate silverfish)

"to find meaning in their lives."
why?
because one needs to feel they accomplished something, that life has a purpose.
why?
because one is afraid.
You make a point, sonikjuice, but you didn't (for whatever reason) carry it through to its logical extension. One can analyze just about anything under the sun, (& much like what I have written here) it will all come down to fear of death or denial of one's fear of death.

These are exactly the reasons why people should not become religious, & yet, yes, they are exactly the reason why people do become religious.

This is why religious people are nearly all hypocrites.
Organized religion deals in fear, not love.
To know love one has to let go of all personal attachments, even the nagging persistent attachment of one's own ego.
Prayer shouldn't be like a kid on Santa Claus' lap obeying the courtesy rituals of how to ask.
Proper worship is creativity & expression. Prayer is silent meditation & not some litany handed down by dogma that people perform by rote out of fear. Add to this that most people are imprinted with a denomination's religious dogma at an early age & that true belief must come through doubt and it should be clear why we are so very remotely far from the mark & seemingly so hopelessly lost.
Organized religion hasn't evolved to Christ-consciousness & never will & this is the basis of the whole point of Christ in the first place. A former minister himself, Soren Kierkegaard descibes all this much more eloquently in his edifying books from the nineteenth century like Attack Upon Christendom , Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing: The Good in Truth, and various other works.
Pastors may pound the pulpit with New Testament sermons but truly, in their own little pig-headed (like most of the people in this thread) lives, no one in the congregation (save the occasional chronic sufferer that may be in attendance), understands anything about what is being preached.