Was religion invented by man?

[PRmerger]

There are no atheists whom God does not wish exist.

True, dat.

 

[anon98328916]

Hi everyone. That’s not exactly the best title to describe my question but there’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I’ve been experiencing some doubts the past few weeks. How do we know religion isn’t something that was made up by primitive man to explain the world around him, or for comfort to escape the fear of death as many atheists claim? I guess this is similar to the old Karl Marx line, “Religion is the opiate of the people.” Can anyone help me with this? Prayers would be appreciated as well. Thank you!

Jesus was sent here on this earth 2,000 years ago to convert us. God knew what He was doing sending His Son to teach us the gospel of the kingdom and to lay the foundations of his church. The Catholic Church is the only church that Jesus founded all elements of truth are found only in Christ’s church.

 

[goout]

In a superficial sense, yes.

Speaking generally, religion (faith) entails a response to the unseen realities of life and the unanswered questions of life. So in that sense it is very human.

It is not purely invented by man. An invention would be peculiar to an individual. But this search for something outside one’s self is common to every person. Every person searches for truth, and love, for something outside the empricial that gives life meaning and purpose.

Every person wants to devote one’s self to what is seen to be true and trustworthy. Even the atheist has examined these questions and provided an answer. That is answer is a constant “no”, almost a self denial, but it is still a response and an answer. Dare we call it a belief?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Every person wants to devote one’s self to what is seen to be true and trustworthy. Even the atheist has examined these questions and provided an answer. That is answer is a constant “no”, almost a self denial, but it is still a response and an answer. Dare we call it a belief?

The atheist who demands proof for God never demands proof for Nogod.

So yes, atheism is a belief, and more “believing” than theism

 

[Bahman]

Hi everyone. That’s not exactly the best title to describe my question but there’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I’ve been experiencing some doubts the past few weeks. How do we know religion isn’t something that was made up by primitive man to explain the world around him, or for comfort to escape the fear of death as many atheists claim? I guess this is similar to the old Karl Marx line, “Religion is the opiate of the people.” Can anyone help me with this? Prayers would be appreciated as well. Thank you!

From my own experience I can tell you that there is a spiritual world. Beings in spiritual world are very powerful and can tempt, fool, misguide, etc, us. You can justify this by number of different religions around 4300. This strongly suggest that there is very unlikely that a person find a true religion considering the number of religions and considering the fact that you need to read all of the religions truly to find out that which one is the correct one!

 

[PRmerger]

In a superficial sense, yes.

Speaking generally, religion (faith) entails a response to the unseen realities of life and the unanswered questions of life. So in that sense it is very human.

It is not purely invented by man. An invention would be peculiar to an individual. But this search for something outside one’s self is common to every person. Every person searches for truth, and love, for something outside the empricial that gives life meaning and purpose.

Every person wants to devote one’s self to what is seen to be true and trustworthy. Even the atheist has examined these questions and provided an answer. That is answer is a constant “no”, almost a self denial, but it is still a response and an answer. Dare we call it a belief?

Indeed.

And Christianity is the only religion in which God Himself came down to create a relationship with us.

As Peter Kreeft says: There is no human way up the mountain. Only a divine way down!

 

[Bradski]

The atheist who demands proof for God…

…is an idiot.

 

[PumpkinCookie]

I have never actually engaged here, JK.

As I already told you: I don’t engage in discourse with the Holocaust deniers, the 6000 year old earthers, folks who think we didn’t land on the moon, and folks who align themselves with Starbrite Sparkles.

All of the previous posts have been merely for the lurkers to see the position that some have espoused in order to reject Christianity.

Aliens.

I’m not so sure this is fair.

Consider: most Christian religious interpretations of the events require that you believe a man died and came back to life, not spontaneously, but because he was/is God and God’s son. That’s pretty “out-there.” As an alternative explanation, extra-terrestrial beings re-animating the body as an experiment in human anthropology seems equally “out-there.” Another alternative, the idea that Jesus was in fact an extra-terrestrial who came to earth to teach us an ethic of universal benevolence, strikes me as no more or less questionable than the “incarnation.”

Why should you so brashly dismiss JK’s theory, when your theory is equally outlandish? Is it not equally outlandish? Why not?

 

[Cheiron]

I am convinced that religion was invented by man and I think that because almost every single religion I’ve come across is so incredibly local. God creates the entire world - and then concerns Himself only with some petty squables in the Middle-East. There is nothing about the Americas in scripture. Similarly, the Aztec gods did not reveal anything about Europe to their followers.

One of the most inculpative examples I know must be the Ramadan, one of the five pillars of Islam. The amount of daylight varies for each muslim, depending on his location on earth. That seems quite unfair. Also, the islamic god does not seem to realize that He created Northern Scandinavia, a place where the sun doesn’t go down in the summer. That would mean certain death for any muslim trying to follow Allah’s law in that region. A 6th century Arab who didn’t know the world was bigger than Arabia can be forgiven for this oversight; a god cannot.

‘Revelation’ not only seems to be tailored towards a particular region, but to a particular time as well. The most obvious example here is the Thora. Consider Exodus 21:

33 “If anyone uncovers a pit or digs one and fails to cover it and an ox or a donkey falls into it, 34 the one who opened the pit must pay the owner for the loss and take the dead animal in exchange.

35 “If anyone’s bull injures someone else’s bull and it dies, the two parties are to sell the live one and divide both the money and the dead animal equally. 36 However, if it was known that the bull had the habit of goring, yet the owner did not keep it penned up, the owner must pay, animal for animal, and take the dead animal in exchange.

And I could have quoted verse 28-32 as well, but that would take too much space. Almost all the rules in the Hebrew Bible concern themselves with life in an agrarian society. Equally strange is what God leaves out. He reveals nothing about vaccination or bacteria.

Thirdly and finally: God or the gods reveal themselves to a very select - dare I say chosen - few. Zeus, Hera, Apollo, Aphrodite did not reveal themselves to the people in Scandinavia. Thor, Odin, Loki did not reveal themselves to the Aztec. Quetzalcoatl was completely unknown in 6th century Arabia. There were no Marian apparitions in South America untill the conquistadores arrived with their priests.

The last pagan emperor of the Roman Empire, Julian (330-363 A.D.), complained in his book Against the Galileans:

But that from the beginning God cared only for the Jews and that He chose them out as his portion, has been clearly asserted not only by Moses and Jesus but by Paul as well;…] Therefore it is fair to ask of Paul why God, if he was not the God of the Jews only but also of the Gentiles, sent the blessed gift of prophecy to the Jews in abundance and gave them Moses and the oil of anointing, and the prophets and the law and the incredible and monstrous elements in their myths? …] And finally God sent unto them Jesus also, but unto us no prophet, no oil of anointing, no teacher, no herald to announce his love for man which should one day, though late, reach even unto us also. Nay he even looked on for myriads, or if you prefer, for thousands of years, while men in extreme ignorance served idols, as you call them, from where the sun rises to where he sets, yes and from North to South, save only that little tribe which less than two thousand years before had settled in one part of Palestine. For if he is the God of all of us alike, and the creator of all, why did he neglect us?

The title is a reference to John 7:52: “Out of Galilee ariseth no prophet.” His polemic is well worth reading. I think Julian is absolutely right. If God wanted Gentiles to be saved, why did He not send any prophets to us? To make it more personal: Why did I not get any divine revelation, similar to what st. Paul got?

In short: God shows Himself only in a particular place at a particular time to a particular people. He does so with a revelation that contains only the knowledge that those people could have known too. Nothing about bacteria, quantum mechanics, heliocentrism or the idea that owning another human being is a bad thing. The cherry on top is that the particular people God reveals Himself to consider themselves His favorite. I think the answer is staring us in the face: God did not create us in His image; humans created many gods in their own image.

 

[Lion_IRC]

Charlemagne III;14086913:

The atheist who demands proof for God…

…is an idiot.

That’s a pretty large group of folks you’re talking about Mr Bradski.
I don’t think its right to make such blanket generalizations.

…oh yeah, and I strongly disagree with your claim in this regard.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doubting_Thomas
*

“A doubting Thomas is a skeptic who refuses to believe without direct personal experience—a reference to the Apostle Thomas, who refused to believe that the resurrected Jesus had appeared to the ten other apostles, until he could see and feel the wounds received by Jesus on the cross.”

 

[Vouthon]

In a sense man did create religion. God implanted the seed of the religious principle in his heart, the desire for the transcendent but mankind formulated rituals, institutions, customs, art, architecture and writings around this original primordial instinct.

Of course, I believe that God then communicated with humanity through divine revelation but I think we can say that there was certainly an element of human artifice at the beginning.

 

[Vouthon]

If God wanted Gentiles to be saved, why did He not send any prophets to us? To make it more personal: Why did I not get any divine revelation, similar to what st. Paul got?

God’s revelation is universal in scope but communicated through diverse means. To the Jews he gave the Torah, the Mosaic Covenant and the Prophets. We are told in the Book of Acts by Peter that never did God leave Himself without a witness in every part of the world. From the very beginning, the Jews understood their election by God to have significant for the entirety of the human race. We find many verses among the Prophetic books that refer to the gathering of the Gentiles in Jerusalem to pay homage to the God of Abraham.

But the Church’s Sacred Tradition has recognised a “dispensation to the pagans” under the divine economy as well. To the Greeks, he spoke through philosophy and the Oracle of Delphi, not by means of a covenant.

"…Every quest of the human spirit for truth and goodness, and in the last analysis for God, is inspired by the Holy Spirit. The various religions arose precisely from this primordial human openness to God. At their origins we often find founders who, with the help of God’s Spirit, achieved a deeper religious experience. Handed on to others, this experience took form in the doctrines, rites and precepts of the various religions.

In every authentic religious experience, the most characteristic expression is prayer. Because of the human spirit’s constitutive openness to God’s action of urging it to self-transcendence, we can hold that “every authentic prayer is called forth by the Holy Spirit, who is mysteriously present in the heart of every person”. We experienced an eloquent manifestation of this truth at the World Day of Prayer for Peace on 27 October 1986 in Assisi, and on other similar occasions of great spiritual intensity.

1. The Holy Spirit is not only present in other religions through authentic expressions of prayer. “The Spirit’s presence and activity”, as I wrote in the Encyclical Letter Redemptoris missio, “affect not only individuals but also society and history, peoples, cultures and religions” (n. 28)…"

***- Pope St. John Paul II, General Audience Address, September 16, 1998, Vatican ***

So much so in fact that Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman could envisage a “dispensation of paganism” ordained by God:

"…We must confess, on the authority of the Bible itself, that all knowledge of religion is from God, and not only that which the Bible has transmitted to us. There never was a time when God had not spoken to man, and told him to a certain extent his duty. His injunctions to Noah, the common father of all mankind, is the first recorded fact of the sacred history after the deluge. **Accordingly, we are expressly told in the New Testament, that at no time He left Himself without witness in the world, and that in every nation He accepts those who fear and obey Him. It would seem, then, that there is something true and divinely revealed, in every religion all over the earth…

The word and the Sacraments are the characteristic of the elect people of God; but all men have had more or less the guidance of Tradition, in addition to those internal notions of right and wrong which the Spirit has put into the heart of each individual.**

This vague and uncertain family of religious truths, originally from God, but sojourning without the sanction of miracle, or a definite home, as pilgrims up and down the world, and discernible…may be called the Dispensation of Paganism, after the example of the learned Father [St. Clement of Alexandria] already quoted. And further, Scripture gives us reason to believe that the traditions, thus originally delivered to mankind at large, have been secretly reanimated and enforced by new communications from the unseen world…

Accordingly, there is nothing unreasonable in the notion, that there may have been heathen poets and sages, or sibyls again, in a certain extent divinely illuminated, and organs through whom religious and moral truth was conveyed to their countrymen…

These were based on the mystical or sacramental principle, and spoke of the various Economies or Dispensations of the Eternal. I understood these passages to mean that the exterior world, physical and historical, was but the manifestation to our senses of realities greater than itself…The Greek poets and sages were in a certain sense prophets; for “thoughts beyond their thought to those high bards were given.” There had been a directly divine dispensation granted to the Jews; but there had been in some sense a dispensation carried on in favour of the Gentiles…

The process of change had been slow; it had been done not rashly, but by rule and measure, at sundry times and in divers manners…As far as we know, there never was a time when…revelation was not a revelation continuous and systematic, with distinct representatives and an orderly succession…"

- Blessed John Henry Newman (circa. 1845-65), cardinal & theologian of the Catholic Church

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I am convinced that religion was invented by man and I think that because almost every single religion I’ve come across is so incredibly local.

Again, your logic fails you. You can’t seem to get the difference between invention and discovery.

Local religions do not mean that religion itself is invented, but only that local cultures are struggling to make sense of their common instinct that Divinity exists.

This is why some religions eventually collapse, because they recognize that a better religion will take their place. This is what happened when the Greeks and Romans went from the worship of false gods to the worship of the true God.

 

[Lion_IRC]

I am convinced that religion was invented by man and I think that because almost every single religion I’ve come across is so incredibly local…

I think you are staking too much on the nuances of local customs insofar as religion is concerned.

Of course Polynesian religion is likely to see divine providence manifested in the bounty of the sea and desert dwelling tribes might revere the gift of rain from their own local perception of divinity. And the forrest dwelling peoples might attach a spiritual significance to the trees.

But this localized diversity of theism in general takes nothing away from the overall ubiquitousness of religion throughout the world.

That is to say…religion itself is LOCAL to this small part of the galaxy we call Earth. The theism which underpins all religion is a common thread - despite the fact that it is a thread which may come in many ‘local’ colors.

And because theism is practically universal, whereas the opposite of theism is extraordinarily RARE, I think we have good reason to question whether its actually atheism which is the localised pocket which can be labelled an invented aberration.

 

[Cheiron]

God’s revelation is universal in scope but communicated through diverse means. To the Jews he gave the Torah, the Mosaic Covenant and the Prophets. We are told in the Book of Acts by Peter that never did God leave Himself without a witness in every part of the world. From the very beginning, the Jews understood their election by God to have significant for the entirety of the human race. We find many verses among the Prophetic books that refer to the gathering of the Gentiles in Jerusalem to pay homage to the God of Abraham.

But the Church’s Sacred Tradition has recognised a “dispensation to the pagans” under the divine economy as well. To the Greeks, he spoke through philosophy and the Oracle of Delphi, not by means of a covenant.

So much so in fact that Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman could envisage a “dispensation of paganism” ordained by God:

I am astonished by this line of reasoning. Because if all religions, including the polytheistic ones, are inspired by God, then He is quite clearly a liar and a deceiver, for every religion contradicts another - and not on the details. How many gods are there? God told some people there are many gods and He told other people there is just one. How does one get to heaven? God told the Norse pagans that they should die in battle in order to make it to Valhalla. How should one worship God? God told some to pray, others to sacrifice a goat or have their heart ripped out at the top of an Aztec temple.

Cardinal Newman is right that sibyls were supposedly divinely inspired. They themselves certainly thought so. But they also thought their inspiration came from one of the many Greek gods, for example Apollo at the oracle of Delphi. And this argument goes both ways ofcourse. What if the Sibyls of Delphi were right and the religious experiences of cardinal Newman were influenced by Apollo?

Also, are extraction of the heart and death in battle still valid paths to heaven or have they been outranked by salvation through Jesus Christ? If so, on whose authority? Certainly not God’s authority, because He Himself revealed those other paths, according to the cardinal. And that is the central problem. Cardinal Newman can’t say those pagans were inspired by God as well and completely ignore the consequences of that inspiration. Once he started saying that other religions are inspired by God as well, how can he then believe that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life? This is bordering on omnism.

Again, your logic fails you. You can’t seem to get the difference between invention and discovery.

Local religions do not mean that religion itself is invented, but only that local cultures are struggling to make sense of their common instinct that Divinity exists.

This is why some religions eventually collapse, because they recognize that a better religion will take their place. This is what happened when the Greeks and Romans went from the worship of false gods to the worship of the true God.

I don’t believe there is such a common instinct. We now live in an era with religious freedom in the West and church attendance is going rapidly downhill. There seem to be a lot of people who have no such instinct. I am among them. Christianity is now on the verge of collapse in North and Western Europe and there is no religion replacing it. There doesn’t seem to be some kind of instinct to religion.

I think you are staking too much on the nuances of local customs insofar as religion is concerned.

Of course Polynesian religion is likely to see divine providence manifested in the bounty of the sea and desert dwelling tribes might revere the gift of rain from their own local perception of divinity. And the forrest dwelling peoples might attach a spiritual significance to the trees.

But this localized diversity of theism in general takes nothing away from the overall ubiquitousness of religion throughout the world.

That is to say…religion itself is LOCAL to this small part of the galaxy we call Earth. The theism which underpins all religion is a common thread - despite the fact that it is a thread which may come in many ‘local’ colors.

And because theism is practically universal, whereas the opposite of theism is extraordinarily RARE, I think we have good reason to question whether its actually atheism which is the localised pocket which can be labelled an invented aberration.

For a long time, you simply couldn’t be an atheist in public or you were faced with punishment and exclusion. Secondly, the fact that many people across the globe have some sort of religious experience, doesn’t erase the obvious contradictions between religions and revelation. It also doesn’t exlude the possibility that they all are mistaken. Which, given the limitations of God in various scriptures (like divine revelation not being more knowledgable than what was known at the time) seems most likely.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I don’t believe there is such a common instinct. We now live in an era with religious freedom in the West and church attendance is going rapidly downhill. QUOTE]

Not to believe in a common instinct toward the supernatural is not to believe in the history of religions, which are found everywhere in all times.

Atheism is not instinctual. It is a defiant rejection of religions that have always existed.

That atheism is popular today only signifies that the defiance is popular, not that the instinct is dead.

 

[Cheiron]

Not to believe in a common instinct toward the supernatural is not to believe in the history of religions, which are found everywhere in all times.

Ridiculous. I don’t have to agree with religion or have a disposition towards religion in order to know that there have been a lot of different religions for a long time.

Atheism is not instinctual. It is a defiant rejection of religions that have always existed.

That atheism is popular today only signifies that the defiance is popular, not that the instinct is dead.

In my case, such an instinct has never been there. I’ve never been religious and I don’t feel I’m suppressing some kind of religious inclination. Nobody at my local humanist association is suppressing any such thing. If they are, they hide it pretty well. Also, there is no God gene and scientists aren’t in agreement about the religion being hardwired, innate, instinctual or whatever someone wants to call it.

 

[Lion_IRC]

Charlemagne III;14093437:

…Not to believe in a common instinct toward the supernatural is not to believe in the history of religions, which are found everywhere in all times.

Ridiculous…

I don’t think its right to start one’s reply to another person’s argument with the word “ridiculous”
That’s just my opinion. I hope you don’t find that ridiculous too.

 

[Cheiron]

I don’t think its right to start one’s reply to another person’s argument with the word “ridiculous”
That’s just my opinion. I hope you don’t find that ridiculous too.

Generally speaking, I agree with you. I could have avoided it by taking his points in reverse order. But Charlemagne’s suggestion that I denied the history of religion because I don’t agree that religion is innate is just obviously false.

And when I typed the word, I did wonder if it was within the rules of the forum. But then I remembered what some catholics here write about gay people. Compared to that, the word “ridiculous” is very moderate.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Ridiculous. I don’t have to agree with religion or have a disposition towards religion in order to know that there have been a lot of different religions for a long time.

In my case, such an instinct has never been there. I’ve never been religious and I don’t feel I’m suppressing some kind of religious inclination. Nobody at my local humanist association is suppressing any such thing. If they are, they hide it pretty well. Also, there is no God gene and scientists aren’t in agreement about the religion being hardwired, innate, instinctual or whatever someone wants to call it.

Then what are you doing at Catholic Answers if you are not yourself answering your instinct to discover the supernatural or to justify your defiance of your own instinct?