Posted: Nov 25, 2016 10:45 pm
archibald wrote:igorfrankensteen wrote:It is my OPINION, that one of the specific and purposeful reasons why many religions were invented, was because it was hoped that if people could be persuaded to believe in magic monitoring, that the people who wanted to force them to behave differently, might get more sleep, and would save money on guards.
Imo, there might be some truth in this, but it seems like too much of a cynical conspiracy theory.
An anthropologist once said "It seems apparent that one thing religion or belief helps us do is deal with problems of human life that are significant, persistent, and intolerable. One important way in which religious beliefs accomplish this is by providing a set of ideas about how and why the world is put together that allows people to accommodate anxieties and deal with misfortune".
https://www.quora.com/What-if-some-day- ... -worse-Why
Now, it may be that some clever people have deliberately decided to exploit this existential predicament/weakness in individuals for the purposes of either extending their power base and/or maintaining law and order.....but that might imply that the founders themselves did not truly believe.
I might however agree that kings and rulers have, invariably, exploited religions as a means of power and control, but that is a slightly different thing (having more to do with promotion rather than invention) though quite closely related.
I added the bold to your remarks, where you detail the reason why I carefully used the phrase " one of the specific and purposeful reasons." As in not the sole or primary one, for every instance.
I look at the world, as a series of events, followed by problem solving efforts by the subjects of said events. There are several ways that inventing, declaring, supposing, or even postulating magic, can work as a "solution" to serious challenges. No matter where you look, no matter how scientific or logical or political or religious you get, SOMEONE will come along and find a way to use whatever you put in place as your favored solution, to sneak something past, that artificially and dishonestly uses the "nice" reason for your solution, to do something that solves the "problem" THEY happen to see. And it is not at all unusual, for someone else's use of your "solution," to be to gain the reverse result, of the one you intended.