People in the western hemisphere often think that religion is "god theory" which is a product of a belief in a 'god' or 'gods'. I take a less intuitive route and suggest that belief in a 'god' or 'gods' is a product of our tendency to have religious beliefs and that our religious theories are merely formed around the focus of 'god' or 'gods'. In other words, I think that the 'gods' are a product of our specific religious beliefs rather than religious beliefs simply being fleshed-out explanatory "'god' theory" surrounding the 'god' or 'gods' which serve as the central focus of the religion. I think the former 'god'-centric view is an illusion that is derived from a largely westernized parochial bias. The extreme version of this western parochial bias is displayed for us in what some western theologians and religionists frame as what constitutes a religion.
Here's the extreme biased version.
"Religion is the reverence and observances of the one true creator 'god' that created the universe and life in the universe, who is largely benevolent and has a plan for each of us and will divinely intervene if it deems it appropriate (Divine Providence)".
Notice how such religionist "deck-stacking" automatically eliminates most of the other religions of the earth from consideration simply by insisting that this arbitrary definition is and must be THE definition of religion. It's apparent that this definition wasn't created to describe the world's religions as much as to arbitrarily eliminate the competition. It arbitrarily eliminates polytheistic religions, naturalistic religions, animism, and suggests that Hinduism isn't an actual religion (the Hindu 'gods' are a product of the universe), and suggests that the ancient Greek pantheon and their subsequent influence on the Roman pantheon weren't religions either. (The Greek 'gods' were created by the Titans, who where themselves either created by or were aspects of the universe). It also arbitrarily excludes non-personal 'god' religions or religions without a 'god' or 'gods' as central characters such as Animism, Taoism and Buddhism.
Here is a somewhat less biased western parochial definition of religion.
"Religion is the ritualized observance of a "believed in" 'god' or 'gods'".
This latter version eliminates the arbitrary personal 'god' bias, universe creator bias and the life creator bias. It also eliminates or leaves out the monotheism bias. Even though this latter version has a lot of advocates, I think it still stops short of the true mark where religions are accurately described as its still excludes many religions by an arbitrary "god-centric" bias and doesn't accurately reflect "what is out there" as far as religious ceremonies and observances.
Here's a definition of religion which may not be perfect, but I think comes much closer to the mark.
"Religion is the belief in forces in nature or "supernature" that influences our future (either on earth in this life and/or somewhere else and after this life) in an unknown or unknowable way and is based on how virtuous our thoughts and actions are in this world." ("Virtuous" of course, being defined by the religion itself).
(Or as Worldnet dictionary puts it, "A strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny".)
I theorize that people often set out to satisfy certain evolutionary-born instinctive desires via religious beliefs and in the process we often create agents that act as personified or even avatar-like representations that help us gain a sense or belief of having achieved these desires. Some of these agents are 'gods'. Some are lesser 'gods', Buddha, angels and demons or saints. And some agents are not even personified, like karma or the Tao, which are more like justice-dealing laws of nature or physics that are influenced by ones accumulated religious currency ("virtues" or "merit"). In this sense, they resemble the Ancient Greek's pre-Socratic idea of Logos or Nous.
I think in any fair and accurate representation of religion, we must acknowledge that some people can believe in a 'god' or 'gods' and have no religious theory at all (Deism), or have religions that either have no recognized 'gods' (Taoism) or the 'gods' are not central figures or central loci agents ('gods' in the Buddhist Wheel of Life, ancient Greek and Roman pantheon religions, Hinduism, animism, the Chinese 'god' pantheon, etc). There can even be believed in "free agents" involved in "supernature" that don't act as religious agents, such as belief in vampires, succubi etc, and some can have some pseudo-religious origins such as the baby-stealer or crib-death issuing Lilith of Jewish myth, who, arguably, was Adam's first wife.) These "free agents" historically have been viewed as dealing out some horror in response to ones lack of merit or virtue. One "deserves it", and the tell tale sign that such an idea is from our minds and not elements of objective existence is that these are still "the rules" in horror movies. The bad guys, the ones who are responsible for setting the horror loose to begin with, the ones who mess with or tempt nature, the ones who fornicate or who otherwise "sin" or who are vain and arrogant are the ones the monsters get first and foremost. There is more than a passing resemblance between the poetic justice in fiction and folklore and that of the idea of divine providence or karma.
I wrote that I theorized that people often set out to satisfy certain evolutionary-born instinctive desires via religious beliefs. What did I mean by this? I mean that I believe that religion is a byproduct of our evolutionary heritage and development.
1. The first factor in religion formation is one of an evolutionary psychological nature. My opinion is that this factor is actually a perversion of a natural social instinct. A "by-product" or epiphenomenon if you will. I think we developed certain social instincts as a product of developing as a social species. One of these theorized instincts being a sense of fairness. Fairness involves others, however in a specialized case, we can consider whether we are being fair to ourselves, but only if we think of ourselves in a dual role as dealer and receiver of said fair or unfair action. In any event, we can't be unfair to a rock or to a 'nothing'. Fairness is inherently a social concept that proves beneficial to our species.
2. Another instinct, although not a social one, is the desire to continue to live and to keep our values. It's only the concept of life that gives the concept of value any meaning. If the dead truly die in every sense of the word, then all values that were held in life are lost at death. The desire to continue to live in a happy and healthy state is the survival instinct.
3. The third factor that I think plays a role in religion formation isn't so much an instinct as a desire. A desire for wish fulfillment. We equate happiness with having things and states which would facilitate said happiness. We insist on cosmic justice as a minimum, but we wish for "paradise".
4. And the fourth factor I consider to be intrinsic in religion formation is our propensity to anthropomorphize much of the universe, either in form or in the presumed motives of these anthropomorphized "spiritual" agents. This is also an evolutionary psychology theory.
Regarding the first factor, that of social fairness, I think we often extrapolate this to the universe at large. Not only do we expect people to be fair to each other, we also expect and often times insist on "cosmic justice" or cosmic reciprocity, i.e. some poetic justice form of "book balancing" where both the good people and the bad people get their just dues, whether it's from a rational source or an irrational source. This obviously doesn't always happen in life, so there is a wished presumption that this will eventually occur in an afterlife or during a reincarnated existence. There is a wish/belief that bad people 'should' be punished for their misdeeds or even 'come back' as a lower being, where life is harder, and likewise, there is the similar wish/belief that good people be thusly rewarded. This instinct isn't isolated to the subject of religion. Indeed, we see the desire for poetic justice in our literature, movies, books, tall tales, myths, folklore etc. Instances where the bad and the good get their just dues we find emotionally satisfying due to this sense of cosmic justice. When "The fates" are doing their job we are Happy. (Notice in "teen slasher" or "teen monster" movies, the mean, rude and often overly beautiful & conceded /overly muscular and hostile people typically get killed off, and the nice, pleasantly attractive (but not enough to make you envious or jealous) heroes that are trying to help others are either exonerated or 'win out' in the end. The hero or heroine (usually the latter), usually live...at least long enough to see another sequel).
The second factor is a byproduct of the survival instinct. We fear death as we fear the loss of all our worldly values. We wish for immortality, and religious belief often implicitly grants this wish. Examples are karmic recycling/Nirvana/"The Void", and the Christian "everlasting life". Rare is the religion that doesn't exploit this implied wish fulfillment in some form or another.
The third factor isn't merely to have a poetic justice "goodness" granted to us in some sort of not-understood and magical way, but to actually have granted to us (and implicitly deserve) "all our wishes fulfilled" within the confines of the allowed rules i.e. to live "in paradise". If a 'god' is the central figure of the religion, and especially if this 'god' is portrayed as loving and benevolent, then the believer's idea of paradise often involves living in paradise along side "the father", etc. There is also an element of personal membership grandiosity and an "us and them" ideology involved.
(Note the paternal nomenclature of 'god' as "the father". The ancient influence (especially in the west) of the concepts of Mother Earth, from which life springs forth, and that of Father Heaven, which lies above and provides the 'love water' which causes Mother Earth to bring forth life, have a lasting influence that is still felt today, although the details and roots of these ideas have almost completely died away in modern western theology.)
And the fourth factor is simply an outgrowth of awareness that other agents with egos (senses of self) exist. (We have much more to fear from other tangible conscious agents than from the dead.) Its easy to see how we can go from considering whether other mortal beings our friend or foe, to animism with either haunted or enchanted forests, etc. 'gods' are simply the next "evolutionary step" up from spirits in trees and steams.
We can also see that the final, sensible definition of religion "make sense" of general superstion as well. Spells, charms, talismans, colored gems, etc can be viewed as affecting how karma or divine providence acts upon one, just as appealing to the saints, Buddha, or the White Tara can.
That's the essence of what I consider the nature and roots of religion.
The Dhampire
LOGOS