THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF RELIGION
Religions evolved from mankind's ignorance and awe of nature to their present day structure as a way of understanding and managing the unknown. It was a theory developed by an intelligent yet primitive, uneducated mind to explain reality. Based on the limited information available, it was a logical conclusion.
"But you must remember that religion is an early form of philosophy, that the first attempts to explain the universe, to give a coherent frame of reference to man's life and a code of moral values, were made by religion, before men graduated or developed enough to have philosophy." --Playboy interview with Ayn Rand
"The savage was controlled by appearances, by impressions; he was mentally weak, mentally indolent, and his mind pursued the path of least resistance. Things were to him as they appeared to be. He was a natural believer in the supernatural, and, finding himself beset by dangers and evils, he sought in many ways the aid of unseen powers. His children followed his example, and for many ages, in many lands, millions and millions of human beings, many of them the kindest and the best, asked for supernatural help. Countless altars and temples have been built, and the supernatural has been worshiped with sacrifice and song, with self-denial, ceremony, thankfulness and prayer.During all these ages, the brain of man was being slowly and painfully developed. Gradually mind came to the assistance of muscle, and thought became the friend of labor. Man has advanced just in the proportion that he has mingled thought with his work, just in the proportion that he has succeeded in getting his head and hands into partnership. All this was the result of experience.
Yet, for many ages, man in all directions has relied upon, and sincerely believed in, the existence of the supernatural. He did not believe in the uniformity of nature; he had no conception of cause and effect, of the indestructibility of force.
The origin of all religions, creeds, and sacred books, is substantially the same, and the history of one, is, in the main, the history of all. Thus far these religions have been the mistaken explanations of our surroundings. The appearances of nature have imposed upon the ignorance and fear of man. But back of all honest creeds was, and is, the desire to know, to understand, and to explain, and that desire will, as I most fervently hope and earnestly believe, be gratified at last by the discovery of the truth. Until then, let us bear with the theories, hopes, dreams, mistakes, and honest thoughts of all." --Robert Green Ingersoll
Religions grew more and more sophisticated as they encountered a greater range of knowledge and human activities, and became more organized as they continuously built on their past structures. They evolved from the nameless gods of early man to the all powerful monotheistic gods we see today, based on 100,000 years of collective notions and all encompassing social conditioning. But then the models began to reach their limits.
What to do with all the information and facts that are inconsistent with the religious model? At first, denial. Rather than change the theoretical model the religious authorities rejected the facts that didn't fit in, and began removing [killing them off, literally] the sources of dissident thinking. But the tactic of shielding their religious followers from reality can't work for much longer. So now the models are changing and trying to and keep up with our ever increasing knowledge base. The pope recently acknowledged that the earth revolves around the sun, and women are finally being given a greater role in the church.
Our religious convictions are inherited from our birth environment. We are born atheists and would remain so if it weren't for the influence of our parents who endeavor to teach us the same religion they inherited from their parents, which is typically the dominant religion in the environment they grew up in.
Unfortunately, very few people progress beyond their birth religion. Many claim their religious convictions are based on a serious examination and evaluation of the alternative religions, and that they have rejected them in favor of the true and correct one... their original birth religion. If rational choice was the motivation for religious belief, you'd expect the major religions to be more or less randomly distributed throughout the world. But instead we find religions geographically clustered. This suggests the influence of social conditioning as the determining factor of ones religion, and not rational choice. So far from being consciously chosen, religious convictions are rather a dependent variable, the independent variable being the dominate religion one is exposed to. Religious belief is the product of one's early social environment.
But there are too many inconsistencies and the average person is becoming too educated to tolerate the shortcomings of the major religious models. As our knowledge of the world around us increases, religion will play a smaller and smaller role in explaining reality.