I really think it was just dreamed up to control the population.

[Combanitorics]

Life is material, and most people are big enough jerks when it comes to gaining material things.  Someone had to rationalize our anti social natures, and that person created the idea that God had given to some people and not others.  I don't think it has anything at all to do with trying to really understand the world, or our place in the world.  The people who came up with religion understood the world well enough.  Also, they thought you'd be blind and dumb enough to just follow along.

[TomFoolery]

Surely all the people who were a part of the creation of all the religions ever weren't selfish assholes bent on gaining material wealth as a means of population control. It just doesn't jive with a lot of Eastern religions and indigenous religions.

Also, not all people are anti-social. Most aren't, in fact.

[Mike Cl]

Life is material, and most people are big enough jerks when it comes to gaining material things.  Someone had to rationalize our anti social natures, and that person created the idea that God had given to some people and not others.  I don't think it has anything at all to do with trying to really understand the world, or our place in the world.  The people who came up with religion understood the world well enough.  Also, they thought you'd be blind and dumb enough to just follow along.

So, what was the point of those who invented religion?

[stromboli]

Welcome. Its more complicated than that. Religion originally was created as a way to explain things that then were not explainable.
But various people saw that it was a way to control populations and also unify them. The oldest known archaeological site in Turkey, Gobekli Tebe, was built during the hunter/gather stage of human development, but it is a religious site. So religion may predate even our development of cities and served as a way of gathering and unifying tribes. Think Twelve Tribes of Israel, you get the idea. The Israelites were supposedly a group of tribal sheepherders or something of that nature, but were unified under one god. But religion has been politicized and used as a means to incite war and also to demean and ostracize various groups or different cultures. 

[aitm]

  The people who came up with religion understood the world well enough. 

Sorry, can't buy that. Read the babble….they thought the sky was water, and rightfully so, it was blue and water fell from it. Perfectly reasonable. Doesn't mean they understood the world, they also thought you had to cut the extra skin off your dick would somehow get you a better life…didn't work out so well.

[Baruch]

Welcome.  Hope we can all escape Tyranny-R-Us.  But you can fool almost all the people, almost all the time.

[gentle_dissident]

Seems like the tyrants were as scared of death as they were of losing power. They were sampling the merchandise. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_Texts

[Enlightenment911]

I think religion was created as an outlet for people to cope with everyday struggles. Death, poverty, general sadness, boredom. Religion solves all of that. It gives those who don't have the power to cope on their own something to lean on. It's all a bunch of hogwash. But people eat it up. Fiction was never meant to be referenced to as non-fiction. As it is today.

[Baruch]

Seems like the tyrants were as scared of death as they were of losing power. They were sampling the merchandise. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_Texts

http://www.pyramidtextsonline.com/hieroglyphs.html

Curiously, one of the things these texts talk about, is the Pharaoh eating the gods, to gain their powers.  This is just like folks in New Guinea eating real people.  And as is done symbolically in Christian communion.

[Bruno]

Sorry, can't buy that. Read the babble….they thought the sky was water, and rightfully so, it was blue and water fell from it. Perfectly reasonable. Doesn't mean they understood the world, they also thought you had to cut the extra skin off your dick would somehow get you a better life…didn't work out so well.

I don't know about that. My folks had that bit of foreskin removed from me when they made me a catholic, and truth be told I rather prefer it that way, gives the ole boy a bit of character, a bit of swag, you know what I mean?...I swear sometimes when I peer downward he's smiling back up at me.

[Green Bottle]

Welcome Combanitorics..........