another with such obvious logic that we may forget to check that each
episode really occurred as described. So a good scenario may put us
on the right track but also leave us stuck in a rut, oblivious to an eas-
ier or more interesting path that was just a few steps aside. This, as
we will see, is precisely what happens with each general explanation
of religion—which is why I will first describe their valuable points
and then suggest that we step back a little and take a different path.
The most familiar scenario assumes that humans in general have
certain general intellectual concerns. People want to understand
events and processes—that is, to explain, predict and perhaps control
them. These very general, indeed universal intellectual needs gave rise [11]
to religious concepts at some point during human cultural evolution.
This was not necessarily a single event, a sudden invention that took
place once and for all. It might be a constant re-creation as the need to
explain phenomena periodically suggests concepts that could work as
good explanations. Here are some variations on this theme:
- People created religion to explain puzzling natural phenomena. People
are surrounded with all sorts of phenomena that seem to challenge
their everyday concepts. That a window pane breaks if you throw a
brick at it poses no problem. But what about the causes of storms,
thunder, massive drought, floods? What pushes the sun across the
sky and moves the stars and planets? Gods and spirits fulfil this
explanatory function. In many places the planets aregods, and in
Roman mythology the thunder was the sound of Vulcan's hammer
striking the anvil. More generally, gods and spirits make rains fall
and fields yield good crops. They explain what is beyond the ken
of ordinary notions. - Religion was created to explain puzzling mental phenomena. Dreams,
precognition, and the feeling that dead persons are still around in
some form (and frequently "appear" to the living) are all
phenomena that receive no satisfactory explanation in our
everyday concepts. The notion of a spirit seems to correspond to
such phenomena. Spirits are disembodied persons, and their
characteristics make them very similar to persons seen in dreams
or hallucinations. Gods and a unique God are further versions of
this projection of mental phenomena. - Religion explains the origins of things. We all know that plants come
from seeds, that animals and humans reproduce, and so on. But
where did the whole lot come from? That is, we all have
WHATISTHEORIGIN?