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Comment by gaoshan | Hacker News Reader

That religion is completely and totally a man made, fictitious, concept. Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc... all just mythologies that have no more basis in reality than any work of fiction. It is simply a tool. A tool used to soothe existential angst in the people that need such soothing and that certain others can use to exert control or gain power. This would be absolutely outrageous, to the point of death, in many circles.

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I agree that it's fictitious. However I believe that religion is ingrained within out biology. Every human culture and civilization developed religion independently. There is not one example of a human civilization that is only fully practical and has no religion.

The fact that it's completely ubiquitous indicates that religious practices among societies is not a coincidence. The only commonly shared attribute among all civilizations that have existed throughout time is biology and religion.

Such a correlation indicates that religion is highly, highly likely to be biological in origin.

Think this is the case as well; it is a handy tool to keep the people in line. My mother often laments that it was so much easier when she was young just making sure she followed the catholic rules and believed she would go to heaven. I wish I believed it (I was raised protestant but found it so ridiculous from a very young age that it did not take; I asked my teachers questions I was not allowed to ask and such); it would make life better I believe; no reason to hunt money or earthly stuff, just live a good and devout life and enjoy yourself with your loved ones after. But I simply cannot; it makes little sense, any of it, when you think about it. But hooray for people who really believe it; they should be far more relaxed than me. Maybe it should be an outrageous claim as well that I think a lot of American believers do not really believe but either make money or use it as a social tool to look good (trump). Which is basically the same as you claim.

I generally agree with this, but kept getting hung up on two things: 1) scientists have shown rather interesting brain activity in different regions during prayer, and 2) every society, seemingly unconnected from each other, has something akin to religion.

If it were just a power grab thousand years ago, how or why did others around the world get the same idea?

1) You mean there is some sort of placebo effect at play? Does this differ from what you see when you meditate? I would assume it differs somewhat at least?

2) A lot of people need something external to believe in, it gives them a sense of purpose and an explanation for what are essentially random lucky/unlucky events. It also gives political power.

There are a lot of personally useful things bundled into religion, prayer being one of them that at is core just looks like meditation, which doesn't necessarily require religion.

Strongly agree it's not just a power grab.. I think the power grab comes after rituals emerge and become common.

This is not an outrageous thought in the scheme of HN or the tech sphere though. I’d say this is the accepted norm and people outside of this are the ones with outrageous thoughts.

You gotta think bigger. This is outrageous in terms of the entire world and human history. There hasn't been a single human civilization that you can classify as having no religion.

He's right when he says that the people who don't believe in religion are the outrageous ones.

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