I'm trying to stay away from the question of whether or not religion was "beneficial" in some sense. What I want to focus on is why from a "common sense" point of view people would begin to believe in gods.
There is for example the idea of "animism." This is the view that early man began to believe that natural phenomena were inhabited by spirits, or that non-living phenomena such as storms were alive and had souls and feelings ("the angry storm").
I say this theory begs the question. Why should early man begin to believe this? Any particular reason? Why would not early man think up natural reasons for phenomena? Maybe fire comes out of the ground or something. What need for a fire-god?
So I want to know if there are other ideas out there that make sense about the origin of religion in the way that I have framed the topic.
This message has been edited by robinrohan, 01-12-2005 15:59 AM
This message has been edited by robinrohan, 01-12-2005 16:03 AM