|
Fear.
Theistic based, poly/mono, religions are based on fear.
Fear motivates. Fear regulates.
Like a thermostat, constantly adjusting.
Bringing the unknown into the known,
By artificially organic means.
To lessen...fear.
Once upon a time, we, homo sapien, were hunted by 600 lb. sabretooth tigers and 12 foot tall, 1800 lb. bears.
Scientists have proven this as factual.
At this time, there is no known record of organized religious thought while we were being thus hunted.
So here we have our genesis of the "feeling tone" fear.
I think part of theistic religion, what were talking about here, is basically narcissistic in nature.
That is, there is a failure to distinguish reality from self.
Extreme fear, unabated and relentless, has been known to cause serious mental disorder.
So say modern and semi-modern psychiatrists, psychologists and anthropologists.
Religion has been referred to as organized insanity.
But to me, it is hard to justify this, because fear of death, fear of being eaten alive, seems warranted.
Yet it is this ancient fear that compels us to make familiar that which isn't.
It is this ancient fear that causes instinctual fear of the dark for example.
It is this ancient, narcissisticly based fear that compels us in the west to assign a human form to divinity.
I am agnostic.
I see no proof of the existence of magic.
I believe in an underlying order on the level of mathematics.
I could be completely wrong here.
I can live with that.
|