Why is religion...

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(07-08-2017, 11:35 AM)Beaker Wrote: All religions arose from early man's attempt to explain the unknown. Different factions arose as disagreements about those explanations came to light. As people grouped into the religion that either best served them, or was passed to them by their parents, those groupings separated people under the umbrella of said religion.

Biologically and anthropologically speaking, there has been an evolutionary advantage to humans grouping together and sharing/protecting/acquiring resources. It started with family groups, then tribes and so forth. Modern apes today still band together in these groups. Religions are simply huge extensions of these groups. People in power now had large groups to manipulate. It became very easy to see anyone not in your group as less human and therefore easier to justify being killed.

With advances in science, you are now seeing previously unknown questions that were "explained" by religion being answered more and more. I think this is a major reason you see the drop off in religious beliefs. But humans will always find a way to kill those who are not members of their group when it suits their needs. You see the exact opposite effect when dangers threaten one or more groups...they band together, and put aside their differences to face the common danger. If aliens threatened all of humanity, you can bet religious differences would go out the window.

IMO religion will become less and less realistic as humans uncover more and more of the mysteries of the universe. But I also believe that humans will never end wars between groups. If religion went away, we would find other groupings to separate us.

Same with sports fans.

Example: there is a "Browns Backers" club in damn near every town in America.

And this is the logo of a minor league baseball team:



Yes, that means there is a "tribe" of fans who wear this ^ symbol to proudly proclaim their membership.