[quote=scaredyclassic]It’s at least as possible as Santa. Maybe the kids who believe early on have it right.
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Funny you should bring up Santa. Whenever someone wants to talk religion, I usually interject “God is just Santa Claus for adults.”
Think about it. Parents tell kids “be good and you’ll get toys on Christmas day!” And that’s all that is needed to keep kids in line. But that wouldn’t work for adults so they up the ante. “Be good and you’ll get eternal life!” And that is all that is needed to keep adults in the fold.
Which is something that has dawned on me in recent years. Many of these rituals are carefully crafted to keep people in the xyz religion’s fold. And there are many traditions to draw in the next generation too – easter egg hunts….santa claus…all designed to bring the little ones into the fold. Not that I think there was one person with a grand plan that did that – no, I think it was more of an evolutionary (heh) thing through the decades and centuries as churches et al figured out what worked. Process of natural ritual selection if you will.
Many religions have histories so long it is difficult to see how they formed. That’s what makes Mormonism so fascinating. It sprang up out of nowhere in the 1820s. Bam! A new religion with a set of rituals and ideas all their own. How did that happen? Surely that was the brainstorm of one individual. Some random individual, say John Smith. Doing my genealogy has shown me that half my family tree is Mormon in the 1800s and they probably still are today (I’m not in contact with most of them).
It’s all fascinating to me how people can be so hold so tightly to ideas and concepts that seem pure rubbish to other religions. Is the need to belong to a religion caused by the need to belong? Do people just follow into it unquestioning because it was drilled into them as children? Can people really be that easily programmed? Spooky stuff.
I like the comedian who pointed out that the religious can’t just point their finger at non-believers as being self righteous. They are too, for the mere fact that they so steadfastly believe they are right in their religious beliefs points out that they believe all other religions are wrong – a self-righteous point of view.
