Why Religion?

Human beings have invented more than 100 religions during the period of recorded history. About 25 of these religions are still popular. Some people have taken this to mean that humans have a genetic disposition toward religion--that we have a gene for religion.

A simpler explanation is available. We live in a world of space and time--three dimensions of space plus the dimension of time. If there are other dimensions, we don’t know what they are. Modern theoretical physicists have speculated that there may be as many as eleven or more dimensions. But none of these dimensions has ever been documented. The extra dimensions, if they exist, are not accessible to humans and may never be documented.

In the 4-dimensional world that we know, nothing can happen without something else causing it to happen. Why does the sun rise in the morning? Because the earth rotates toward the east. Why does rain fall from the sky? Because the temperature of the water-laden clouds falls enough to allow vapor to condense into water.

Where did the earth come from? It was formed as part of the solar system. Where did the solar system come from? It came from the “big bang” of about 13 billion years ago. Where did the big bang come from?

At the end of the line, human beings are left with only one viable answer to the question of where did everything come from, and that answer is: “We don’t know”. But we humans don’t like an answer such as “We don’t know”. Because of our 4-dimensional mindset, everything has to have a source or be caused by something else. While we don’t know where the universe came from, we can comfort ourselves with the idea that it was created by some mysterious entity that we can call God. Or, maybe you can say, “God exists in another dimension; a dimension that we don’t have access to.” Of course, this assumes that beings or whatevers in this other dimension(s) have free access to our puny four dimensions, while we have no access to theirs. It’s a nice theory but unfortunately there’s no way to prove it, not now and probably never.

Then, once you’ve invented God, you want to make sure he or she or it doesn’t get mad at you and hit you with a thunderbolt or starve you to death. So you build alters and create rituals that you hope will cause him or her or it to look on you with favor. And anybody that doesn’t know what you know, and who doesn’t do the right thing or think the right way, could be putting you in danger, and you can’t have that.

Does this mean that all religions are bad? Not necessarily, especially if you don’t take them too seriously. Unfortunately,
some people do take them far too seriously.