What If?

[Grandpappy]

What would the world be like if 'Religion' had never been invented?
I've got all day;so 'fill your boots'!

[1ozzy]

Interesting Retrochic.
"but Humans are both Territorial and Tribal".
So it would probably be wars over land ownership, not religion then.

[-Talbot-]

There would be ....No hell below us...Above us only sky

[mikey4444]

Retrochic...you say in your first sentence that religions were never invented, but then go on to explain that they were !

"Soon it was worked out by a very few that if they pretended to be able to communicate or even control these 'Gods' these individuals could command great power over others"

You are making my point for me better than I did !

If religions were not invented, how do you explain how Scientology came about ?

Quote from the Wiki entry on Scientology ::

"Scientology is a body of beliefs and related practices created by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986), beginning in 1952 as a successor to his earlier self-help system, Dianetics"

Isn't the word "created" just another way of saying "invented" ?

[1ozzy]

Imagine all the people Talbot.
Living for today .

[Old_Geezer]

Ignoring the word "invented". If humans had not the imagination to investigate who they are and where they come from and what it means to even exist as a human, then as a species we'd be absolutely stagnated. Consequently that'd be just another predator/prey ape in a mainly unthinking part of the universe, then. Forest & jungle everywhere on the land.

[sandyRoe]

A sort of Garden of Eden?

[Hypognosis]

Global productivity would either
i) increase by 1/7th, compounded by 52 instances per year, for 7000+ years (see Jewish calendar for details), meaning that we could be exploring space by now or:-
ii) as per (i) but decreased, somewhat, in accordance with the effects of not having a rest day every week. Ask any shift-worker for details.

[Hypognosis]

Oops! 2015 is 5775-6 in Hebrew calendar (says Wiki). I have conflated it with the supposed age of certain archaeological remains which appear to be connected to what we might recognise as 'civilisation'; settlements, supported by farming.

I am intrigued by O_G's contention that absence of religion indicates absence of intellectual curiosity and thus an uninventive species of hunter gatherers would prevail across the planet. As noted by anthropologists, give or take bouts of violence with the tribes in the next valley, many of them seem blissfully happy.

[Retrochic]

Mikey, The word 'Invented' and 'Evolved' have two different meanings. Religious belief Evolved from things already existing in nature,natural phenomena that were explained away as acts of a 'god' because humans at that time did not have the capacity to understand meteorology and physics. These polytheistic beliefs then evolved into more mainstream Religious Cults. 'Invented' to me means to originate or create as a product of one's own ingenuity. I will however concede that Scientology, as being a fairly recent Religious Cult cannot be categorized the same as Christianity and Other mainstream Cults and I would describe that as 'Invented'.

[Zzxyn]

Considering that religion was supposed to bring a tolerance and peaceful understanding to others with a different point of view, but has never successfully done so, its total absence could only bring a more peaceful existance.
Competition and disagreement were NEVER supposed to be a part of religion.

[naomi24]

1ozzy, //So it would probably be wars over land ownership//

Those wars already happen. Without religion, religious wars wouldn't happen and therefore, as Zzxyn says its total absence could only bring a more peaceful existence.

[Old_Geezer]

Just because there are fewer excuses doesn't mean there are fewer wars or less violence.