So how did religion come about (and stay)

[Soubriquet]

Let’s say, for this thread, all gods don’t exist.

So how did someone manage to convince the whole world that there was a man named Jesus, Allah etc and have them follow strict rules and worship this god?

How is it that these gods have stayed consistent whereas gods of old such as Apollo, Mars etc that the Greeks and Romans worshipped died out?

A lot of them are explanations for things people couldn't understand at the time. At uni I learnt that a lot of the flood mythology, Noah's ark in Christianity, Judaism and Islam is an example but other religions and cultures have similar tales, are a result of the changing sea levels and glacial lake outpourings at the end of the last ice age.

Also as sociaty transitioned from small groups subsistence farming to larger groups with an elite, people created rules about distributing food and resources fairly. But of course people have been using the power of religion to control others too.

The Greek and Roman gods 'dying out' has a lot to do with the Romans.

The Roman religion was polytheistic and they were very open to other gods. As the Roman Empire grew they would adapt local gods into their own. Apollo was a Greek god and Mars his Roman equivalent. In Bath the locals worships Sulis and when the Romans arrived they just linked it to Minerva creating a new god - Minerva Sulis.

By late antiquity the Emperors had started to wish to be worshiped as gods. Mostly this was a loyalty cult. When monotheistic religions like Judaism and Christianity came along they presented a problem. Their followers would not include the emperor in their religious practices. Cue lots of blood and fights until Constantine converted to Christianity. Then Christianity became the dominant religion and a sign of loyalty to the empire .... older gods stopped being worships

I think a lot of the events/people in the bible and other religious books probably existed/happened in some say and over time they got mixed up and exaggerated (I say that as a Catholic, I don't think a lot of the the bible is literally real, there's allagory/metaphors and hygeine rules all mixed up in it)

Like Santa/Father Christmas...there probably was a nice man called Nicholas who became a saint and then over time we added extra bits on.

*way not say

Interesting, thank you

I always liked this snippet...when churches were becoming more common in England, the church leaders educated the literate peasants with "Mystery Plays" which were plays made from bible stories and which were delivered in the vernacular of the locals.

There are four complete 'cycles' in existence and they still get performed today. Actors would play the parts of Adam and Eve or Mary and Joseph etc and act the tales out to the ignorant serfs in language they could grasp.

They'd use carts and act on those as well as walking around among the crowds of people watching.

I’ve not long finished a fascinating book on this topic! Basically, marketing, persuasion and manipulation. Or you may view it differently 😉 It’s called Sapiens, www.ynharari.com/book/sapiens-2/

Superstition.
The current religions haven't been popular as long as ancient ones were, and will probably be replaced in time too.
I think it was Ricky Gervais who pointed out that if science didn't exist, it would eventually be discovered. Unlike religions.

The bible by karen Armstrong is a relatively easy read on this. It talks about the history of the bible and how it developed and the different translations etc. I found particularly interesting how similar all religions are in terms of the stories in their holy books.

It all started long before Jesus and Allah - what about e.g. the old Greek gods?? Which were relatively recent, in human terms.

I have a private theory that it all started with very early Homo sapiens, once s/he could voice ideas to others - and rainbows. How would very early humans have explained them? Surely there must be some higher invisible being who was in a good mood when s/he sent them?

Similarly s/he sent violent storms, earthquakes etc. when s/he was pissed off about something. Oops, we’d better appease her/him - offer something, maybe sacrifice an animal or the odd virgin...

Plus there must long ago have been a desire to think that a loved one who’d died wasn’t just dead, but gone to another place, where eventually you could see them again.

Ancient beliefs developed as a way of explaining what they didn't understand. It started with nature based religions, and grew in different ways to the complex hierarchical ones we have today (a few tribal societies retain the ancient religions). Today's major faiths are different origins, some are based on rules of a wise teacher who may or may not have existed, Sikhism is the easiest to demonstrate because it's far newer, then there's the Abrahamic faiths that are built on each other and have multiple origins, passed down as stories which were combined over time into the Old Testament (the New Testament and the Koran have more obvious sources) oh and the bible was edited by the early church remember, some gospels omitted. One of the things I'm interested in.

They stayed popular because they offered the people a way to live, and rulers could use it to control. The exception being Protestantism with its emphasis on the individual.