Religion: Intro

God, or more precisely Religion, unlike time-space, seems to have a starting point.

And when I say starting point, it’s important to note that I mean that we can easily trace it back to a particular time or place, there is sufficient evidence for us to go forward without questioning, and accepting these to be facts. At least most of it. Whatever there isn’t written evidence for, there are others such as archaeological, or other methods through which they have been established to be true by applying the scientific method.

So for starters, we’re going to be talking in facts. Not encompassing the philosophy of religion or its psychological roots, but just the things that we know to be true about: the history of religion - its beginnings, how we got to where we are today i.e., its evolution. We’ll be taking into consideration the many religions and how they began, how they spread across the world and what the messages or lessons they were trying to get across were. What religion is exactly? What is symbolism, why is it important when it comes to religion and what exactly does religion try to espouse? All of it.

Later on, we’ll be discussing the possible future of religion, how it has sustained the test of time and whether it will continue to do so at the same rate and with the same will. Will it weather? After all of this is when I hope to talk about the various emotions associated with religion and why or how we may feel so connected to God or any entity or higher force, and how so through these practices.

To me, there seems to be a huge difference between god and religion and what it espouses, but I have embarked on this journey in an effort to explore that and first understand the reality and double-check myself on these opinions.

To form any opinions I believe, we need to have proper knowledge of the subject matter, we need to know quite a bit about what we are forming those opinions on. So this will be a record of those facts on which we can hopefully build a chain of thought.

I also hope, at least for me personally, for this to be a journey into the mind of believers. And I hope to explore all of this in the course of this series.

Faith itself seems to have been a very new concept in the history of the world’s religions, so is the term religion itself. Before the 16th-17th centuries, there was only God. The one. And thence the chosen one. Prophecy seems to have been taken as “The Word”. Which kind of explains activities such as the burning of “witches” and whatnot that happened in some parts of the world by people of particular outfits.

We will be considering widely known and accepted concepts such as the enlightenment era, the renaissance and what these have to do with any of this. And while that was happening in Europe, what the hell was happening in the rest of the world?

But we’re going to start from the very beginning. From as early as possible.

This is gonna be a long journey, so buckle up!