David B

Many of the replies so far have been giving rational ideas for religion starting, like money, status, power, sex......

Rational, but, IMV, immoral. On a par with selling quack medicine, which you know to be quack.

Another reason, of course, is get some crazy messanaic complex, impress enough people with your fervour to get a few followers, use the fact you've got followers to reinforce messanaic complex....

There seems to be a bit of that with Manson - though power and sex were involved as well.

David B

Harry Bosch

I thought that being a Christian meant that you had to follow the bible?! I was a fundy for the first 22 years of my life. I would respectfully state that you are the one not current in modern Christian theology regarding money. Christians believe that all money that you have earned came about from God. The definition in the bible regarding tithes is 10% of the first fruit. I guess that your church doesn’t practice this, which is fine. Every church follows or emphasizes different things from the bible. But please don't try to tell me that the dictionary definition of tithe in the bible is anything other than 10%!

David B

Stinger, Stinger! Haven't you learnt yet that being a Christian (for most of them, anyway) means following the bits of the bible that you like, and ignoring the rest?

You don't see many giving all they have to the poor, and following the life of the itinerant preacher, or even a monastic life. You don't see many following 'Thou shalt not kill' - in terms of death penalty, turning other cheek to terrorists, being pacifist.

You are right about the literal meaning of tithing - something enforced by the Church of England for a long time, whether the tithers were CoE or non conformists or atheist. They had the force of law behind them at the time.

David B

Chunk

I wasnt trying to offend you. Sorry. Where in the Bible does it say that, id like to read more about this. Thanks.

sorompio

Money is not the only reason. Neither power, or even control.

Humans love fabulous stories, love to lie, to invent, to give easy and quick answers to phenomenons that don't understand to impress other people, to affirm they saw with own eyes things that never happened, monsters, apparitions, ghosts, prodigies....

PhilosopherJay

Hi tovarij,

This is a very good question. I present this theory in my new book the Evolution of Christs and Christianities: the stories of Jesus rising from the dead were part of an evolution of the legend. Nobody suddenly started to tell the story as a deliberate fabrication.

I don't think anybody really knew what happened to the prophet John after he was sent to the fortress at Macherus. Some thought that Herod Antipas had beheaded him and some thought that he would return one day alive. This atmosphere of uncertainty about him being alive or dead probably persisted for a number of years.

The original passion gospel story seems to follow the line of a number of Romantic novels from the period, where a lover appears dead to his/her beloved, only to have it happily turn out that he/she was not dead after all. So the crucifixion in the original story was a fake, just as the Passover Plot suggested. This would have been amusing and appreciated by the people living in the 40's. Perhaps it suggested to them the hopeful possibility that John hadn't really been killed after all, but his death had only been faked.

By the 70's, with the coming of the terrible Roman-Jewish War with hundreds of thousands of people losing sons and fathers and brothers, and being placed into terrible conditions of near famine and poverty, almost everybody in Judea had a wish/desire that people could return from the dead. Under these circumstances, it is easy to see why the story would be changed to give hope for a resurrection of the dead. Instead of saying that the Christ suffered a fake death on the cross and returned, why couldn't it be that he suffered a real death on the cross and returned. Nothing is impossible with God. That would make the story so much more dramatic and give people more hope that perhaps their love ones had not died in a vain cause. God might one day resurrect them too.

This led the story to be revised from a fake death to a real one. Of course, not everybody accepted this revision, many people accepted the old story of the faked death as still being just fine. These people had to be condemned as coming from the devil, and the death and resurrection of Jesus had to be made into a primary article of faith, number one on the list of dogmatic beliefs that distinguished Christians from all other peoples.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Tubby Lardmore

Yes indeed.

http://www.cultnews.com/archives/000049.html

BlessNot

DITTOS

Doug Shaver

Why did people invent the King Arthur tales? Why did people invent the Robin Hood legends?

Literary invention occurrs for many reasons. Some people are just compulsive storytellers. That is why some people write lots of novels even if they never sell one. Two thousand years ago nobody could make a living writing fiction, but that didn't mean nobody would write fiction. Then there are people who have a message they think people need to hear, and so they put the message into a story that has some entertainment value. That provides the storyteller with an audience that he can hope will include at least a few people who will take his message to heart.

Skeptical

Start simpler, "why do people tell stories?". Because that's what we do, people tell stories about life, the world, the universe, our place in it. We do it today even though a typical 12 year old knows more about planets than the more prestigious Babylonian astronomer on his best day. Mythmaking is all around us, in everything we do. I recommend, again, that you read "the power of myth", by Joseph Campbell.

Keeping it even simpler. Why do people spread rumors? Why does the National Inquirer sell hundreds of millions of copies telling stories about celebrities? Answer: People like hearing stories as much as they like telling them. This combination means we will always have some stories and myths. Some of them become religions.

The real question is not why these stories and those of a similar nature existed, but how the Jesus Movement became the dominant religion of Rome. In other words, how did the movement become "state sponsored"? The answer is probably the same as for all policies enacted by governments: power and control.

L. Ron Hubbard (founder of Scientology) is reported to have said he wanted to start a religion because "that's where the money is". He was a kook and unscrupulous, but he was no dummy.