WHY DO RELIGIONS EXIST?

Perhaps as you sat down to exercise your form of religious worship to god or even watched another person, you probably asked yourself Why do religions exist? This question is a question that many wise and scholarly men have pondered over and tried to answer, as you continue to read this post I shall attempt to the same.......


When one is asking the question "why do religions exist?', one must first have an understanding of what the word religion means.  Merriam Webster says: "The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, esp. a personal God or gods". This essentially states that religion is believing that something other than yourself has control of aspects of your life and the world you live in. 
Another key concept one must understand is that of morality: the concept of good versus bad. Religion is like a contract if you live a good life and do good things something good will happen to you be it in this world, this life or another circumstance. We as a species crave the kind of comfort that religion offers it provides a sort of insurance: This primeval instinct impacts every decision we make subconsciously "if I help that old lady cross the street "god" shall be "pleased with me""and reward me!" We enjoy and crave not only security but also a feeling of appreciation.  This in itself has caused religion to constantly play an important and often deciding role in our history. 
The second reason it has remained relevant is because of its ability to benefit people in all positions of power, some used it as a means to justify actions, others as a way maintain power and even to help a society "progress". For example in almost every conflict between man, from individuals to empires each side just knew that they were fighting the "good fight" and would see victory. At times many leaders used it to desperately quell an unhappy populace by claiming that the misfortunes of the people had nothing to do with him but rather they were the actions of a supernatural being....GOD. 
All this shows that religion has stayed relevant because PEOPLE CHOOSE TO KEEP IT RELEVANT! Religion has many more positive factors that in today's rapidly changing society are being overlooked. 



I hope that I have answered your question however I think that the best way to answer this question  Why do religions exist?  is to sit down and ask yourself - "What would happen if religion did not exist"?  








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http://cdn.thegloss.com/files/2012/06/pope-benedict.jpg
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