Why religion?

[ismnotwasm]

5. Religion is a human response

All arguments about the validity of deities aside, the forms of worship are entreaties, give me something, or take away something. The foundations of religion are answers to the “why” of how things are. When people group together, there is always, first, greater safety.

I’m a feminist so there is something in every single patriarchal religion that I find off putting, offensive, or terrifying. A better question to me is “Why, once we organize into tribes, groups, nations and other group, do we so quickly find enemies within and without?

My favorite quote from Sci-fi author Octavia Butler from one of her books is this one, and in her book, dooms mankind

Octavia E. Butler
“You are hierarchical. That's the older and more entrenched characteristic. We saw it in your closest animal relatives and in your most distant ones. It's a terrestrial characteristic. When human intelligence served it instead of guiding it, when human intelligence did not even acknowledge it as a problem, but took pride in it or did not notice it at all... That was like ignoring cancer