It would be most appropriate, first, to consider the reasons for religion. Why does it exist? What needs does it meet? Why are certain religions structured in certain ways? Seemingly modest questions that have complicated and varying answers.
Religion exists. There are, of course, a variety of reasons that will be supplied for its existence based on the point of view of the reporter, but right now I will only look from the secular view. For the moment, I am only concerned with how it looks from the outside; taking an objective viewpoint, as it were.
In its existence, religion provides for its believers. Through the belief in and practice of a religion, people are given at least the following: comfort, guidance, and answers. Comfort is provided for those that are uncomfortable with the state of the universe, the government, their own life, or their daughter’s hairstyle. When no assurance can be found in things as they are, people can derive it from religion. Similarly, guidance can be found in religion in so far as its function as a set of rules or guidelines by which to live one’s life. Morality, for instance, can be derived from religions. Lastly, and perhaps most commonly, people find answers within religion. Religious teachings often have explanations for the otherwise unexplained things in the world, thus offering answers where before there were none.
Certain basic human needs can be met by the existence of religion as well. There are some basic human needs for belongingness, safety, and humility. The organized nature of religions brings people together and gives a sense of brotherhood, partly leading into the need for safety, which can be “found in numbers.” More importantly though, safety is provided by religion through the conduits of faith and hope. Through faith and hope people can seek safety from the real world around them. As we will see when examining the structure of religions, the common position of religious figures above this world brings about a great sense of humility into the everyday man. Given some figure much more powerful than himself, a man should be less tempted to exploit his freedom.
Lastly we will look at the common structures shared by many religions. Most prevalently, we see the monotheistic religions holding a single figure above the world in the highest regard, a deity with which the religion is to be conducted. Other common structures, including the polytheistic one, seem to mimic this extoling of the religiously important figure(s). It is easily seen that such structures facilitate the functions of religion as described above, thus giving them some explanation.
This is a cursory look at why religion exists and what purposes it might have. Later we’ll dive into evaluations of specific religions and how they relate to society, philosophy, and personal life.
What about the “opiate of the masses” argument from Karl Marx’s - The Communist Manifesto? Funny you should leave that important and insightful document out of your contemplation on religion.
Basically, the argument goes as follows:
Religion is a rich man’s way of getting and keeping the poor (”the masses”) under control. Things are the way they are because God intended them to be that way and lowly humans should not question or (God forbid) rebel against the status quo.
Humankind’s reward is in heaven and is everlasting so whatever the flesh endures is trivial in comparison. People who have riches should keep them because they have been blessed by God. (It doesn’t matter how they got their riches.) Thus, the poor look to the everlasting life for their reward and the rich can keep what they have amassed and religion becomes the “drug” that makes it all okay.
Thanks for the insightful response, Eric.
Although Marx’s explanation is somewhat compelling, it presumes the very serious notion that the people fall subject to commands (religion) put forth by the leaders without consent (and possibly without knowledge). I am not willing to entertain that angle simply because I feel it unnecessarily complicates the model.
I feel it’s easier to address religion in its main form as a system that fulfills a certain set of needs. If one were to argue against the need-based model, one one would need to provide an explanation of what would have fulfilled these same needs had there been a lack of religion (it’s not easy to find an ancient culture completely devoid of religion).
In the end I feel it was more communist propaganda than a viable explanation.