What is the meaning of religion

[Apemman7]

I recently had a discussion with an acquaintance of mine who supported that religion exists so that it can help people find the meaning of life and/or develop a conscience, and that's what makes its existance necessary. My counter point was that in today's society, in the age of information, there are many other means through which someone can accomplish both. Thoughts?

Personal note: English isn't my native language, so I apologise in advance for any grammatical or syntactical errors

[Spectrum]

'Religion' like 'Spirituality' is a VERY loose term.

So you have to provide a definition of 'what is religion' and establish consensus before you proceed to discuss the meaning of religion, etc. If there is no consensus to a definition, then both will talking pass each other.

My empirical based definition and meaning of religion in terms of features and purpose is as follows;

• 1. It must conform to the 7 dimensions as researched by Ninian Smart.
  http://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/F ... evendi.htm
  
  2. The inherent purpose of religion to deal with an inherent unavoidable existential crisis that generate terrible angst and all sort of psychological pains.

Your "find the meaning of life and/or develop a conscience," is secondary to the main purpose of religion and how religions emerged within the consciousness of the majority of humans.

If we cannot agree with a definition of "what is religion" it will not effective to discuss its meaning and purpose.

[Alias]

I recently had a discussion with an acquaintance of mine who supported that religion exists so that it can help people find the meaning of life and/or develop a conscience, and that's what makes its existance necessary. My counter point was that in today's society, in the age of information, there are many other means through which someone can accomplish both. Thoughts?

You might want to differentiate "meaning" from "purpose" and "cause" from "origin".
I'll take "religion" to mean a shared belief in supernatural entity or entities that are thought to have power over human life, around which myths, legends and codes of conduct have been constructed, and which are believed be accessible to influence by humans, usually through ritual invocation (chant, dance, prayer, incense, etc.) and often by means of offering/sacrifice.

It's quite possible for a human social structure to have come into existence, or been invented, for one reason and later used for some quite different purpose, or adapted to other functions, as society changed. Something as vast and varied as religious practice can have many purposes and meanings for many different peoples.

[Count Lucanor]

The best account of what religion really means:

"The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo."

[LuckyR]

I recently had a discussion with an acquaintance of mine who supported that religion exists so that it can help people find the meaning of life and/or develop a conscience, and that's what makes its existance necessary. My counter point was that in today's society, in the age of information, there are many other means through which someone can accomplish both. Thoughts?

Personal note: English isn't my native language, so I apologise in advance for any grammatical or syntactical errors

I completely understand your post within the context of standard definitions of terms. And I completely agree with you. 500,000 years ago when religions were invented there was not a whole lot going on for folks to attach their ideas of their world (both visible and invisible) to. Similarly there was little to no external source of objective information about this world with which to occupy one's thoughts. Religion filled that void. Thus it is completely logical and predictable that in such a situation religion would be invented.

Fast forward half a million years and the world we live in and the pieces of objective information available to ponder are numerous orders of magnitude greater, so religion at this point is not the only game in town. Hence why the fasted growing religion currently is "no religion".

[Alias]

500,000 years ago when religions were invented there was not a whole lot going on for folks to attach their ideas of their world (both visible and invisible) to.

Not a whole lot going on in nature?

Similarly there was little to no external source of objective information about this world with which to occupy one's thoughts.

Nobody was looking for "objective" information. They needed relevant information: what to run away from, how to find their way back to a reliable water-source or berry-patch, where to hide from bears, how to cool a fever... There were stars, trees, clouds, rivers, birds, fireflies, spoor, rocks that are good for arrowheads, rock that are good for climbing, rocks that are good for making human figures, rocks that are good for smashing yam pulp, rocks that have edible lizards underneath, rocks that have venomous snakes underneath...
Come on! We didn't get dropped out of the sky with all blank hard-drives in our heads - we grew up here! We never stopped observing, investigating, experimenting, learning and speculating about our environment for the last 4 million years in more or less our present configuration, and all the previous millions of years in whatever shape we evolved from.
There was no "void". But there was always a desire to understand and control the environment.
And to not die.

[LuckyR]

500,000 years ago when religions were invented there was not a whole lot going on for folks to attach their ideas of their world (both visible and invisible) to.

Not a whole lot going on in nature?

Similarly there was little to no external source of objective information about this world with which to occupy one's thoughts.

Nobody was looking for "objective" information. They needed relevant information: what to run away from, how to find their way back to a reliable water-source or berry-patch, where to hide from bears, how to cool a fever... There were stars, trees, clouds, rivers, birds, fireflies, spoor, rocks that are good for arrowheads, rock that are good for climbing, rocks that are good for making human figures, rocks that are good for smashing yam pulp, rocks that have edible lizards underneath, rocks that have venomous snakes underneath...
Come on! We didn't get dropped out of the sky with all blank hard-drives in our heads - we grew up here! We never stopped observing, investigating, experimenting, learning and speculating about our environment for the last 4 million years in more or less our present configuration, and all the previous millions of years in whatever shape we evolved from.
There was no "void". But there was always a desire to understand and control the environment.
And to not die.

I apologize for being difficult to understand. You are right, there always was, (and always will be) an infinite amount of personal experience to immerse oneself in. That is not what I was referring to. I meant external objective sources of information (from a source that you personally consider to be an authority) about issues that lie outside of your current perception, since religion doesn't mostly deal in the commonplace, rather in the fantastic.

[Count Lucanor]

And I completely agree with you. 500,000 years ago when religions were invented there was not a whole lot going on...

...Fast forward half a million years and the world we live in and

Just a marginal note: religion is not 500,000 years old. Neanderthals are thought to have been around since 400K years, but at best, their ritual practices would be reduced to burials, of which there may be evidence happening 100K - 50K years ago, and that is disputed. Modern humans arrived around 50K years ago and organized, complex forms of religion, came about 10K - 5K years ago.

[Alias]

I apologize for being difficult to understand. You are right, there always was, (and always will be) an infinite amount of personal experience to immerse oneself in. That is not what I was referring to. I meant external objective sources of information (from a source that you personally consider to be an authority) about issues that lie outside of your current perception, since religion doesn't mostly deal in the commonplace, rather in the fantastic.

There always was the same amount of information about everything. There were always authorities, luminaries, oracles and experts, as well as verifiable observations, measurements and experimental data . It had different methods and sources, but people made the same use of it: to enhance their odds of survival; to gain control of their environment; to increase their relative power and to show off.
Stonehenge is exactly the same cry of "Look at me!!! Look what I can do!!!" as the pyramids, the hanging gardens of Babylon or the moon landing.
Humans have been human for a long time: current knowledge - scientific, esoteric, engineering, ethical, artistic, psychological - is always state-of-the-art; humans display the same hubris about the little bit of knowledge they have from one millennium to the next.
And that knowledge always coexists with the same amount of irrationality, uncontrolled emotion and wishful thinking.

[Spectrum]

Stonehenge is exactly the same cry of "Look at me!!! Look what I can do!!!" as the pyramids, the hanging gardens of Babylon or the moon landing.

You are beating around but hit the nail with "pyramids"

Why do those with great power around the world sacrifice the lives of thousands to build pyramids [Egypt, China, Central America, & elsewhere] for their selfish interests to the hereafter. Note my point re meaning of religion above;

2. The purpose of religion is to deal with an inherent unavoidable existential crisis that generate terrible angst and all sort of psychological pains.

Seeking life in the hereafter while alive on Earth is one of the central meaning of religion. Even non-theistic religions deal with inevitable mortality. Everything else within religion are merely secondary to the above.

[Burning ghost]

I recently had a discussion with an acquaintance of mine who supported that religion exists so that it can help people find the meaning of life and/or develop a conscience, and that's what makes its existance necessary. My counter point was that in today's society, in the age of information, there are many other means through which someone can accomplish both. Thoughts?

Personal note: English isn't my native language, so I apologise in advance for any grammatical or syntactical errors

I think your friend has a good argument. This is because religious institutions, as societal devices, have been successful in instilling a sense of harmony, to some degree, through law.

Access to information doesn't halt the need for thought and reason. There is no universal "good" we can all agree upon, and because of this we tend to use a kind of "map" called conscience. Religious mythos contains some very condensed archetypal ideas and comments on human behavior, these have been accumulated since humans came into existence. The most powerful mythos we have is that which has survived the test of time in its retelling and use.

In this way "religions" have preserved a rich tapestry of human behavior that has been found useful in some way. The work that Jung put in is probably the best representation of this dynamic force that transcends language and geography. It is the "landscape" of the human mind.

[LuckyR]

I apologize for being difficult to understand. You are right, there always was, (and always will be) an infinite amount of personal experience to immerse oneself in. That is not what I was referring to. I meant external objective sources of information (from a source that you personally consider to be an authority) about issues that lie outside of your current perception, since religion doesn't mostly deal in the commonplace, rather in the fantastic.

There always was the same amount of information about everything. There were always authorities, luminaries, oracles and experts, as well as verifiable observations, measurements and experimental data . It had different methods and sources, but people made the same use of it: to enhance their odds of survival; to gain control of their environment; to increase their relative power and to show off.
Stonehenge is exactly the same cry of "Look at me!!! Look what I can do!!!" as the pyramids, the hanging gardens of Babylon or the moon landing.
Humans have been human for a long time: current knowledge - scientific, esoteric, engineering, ethical, artistic, psychological - is always state-of-the-art; humans display the same hubris about the little bit of knowledge they have from one millennium to the next.
And that knowledge always coexists with the same amount of irrationality, uncontrolled emotion and wishful thinking.

Ok, let's suppose you're right and there is little if any difference between the amount of diversity of authoritative information on the Big Questions of the day for ancient and modern folks. Why then is atheism much more common as science took off? Coincidence?

-- Updated September 24th, 2017, 12:38 pm to add the following --

And I completely agree with you. 500,000 years ago when religions were invented there was not a whole lot going on...

...Fast forward half a million years and the world we live in and

Just a marginal note: religion is not 500,000 years old. Neanderthals are thought to have been around since 400K years, but at best, their ritual practices would be reduced to burials, of which there may be evidence happening 100K - 50K years ago, and that is disputed. Modern humans arrived around 50K years ago and organized, complex forms of religion, came about 10K - 5K years ago.

Actually ritual treatment of the dead ie burial is going to be the first evidence of a belief in an afterlife since it predates writing. And since the earliest homonid to be found at a burial site is Homo heidelbergensis (who lived 200,000 to 700,000 years ago) 500,000 is an average guess, though I would be happy with 200,000 if that made you feel better. If the fact that heidelbergensis is not a modern human bothers you, then I am cool with 100,000 years since archaeological excavations in the Qafzeh Cave in the Middle East found human remains, whose estimated age is 100,000 years old. The human skeletons were associated with red ochre which was found only alongside the bones, suggesting that the burials were symbolic (Homo sapiens arriving in the Middle Paleolithic, about 200,000 years ago).

[Alias]

Ok, let's suppose you're right and there is little if any difference between the amount of diversity of authoritative information on the Big Questions of the day for ancient and modern folks. Why then is atheism much more common as science took off? Coincidence?

Not coincidence; marketing. That's when the religious authorities gave non-believers a special name, so that they could be identified as "those bad people who reject our divine truth".
I can conjecture, without having the statistics, that every culture had its skeptics, its non-conformists and its rejectors of the official party line.
I know that, since civilized societies instituted state religions as adjuncts to the ruling power-structure, non-adherence has been more or less severely punishable, more or less wise to keep quiet about. I know that since secular law-making and religious tolerance in constitutions, it's been safer to be openly atheist or agnostic - just as it's been safer to be openly Catholic or Protestant in countries where the dominant religion was the other one. (Muslim and Jewish, rather less so.)
What I don't know is how tolerant primitive peoples were of those members of their tribe who didn't believe in the ancestors' ghosts, or the midnight owl-spirit or the Valkyries, and how safe anyone might have felt about saying so, out loud.

PS pyramids were not merely about life after death. They were also about engineering and shows of wealth and power. Superstition/ Knowledge /Control.

[Atreyu]

The true "meaning", or rather "purpose", of religion is evolution. Religion was invented as a means to help men evolve themselves - to become better people in general, and to acquire new powers which we do not already have "by default", including, ultimately, the power to be "immortal", at least to the extent that this is possible. Religion was supposed to help men find happiness, acquire conscience, acquire special powers to help their fellow man and themselves, and ultimately to understand how to live on after the death of the physical body. This was the original purpose and intent of religion.

[Spectrum]

PS pyramids were not merely about life after death. They were also about engineering and shows of wealth and power. Superstition/ Knowledge /Control.

There were all kinds of monuments to show wealth and power of the past, but the primary purpose that drive those to build pyramids, sacrifice lives to entomb themselves in mummified form is about life after death.

My point is to demonstrate this desperation for the afterlife is so strong that those who has the power and wealth will do what it take to ensure they have the better advantage in the after life.

This desperation for the after life is the same powerful force [of the zombie parasite] that drive the evolution of religions [from polytheism to monotheism] to deal with that inevitable existential crisis. All other purpose [other than basic survival and reproduction] that follow are secondary.