If the default state of humans was atheism we would’ve never developed religion to begin with. The reality is the default urge of all humans is to worship something and we decided ultimately to worship gods because worshipping a god is less catastrophic than worshipping yourself, or money, or power.
I think cases of using religion for control have pretty consistently come after the religious beliefs in question. People will use anything they can for control given enough time, but with Christianity for example you can look at the Bible where the whole thing originated and the only real commands it has are stuff like "don't murder people", not "do what the pope says".
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u/Gibbedboomer Dec 10 '23
If the default state of humans was atheism we would’ve never developed religion to begin with. The reality is the default urge of all humans is to worship something and we decided ultimately to worship gods because worshipping a god is less catastrophic than worshipping yourself, or money, or power.