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Originally Posted by Peace Pipe
The nature of humans isn't to accept uncertainty, we fear uncertainty more than anything. We can't accept that there is an afterlife but not know what it is. So we create an afterlife, or what we think it will be. It is very easy to accept monotheism because it solves all uncertainty and gives reason for all things we can't explain, we hate hate what we can't explain. Think about it, have you ever been told after getting in trouble that you will be told your punishment later? The uncertain fear of the worst is far worse than the punishment could ever be, its the same thing with life and death.
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Well said.
To take this a step farther,
I'm not sure why, but we tend to personify the things we dont understand. The things we cant explain seem to manifest in the brain of the human as a creation of some sort of a human form (ie. god). As alluded to earlier, many people see god as an old white bearded dude in the sky watching over us. Obviously not everyone sees god this way, but generally the concensus is that god is like a person.
It is then pretty convenient to use the idea that we were infact created in his image. This gives us a feeling that we indeed have a part of god in all of us, yet we are in debt to him for our creation and therefore must serve his will in our life in order to achieve a pleasant afterlife.
if this is something you believe; that religous insitutions are creatively crafted entities designed to condition mass groups of humans to think alike (and just to be fair, i havent said that any of this is positive or negative), then free will is a reality. Its way too convenient for a person in a high place to say that every move you make and every thought you have is predetermined by an "all knowing" entity. that though seems to contradict the social "elietism" that many religous believers have.
Again i'm generalizing here so please dont take this to heart. Unfortunately most discussions of philosophy all seem to, when boiled down to the most concentrated point, deal with the existance or non-existance of a higher power. That can really take the fun out of a philosophical discussion.