Dieing Religion

            Throughout history man has been trying to find answers to a host of issues. Perhaps the most important ones are "why are we here?" and "where do we go from here?" and similar questions. In an effort to provide the answers that we need, we came up with religion. Most of the world's present religions have some sort of "super being" or "main god." These super beings are supposed to be all-powerful and all knowing. Many also have lesser gods and saints. The path or communication channel to these "main gods" is not usually a clear and direct one between "main god" and believer. It is usually cluttered with a lot of intermediaries and detours. One important feature of most of these religions is that they usually have some "super entity" that controls evil. All that is good is as a result of some good entity and all that is bad is as a result of some bad one. Now all of these and other general features serve an important function, especially in the past. Most (if not all) early civilizations had a large part of their origins in religion. The early pharaohs of ancient Egypt, for example, were considered to be gods. Priests in most of these ancient societies held extremely important and many times powerful posts. Even in modern times, religion continues to play a very important function. The Pope in Rome, once a very powerful figure in centuries past, is still seen by many as very important and relevant. The point to all of this is that as man saw the need to get some sort of community together, religion was used to great effect to help start civilizations. It would have been more difficult if a man was to claim authority on his own - he needed some sort of supernatural authority. This was where religion came in. Without a doubt, religion helped to keep people, communities, and nations together. It is also important to note that religion served another important function -- providing ready and easy answers and "solutions" to difficult issues.