The Origin of Religions

There is a difference between religion, God and mankind’s relationship with Him. Having lost their relationship with the one true God, mankind tended toward paganism as a kind of physics to explain existential phenomena like thunder (thor), war (mars), and misc things. Romans had a god to explain anything. So did other societies.

I believe that the term religion shares an etymology with allegiance at some point. Minions easily become allegiant to an idea or organizing principle with power. Politics can become a religion- maybe woke qualifies as a temporary disposable religion of shared rem.

Philistines had myriad false gods though animism was prior to bigger false gods. Shinto had spirit gates- tori where spirits could land, Romans had Janus the door goddess.

At Mecca there were many pagan faiths and Muhammad’s father was the Keeper of the Kabba. When he lost his job and was purged his son syncretized Judaism and Christianity into a religion and conquered Mecca purging his late Dad’s enemies and paganism for necessarily intolerant monotheism with himself as speaker of the monotheistic diety. Christ is the only way to God, for he is God.

Voltaire believed in God yet thought he has a non-interventionist policy for the fallen . Voltaire thought people should fix things themselves. Perhaps that includes a balanced government budget. He said; ""If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him" ('Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer')."

I researched this years ago before A.I. I asked ChatGPT to simplify the issue. it wrote; "Yes, the words allegiance and religion do share a distant etymological connection, though they refer to different concepts today.

Allegiance:

The word allegiance comes from the Old French ligeance (which means "loyalty" or "fidelity"), derived from the medieval Latin ligantia, meaning "the state of being bound." The Latin root is ligare, meaning "to bind" or "to tie." The term originally referred to the bond or duty of a vassal to a lord in feudal times.

Religion:

The word religion comes from the Latin religio, which has an uncertain exact meaning but is often associated with the concept of "reverence" or "obligation to the divine." It's generally thought to derive from the verb religare, meaning "to bind" or "to tie," which is also the root of allegiance. The idea is that religion involves a bond or tie to a higher power, much like allegiance involves a bond to a sovereign or ruler."

 Individuals and societies adapt to environmental challenges, sometimes rightly and other times not. If they were all in one homogenous empirical experience of living in my opinion the results for afterlife fate would still differ from one soul to the next. For example, if the entire population lived in a repressive totalitarian social environment for a century and atheism was the official doctrine some would be saved even if most went to hell. People are saved through grace- God selects the elect.