No, I don't think so. Now, Religion having been used to control people, absolutely, but I don't think it was created for that purpose.

You hit the nail on the head.

IMO- Yes. Stories to make children behave. "I don't like that you're doing this, so if you do it, you're going to Hell". Forget that.

Interesting question. Here's George Carlin's take on it. (PG version)

Aye..as well as government. Is control necessarily evil? One may argue tis not.

During 1800s, Anthropologists had a problem as to how to classify human beings. One researcher proposed the expression "intelligent animal". After advanced studies on monkeys, it was dropped. Another researcher proposed "tool using animal". After observing some animals making wooden tools and sharpening them with knife like stones, it was dropped. Another researcher proposed "weapon using animal". A decade ago, a rare film was shot by an amateur in an African forest. One short monkey was hit very badly by a big monkey. The short monkey prepared a wooden knife using stones and hid it on the top of a tree. After some days, when the big monkey came to attack the short monkey, it ran up to the tree for the weapon it has hid and killed the big monkey. The one thing that the anthropologists found with any group of human beings, even if they did not have contacts with the out side world for thousands of years, is spirituality with some form of religion. So, man is a "spiritual animal" if you want to call him that way. The Upanishads say that "Manush" (human) was so named because he has "Manas" a mind higher than that of the animals which realizes the divinity in creation. It was present since the creation of human beings. Religion is the characteristic feature of most of the human beings. It was not attained through reasoning using mind. Illiterate tribes located in inaccessible forests also have religion. It is as eternal and and as unchanging as the Almighty. Disbelief by a few will not affect it. "The percentage of atheists in the world is less than 5%" http://www.positiveatheism.org/india/s1990c48a.htm

No, I believe religion was invented to explain why the sun came up, the seasons changed and why, sometimes, the crops don't grow. It's when people decided that bad things happen because the gods are unhappy with THEM instead of EACH OTHER, that the controlling thing happened.

I don't think it was *invented* to control people. It was invented to explain the universe. But it has been very widely used to control people. Things invented for one putpose often are used for another.

in many ways it may seem that (some) religions force people to follow rigid moral rules which in turn become our moral makeup. it is more of an ideological brainwashing. the philosopher althusser came up with the ideas of RSA and ISA, one meaning repressive state apparatus and the other ideological state apparatus, religion falling into the latter of the two. what appears to happen in many cases is that religion becomes such an intrinsic part of our self identity that we accept it without even thinking as truth as we do with the education(ISA) we are given. in many ways many religions were created as an explanation in order to understand the world around us and its origins but has been twisted by the state as a means to control people. historically religion has been the cause of more deaths than any other thing (except disease of course).

Religion was also invented to discipline people, and give them a way of life. Religion wasn't invented to control people, because you have the choice of whether or not to follow that religion.

No, it was invented to give people a sense a control and worth but not to control them.

No I think it was invented to give people something to believe in.

Religion was invented by the hierarchy to control and keep the peasants and others off the streets who may cause any Anarchy also to occupy their minds, in simple words give them something to do, follow and believe in, this way it would keep them all in check, and the hierarchy could enjoy their prestige way of life without any hick-ups.

Religion was invented by the hierarchy to control and keep the peasants and others off the streets who may cause any Anarchy also to occupy their minds, in simple words give them something to do, follow and believe in, this way it would keep them all in check, and the hierarchy could enjoy their prestige way of life without any hick-ups.

It was created to keep people in a cage mentally and spiritually. The victims don't even realize it.

As an agnostic, I like to believe in the possibility that it was "discovered" rather than invented, and those who use it to control people are really missing the point here.

No. People have always asked existential questions like ("Who created everything?") and that, even in the Stone Age when everybody was a hunter. In that society, you didn't have social classes, they began with agriculture when people became settled and begun to accept society.

There is something in mankind which hungers for relationship with a spiritual power. That is where belief came from. Religion was developed by people who wanted, for whatever reason, to add human structure to belief.

Religion as an institution was invented and was used in that manner. Spirituality on the other hand is as old as the human race.

Religion was created by the exploiting class.Slavery Feudalism and today Capitalism based on exploitation and all were backed by religion. And when Karl Marx spoke against these systems both the religion and the exploiting system came out spoke against him.still the day religion and the capitalist system is united against Karl Marx ideology.Today capitalism is at its peak and not a single religion came out against it.People from day one were told the lie that in another life you will get the reward and people still believe and are unaware that the suffering which were impose on them by the system is not gods will god and heaven is a lie to keep you in control.

i believe religion is something that comes inprinted in our soul and like everything evolves. It started as common sense between what was good and bad.Then as time went on it evolved to a mutual feeling. except it evolved in people all around the world in a different way. But as the same idea.

Early gods were personifications of the sun, storms, wind, etc. It was perfectly reasonable that people said "Hey, we better take note of these storms and respect them, because they're more powerful than us." It wasn't until quite a bit later that it to a turn toward silliness.