Is Anybody Out There?

What is religion? And where does it come from? Religion comes from the mind of the human animal, so it comes from us. The other animals on earth don’t seem to need religion. And as far as we can tell they haven’t developed any. That’s because they are more at one with their lives than we are. They act instinctively. They go with the flow of existence without thinking about it all the time. The human animal has lost the ability to do that. Our brains have developed in a different way that makes us self-conscious. We are interested in ourselves. We can’t help wondering about things. We can’t help thinking.

And the biggest thing we think about is the universe itself and where it came from. Is there anybody out there who made it? The shorthand word we use for this possible somebody or something is God. Someone who thinks there is a god out there is called a theist. Someone who thinks there’s nobody out there and we’re on our own in the universe is called an atheist. And the study of the god and what it wants from us is called theology.

A Little History of Religion
Richard Holloway

Background on Richard Holloway