Well, that all believers are necessarily oppressed would be Marx's
explanation of religion. I do not believe he is entirely right, but I
argued from a Marxian point because C. Zeus had often quoted the Communist Manifesto by Marx and seemed quite well-versed in Marxist philosophy.I am not an expert on this subject, but I have made some thoughts into it, and I fund the function of religions change according to the societies they exist in, as the norms, virtues and sins of the religion in question are often very much like the society it exists in. In ancient Greece and Rome, physical strength and courage were among the highest virtues, so their gods of course were strong and brave. In the Jewish religion, the higher virtues are enlightenment and intelligence, and due to the fact that Jews have traditionally been an oppressed and hunted people, they have needed intelligence to get by. If you examine the Christian religion, you will also find that modern Christianity is very different from original and medieval Christianity - And I also do mean the modern Catholic church compared to that of the Middle Ages.
Religion is, like every human-made idea, subject to an evolutionary
process. The first stage of a religion could be said to be the explanatory phase. The religion in a society where science has not been practiced yet, and the whims of nature and natural phenomena are explained as the work of the gods. This is the sort of religion we find among Indian, Eskimo and other "primitive" tribal-based societies. In these societies, the people is constantly subjected to the whims of nature, hunters like Eskimos and most Indians are dependent on the animals they catch, while agricultural communities like a few Indian tribes (the Mandan-Dakota tribe for example) are subject to weather for a good harvest and therefore survival. The gods these people worship are largely gods of nature who have the power to decide whether animals or crops are to be given to the tribe or whether they will fall to famine. They please these gods through following the laws and taboos in their religion, and their survival is then if not ensured, then more probable. Taboos in these religions, while they may seem strange to an outside Western observer, are often logical in their application, their socially regulating function are necessary for the tribe's survival. In a society where everyone have a function, life cannot be casally wasted - hence the Eskimos of Greenland who did not even have a word for 'murder' in their language before Greenland was colonized.
When philosophy and science begins to exist, some things can be
explained through the profane physical world and not the divine. Religion follows a change with this, and the functions of gods are gradually hollowed out. A religion such as the Greek still explains some phenomena the Greeks did not understand, for example Apollo's Plague Arrows, but much of the religion's thinking is in the realm of morals. The gods had laws about what a person was and was not allowed to do, and each god was the embodiment of a virtue or several (Athena, for example, being the god of Wisdom)
With the social change to a feudal monarchy, religion takes on a
legitimating role. The injustices in a feudal society and the complete and full power to the monarch could be explained by stating that the social order was the will of God, the king was "king by God's mercy" and therefore shouldn't be questioned. Anyone against the King would therefore also be against God and could justly be disposed with, for he would surely be an instrument of evil. Likewise, anyone questioning the foundations of the religion was an enemy of society and should likewise be disposed with. When such a society entered a crisis, it searched for a 'warlock' or a 'witch' to put the blame on and execute. This ploy often worked, by catering to the bloodlust of the masses by publicly executing free-thinkers, they were easier to keep under control.
Religion goes through several other phases in its evolution, but will
eventually come to a point when science, moral philosophy and the order of society has hollowed out most of its explanatory values. This is the society we live in today. We know the origins of species, we know that we are not the only planet in existence and we are probably not the only one with life either. Our moral philosophers have formulated ethic systems that states what we must and mustn't do for rational reasons rather than "because God says so." We no longer mix religion and politics (except fundamentalist states) by accepting a God-given leader. There are still things we don't know and can push over to religious explanations, for instance the questions of what started the Big Bang (or if you do not believe in that theory, what created all the particles in the steady state universe). Modern religion allows people a hope of constant, eternal and absolute truth in a time where morals become hollowed out and a hope of a meaning with the madness.
That is in my opinion why we have created religion, NOT solely to keep the masses in check. At Marx' time an explanation of keeping the masses under control seemed much more acceptable, because back then it WAS the working masses that most commonly accepted religion unquestioningly. Most capitalists did genuinely not believe in God. Today is a different world though, and I believe that religion today is more for the need of a hope and a desire to explain the unexplainable. Haven't you ever seen any of the Westerners who tire of the constantly changing, hectic World and become monks? The many people who find God and the Bible to be better and higher ideals than swallowing the 'dirt' that they feel the modern world throws around it?
What I mean when I talk of a society that does not need God is not just a socialist state order. In all socialist states so far, religion has
continued to exist even for the state's attempts to destroy it. Otherwise they have replaced Jesus with Lenin and God with Marx, which is no better. What I mean is that we need another type of human being than one who accepts God. One that craves to know, that craves to be sovereign over his own life and one that does not desire a reward from God for acting morally right. One that acts morally right simply because he or she recognizes that it is his duty as a human being to do so, and not in subordinance to a divine entity (or the State for that matter). I just do not believe such a type of person as the norm is possible under the profit ethics and pecking order of capitalism.
None.
