[darwinist]

I think that religion is more than just those things you and Bayou mentioned. It is also a form of control, by those in power, over the herd. Plus, you touched on the subjective of 'nothingness'. Some people, have to believe in some 'thing'. Or drive themsevles mad. Condisider the follow:-

The Role of Patriarchal Religions

What makes things even worse is that most people not only see violence as the solution to violence, but that they think they have the right to use violence and coercion to force other people to be "moral." This belief comes squarely from the "thou shalts" and "thou shalt nots" of patriarchal religions such as christianity and islam, both of which have long and bloody histories of murdering and torturing nonbelievers, nonconformists, and heretics. So, it's no surprise that those who adhere to such religions have no hesitation in using violence to force others to submit, or simply use it for the sheer joy of inflicting pain. A couple of quotes from the bible illustrate the religious submit-or-die attitude:

The ironic thing about all this is that many of the religious folk most intent upon using violence and coercion to enforce "morality" are themselves quite fearful of becoming victims of violence. Yet the cruel policies they support produce violence.

A good example of this association of violence with "morality" is the war on drugs. It's painfully obvious that drug prohibition is not only destroying our civil liberties, but is also producing a lot of violence and property crime because of the combination of illegality and high profit margins; this results in turf wars by dealers, and crimes committed by drug addicts to support the high price of their habits. All of this should be, and is, obvious, but there is so much fear, authoritarianism and sadism in the general population, and so little ability to analyze data, that the war on drugs continues. And we all pay the price for it through destruction of our liberties, sky-high taxes, and the creation of what could well become a police state.

This, however, should be no surprise, given that another effect of patriarchal religions is the degradation of human reason. One of the primary messages of patriarchal religions seems to be, "You have a brain, but don't use it. Believe, don't think." Two of the most famous manifestations of this attitude are the Catholic Index of Prohibited Books, which was in force for hundreds of years, and the contract that Iran's fundamentalist government put out on Salman Rushdie's life over a decade ago.

The following quote from Pope Gregory XVI's encyclical, Mirari Vox, provides a good example of the religious attitude toward the human intellect:

From the polluted fountain of indifferentism flows that absurd and erroneous doctrine, or rather, raving, which claims and defends liberty of conscience for everyone. From this comes, in a word, the worst plague of all, namely, unrestrained liberty of opinion and freedom of speech.

The available evidence indicates that relations between the sexes in human societies tended to be relatively egalitarian during prehistoric (hunting and gathering) times. But that all changed about 8,000 years ago when human beings began to practice agriculture (large-scale food production). That made it possible, for the first time in human history, for people to create and to accumulate surplus goods on a relatively large scale. There's fairly convincing evidence that almost as soon as this happened inequalities arose (or at least greatly intensified) between the sexes, and that a ruling elite first appeared.

There are various theories to explain this sudden inequality. The one that makes the most sense to me is the theory that during prehistoric times woman's primary economic role was that of gatherer. Once man began to practice agriculture, the primary economic role of woman disappeared, and with it the basis for her equality with man. With that, man began to call the shots.

Since one of the functions of a ruling class is to perpetuate itself - and because the early ruling classes consisted of royal families - female sexual exclusivity soon became mandatory. The ruler wanted to know that his children were, in fact, his. A similar thing happened in the lower classes with the advent of private property. Men who accumulated even small amounts of wealth wanted to pass it on to their heirs. So, the patriarchal family was born.

(At this point it's probably good to mention that, largely because of this enslavement of women, a lot of people tend to romanticize pre-historic societies. This is a mistake. While there were undoubtedly a lot of good aspects to prehistoric societies, there were also a lot of bad ones. The most obvious is the early age of death. The average age of death in prehistoric societies, according to many forensic studies, ranged from about 25 to about 35. As well, women suffered greatly from preventable [in modern times] health problems; due almost certainly to the lack of safe, effective contraception, the life expectancy of women was several years shorter than that of men in prehistoric societies.)

Regardless of the positive and negative aspects of such societies, we know that early historic societies were rigidly hierarchical and authoritarian, and that women in them were degraded and sexually enslaved. Naturally, this inequality, degradation and enslavement needed justification, and patriarchal religions arose to provide it. Judeo-christianity is a good example. In many judeo-christian "holy" texts, women are treated as unclean, as property, as inferior to men, and, as such, subject to rule by men.