Developing Religion

I've never blogged before and all of this is new to me so I’m not entirely sure how my first post should go. I'll start by defining religion (courtesy of Wikipedia.com) --

By definition, a religion is an organized approach to human spirituality which usually encompasses a set of narratives, symbols, beliefs and practices, often with a supernatural or transcendent quality, that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power or truth.

The Upper Paleolithic religion used cave drawings to express their beliefs and to tell stories as well. These drawings were done deep within the caves. They were very strong worshipers of the earth; this devotion could be looked at as equivalent with today’s worship of Gob, Allah, etc. Today, this kind of worship could be looked at as pagan or some other non Christian, Jewish, nor Muslim religion, but to them this was what they believed in.

The way people see religion can be looked at as either psychological or social through nature. Humans are naturally social animals. To me, religion is all about community. I admire the way Durkheim, a great sociologist of religion, defined religion in our reading Paleolithic art and religion. Durkheim says that “Religion is a system of ideas and rituals that represents to people the society to which they belong." Having a group come together under their specified "house of worship" is very important to healthily express their given beliefs. No matter how a person decides to express their beliefs, whether it is through the idea of divine intervention or by practices centered on teachings of a spiritual leader, it is very important to have a strong, supportive community behind you.