Religions did not create a belief in God. A belief in God created religions.
To a degree yes, but in the details no. A belief in something created religions, but religions very definitely created a belief in the specific god-concepts of those religions. That's why the divinities of Hinduism are so drastically different from those of Shintoism, and why the gods of the various Abrahamic sects are not only different from those, but so different from each other. The schism and conflict and friction between those sects has manifested as differences in the interpretation of what gods are, which feeds into the further tribalism and distinction. Which is not, of itself, an argument that they are all wrong, or all based on nothing, I just don't think it's as clear-cut as we have belief therefore we have god therefore we have religion.
Humans have a natural tendency to believe in a God. We seem to be hardwired (refer Andrew Newberg) to believe in a God.
We have a tendency to err on the side of presuming agency, but again whilst you can see how that would lead to the idea of a god, it's not a requirement.
In other words, we humans have a need to reach out to things bigger than ourselves....as part of our spiritual evolution.
No, that fails to necessarily follow. If that tendency is the result of a deliberate intent to inculcate spirituality (whatever that means) then it's a possibility, but if that tendency is the result of selective pressures in nature favouring instincts which err on the side of caution then that tendency to see agency is just a byproduct, it's not 'for' anything itself. The idea that there is a 'need' to reach out to things bigger than ourselves as part of something spiritual seems to be disproven purely by the increasing numbers of people who don't feel the need to be part of something spiritual at all.
Seen with my view that evolution has a direction driven by our inner consciousness....it is a natural conclusion that we are meant to believe in a God and in things that are beyond the obvious physical realities.
Not to be disparaging, but if you start with the idea that there's a god - or, at least, some overarching guiding intelligence - it's hardly a surprise that you'll find an overarching guiding intelligence at the end of your chain as well.
Our need to understand death and life as something beyond the body, is natural to us and is a need inherent in our mental make up.
What need is that? We seek agency naturally, as we established, but being able to put aside as much of our natural tendencies as we can, and do something academic, something intellectual, something reasoned instead is what makes us different from the rest of the animal kingdom.
We are, after all, not just monkey - we're monkeys with
shoes.
Religions as cultural constructs are only an outcome of this need.
You've described a trait, you've not established that it's a need at all.
We are being driven to realize that we are more than mere physical bodies that happened to evolve due to random variations and chance natural selection.
No, we have a tendency to think that we're something more than 'mere' physical bodies, and if we don't examine that tendency then we'll likely be satisfied with that unevidenced explanation.
I think it is only proper that we follow this natural push instead of resisting it through stubborn materialism.
The naturalistic fallacy, even if it's compounded on a failure to adequately examine the precursors, remains a fallacy. Just because something's natural does not mean that we're in any way beholden to it - nor, by the same rationale, are we bound to reject it, of course.
O.
