Religions Are Man-Made, Not Divine (History, Psychology, & Science)

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Religion was invented by humans, not inspired by God, not revealed from on high. Invented by us and for very human reasons. And in today's video, I have seven different ways to prove that to you. And please, before we jump in, I have to mention this isn't about being smug or dismissive. It's about looking at the historical, anthropological, and psychological evidence and asking what it tells us about the origins of religion. Let's start from the beginning. Number one, the diversity problem. One of the simplest and most powerful arguments for the human invention of religion is the sheer staggering diversity of religious beliefs across time and space. Think about it, ladies and gentlemen. There have been thousands of gods, thousands of creation stories, thousands of moral codes, thousands of afterlife scenarios.

[00:00:49]Man, the ancient Egyptians believed in Osiris and the weighing of the heart.

[00:00:54]The N believed in Valhalla and Ragnarok.

[00:00:57]The Hindus believed in the cycle of rebirth and karma. The Christians believe in a single God who became human and died for their sins. The list goes on and on. Now, if there were a real God, an actual objective existent deity, wouldn't we expect a little more consistency, ladies and gentlemen?

[00:01:16]Wouldn't we expect that God to reveal himself in a way that everyone could recognize? Willing to expect the world's religions to converge on the same basic truths, man rather than diverging into thousands of contradictory claims that humans have been killing each other over for centuries. The obvious explanation here is that humans from different cultures invented these wildly diverging stories to make sense of their worlds, to explain natural phenomena, to comfort themselves about death, to enforce social norms, and most importantly to consolidate authority. Man, now this brings us to the geography argument which we've touched on before and I think is worth revisiting. If you were born in India, you're very likely to be Hindu. If you were born in Saudi Arabia, you're very likely to be Muslim.

[00:02:07]And if you are born in Italy, you're very likely to be Catholic and so on and so forth. Man, this is not how truth is supposed to work. Truth shouldn't be determined by your apostle cod. I mean, let's compare religious truth to scientific truth. The laws of physics apply equally in New Delhi and real the theory of evolution doesn't care if you are raised in Texas or Tibet and that's the reality of science man but with religion it's almost perfectly correlated with culture across the world religion is something you inherit like your language or your testing food man. So what does that tell us about the difference between the two? It tells us that religion is not a response to universal evidence. It's a human cultural invention passed down through generations like Cipes and Folk songsman.

[00:03:02]Here's where it gets really interesting from a scientific perspective. Many evolutionary biologists and anthropologists have proposed that religion or at least the cognitive tendencies that give rise to religions may have evolved because they had some survival advantages. Think about it ladies and gentlemen. Early humans who believe that invisible ancestors were watching over them might have been more likely to behave cooperatively to follow group norms and to sacrifice for the tribe. Even more obvious, early humans who believed that natural disasters or punishments from angry gods might have been more motivated to figure out what they were doing wrong and change their behavior. And last, but by no means least, those who believe that death wasn't the end might have been less afraid to take risks to hunt dangerous animals and to go to war. This explanation is perfect because it accounts for both the universal nature of religion as well as its diversity.

[00:04:01]Religion is universal because humanity's underlying cognitive features are universal and these include pattern seeking, urgency detection, theory of mind, etc. Man, and on the other hand, religion is also diverse because the specific content of these cognitive features is filled in by the different cultures, different environments, different threats, and different social structures all produced different religious stories. And that isn't surprising. But let's take a look at the problem of evil from a philosophical lens. Now let's shift to philosophy. One of the oldest and most powerful arguments against the divine origin of religion is the problem of evil. The problem of evil is a topic that deserves its own dedicated video, but that's for another day. Now, for this video's sake, here is a brief description. The problem of evil asks if there is a God who is all knowing, all powerful, and all good, why is there so much pointless suffering in the world? Why do children get cancer? Why do natural disasters wipe out entire communities overnights? Why do parasites blind the innocent? The problem of evil is an amazing argument against divinity as it strikes at the heart of most religious doctrines, man.

[00:05:15]Because think about it ladies and gentlemen. If God is all powerful, he could stop it all today. If God is all knowing, he knows that that it's happening. Sorry. And if God is all good, he would want to stop it. So why doesn't he? This question has been around for a long time and and actually philosophers like I hope I'm pronouncing his name right, Epicus framed it thousands of years ago in a way that still hits today. He asked is God willing to prevent evil but notable?

[00:05:44]then he is not powerful. He is he able but not willing. Then he is not all good. Is he both able and willing? Then where does evil come from? Now to be fair, there are responses theologians have tried to give over the centuries, man. Some say suffering exists because of free will. Others say it's part of a greater plan. We simply can't understand, etc. I know that you've all heard the arguments before, man. And those explanations can make sense, but only up to a certain point. Because when you start to look at certain kinds of suffering, it becomes harder to justify.

[00:06:21]And I'm not talking about human suffering. I'm talking about natural evil as well. Think about earthquakes, diseases. Those are things that no human chose. Or even more difficult, suffering that seems completely pointless, such as animal suffering. Animals don't choose evil. Ladies and gentlemen, they don't sin. They don't understand morality in the same way we humans do. And yet they suffer constantly. You've all come across the videos at some point in your lives. A gazelle being torn apart by a predator, a wounded animal slowly starving because it can't hurt, creatures dying from disease, parasites, or harsh environments, man. And all this suffering was happening long before humans even existed. So what purpose does it serve? It certainly cannot be a test because animals don't know they're being tested. It's difficult to call it punishment because animals haven't done anything morally wrong. And it's difficult to justify it as part of some greater moral lesson because and this is simple. There is no one there to learn from it man. So what are we left with?

[00:07:26]At some point nature starts to look less like a carefully guided moral system and more like a natural process unfolding on its own terms. This isn't a world designed around minimizing suffering.

[00:07:37]It's a world where suffering is simply part of how things work. Man, one of the most striking features of religious belief is how anthropomorphic it is. Gods have human emotions, love, anger, jealousy, compassion, and gods even have human desires. They want to be woripped. They want obedience. They want sacrifices. And gods even have human physical characteristics in many traditions including hands, feet, eyes, ears, mouths. Don't you, ladies and gentlemen, find this suspicious. Why this suspic? I mean I'm sorry.

[00:08:14]I mean why would a perfect all knowing, all powerful, transcendent, infinite being have human emotions? Why would he care whether we bow to him or not? Why would he get jealous? These are the concerns of a tribal world, not the creator of the universe. The obvious explanation here is that humans invented gods in their own image. We projected ourselves onto the cosmos. We imagined the universe was run by a bigger, more powerful version of ourselves. Someone who shared our values, who cared about the same things we cared about, who could be pleased by our actions and angered by our dis disobedience. Sorry.

[00:08:52]And actually here is a video of K Sean putting it as perfectly as possible.

[00:08:58]Ladies and gentlemen, every other proposal and their number is legion to displace us from cosmic center stage has also been resisted in part for similar reasons. We seem to crave privilege merited not by our works but by our birth by the mere fact that say we're humans and born on earth. We might call it the anthropocentric the human centered conceit.

[00:09:30]This conceit is brought close to culmination in the notion that we are created in God's image. The creator and ruler of the entire universe looks just like me. My, what a coincidence. How convenient and satisfying.

[00:09:49]The 6th century BC Greek philosopher Xenophanes understood the arrogance of this perspective. Here's what he said. The Ethiopians make their gods black and snub-nosed.

[00:10:02]The Thricians say theirs have blue eyes and red hair.

[00:10:06]Yes. And if oxmen and horses or lions had hands and could paint with their hands and produce works of art as men do, horses would paint the forms of the gods like horses and oxmen like oxmen.

[00:10:22]So to conclude, where does this leave us man? It leaves us with a choice. We can continue to treat religious stories as literal accounts of cosmic history and down from on high. Or we can recognize them for what they are. Human inventions, beautiful and flawed, inspired and dangerous, and most importantly created by our ancestors to explain the world and help them live together. Man, thank you ladies and gentlemen for sticking with me to the end in another video. I really hope that you've enjoyed it as much as I did putting it together. I hope I'll see you in the next video that I upload tomorrow in the evening. In the meantime, thank you so much. I love you, man. Remember to let your loved ones know that you love them as much as you do. In the meantime, stay safe. Be kind to one another. Peace.