Ken makes a good point. Religion seems to have originated with people trying to exert some kind of control over their lives and their environment. Eventually it evolved into the effort to transcend death itself, which would be the ultimate power trip. Who does man think he is that he should be able to control his own destiny, other people's destiny, and the destiny of the very Universe itself? Well, maybe he doesn't get to control such things directly, but he knows Somebody who does and, if he kisses up to this Guy, maybe he will be rewarded in this life or the next.
With Christianity it's a no brainer. Nobody in his right mind would rather go to Hell than to Heaven. But what about those Vikings? Their bravest warriors who die in battle get taken up to Valhalla and get to serve in Odin's personal army until Ragnarok, which is something like our Armageddon. The difference is that with Ragnarok, the gods kill each other off and nobody like Jesus comes to bail them out at the end. All those brave Viking warriors go down with the ship and are never heard from again. This is the reward they get for all the loyal service they rendered to Odin, both in life and in the afterlife. A guy would have to be crazy to join a church like that, wouldn't he? Then again, I don't know what happens to the not so brave warriors, the deserters, and the draft dodgers. I'll have to look that up one of these days.
Then there's the Hindus. Their idea of Heaven is that you are reabsorbed into the Cosmic Consciousness from whence you originally came, losing your very identity in the process. The alternative is to be reincarnated to either a higher or lower station, depending on how you handled you last assignment. I don't know about you, but I'd rather come back as an earthworm than to just disappear and cease to exist. That, and the fact that I am a card carrying carnivore, always prevented me from becoming a Hindu.
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