Religion

Organized religion is mostly a hoax. But the prophets were onto something.. All enlightened religion exists / started out to remind humanity of its forager instincts, and were left-leaning movements of their time. Jesus was killed by the Roman Empire, Moses was hounded by the Pheroah.

When we switched to farming, villagers fell into bad habits. We domesticated plants, but they also domesticated us - see Sapient, and Why the West Rules by Morris. The village became a Disneyland - shut-in, isolated, full of gossiping neighbors, imaginery make-belief totems, where ppl survived even thrived, but also started sacrificing humans for better harvest. Inheritance, of land (because you would farm on it) became important, ppl would literally worship the bones of their ancestors.

Religion is nothing but a few smart people saying "dont worship some bones you dumb fuck". Fasting replicates the day of a hunter-gatherer. He wakes up, hunts, feasts at the end of the day (or not). Notice how alert you get when you are hungry. Your eye sight gets better. You hear clearer. It is good to connect with that part of us because evolution is slow and we still carry hunter-gatherer instincts.

Some say "the West invented no religion, the Middle East invented no political ideology". This sounds like a smart little comment until you realize religion is politics of the ancient times. The moment you say "I demand equality", "I do not worship some fucking bones / elders", you are engaged in politics. The fact that message was carried by the left in the West, Moses / Jesus / Mohammed in the East really makes no difference.

Divine intervention? Depending whether one believes in a creator or not, divine intervention for prophets could be explainable. Such explanation could continue to other historical, non-religious figures as well. Story goes Abraham Lincoln used to sit up late at night and stare outside for hours on end, like a crazy person. Maybe he experienced some intervention.. ?

Soon after their founding religions were co-opted by the state. In the case of Rome, Jesus was incorporated into the imperial power structure. The Catholic Church emphasized not his human incarnation but his transcendent magisterial authority, his right to judge the living and the dead and to determine their fate for all eternity. Basically, the terrible power of Roman authority was presented as being derived from the even more terrible power of Jesus, a looming supreme God painted on the apse ceiling over the altar where his blood was to be drunk and his body eaten.

There were, and have been other interpretations. The Arian Church slant for example; their Jesus was not the same as the all-powerful God; he was rather less threatening, and wasn't identified with the state.