Is religion just a way of humans telling themselves that there is life after death? Do they only practice because they fear the endless void that could be death?
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This belief became the common explanation by popular atheist in the 19th or 20th century as a way to explain the universal need for humans to believe and and worship gods or a god. For instance, humans have learned how to deal with certain threats to their mortality by negotiation. If someone came at me with a gun i could bride them, beg for mercy, offer them half my estate and etc. However, how can you negotiate with a fire, flood, earthquake, disease, etc. So its thought that humans began to personify human attributes upon the forces of nature in hopes of trying to gain favor or protection from certain death. In the end theism, the belief in one god, was just the final progression of the process or evolution cause now you can just go to one god for all your problems and concerns.To be fair there is merit in this idea because we can even see it in Christianity. In the "name it and claim it"groups by which they teach if you have enough faith you can call into existence health and wealth. Whereas a lack of faith means poverty and sickness can over take you and the crux of it all weights on you and not the sovereignty of God.
However, there is one thing these atheist did not take into account and that is humans fear something more than the forces of nature and that is the Holy. Holy being defined here is something that is different or other rather than moral purity. Many examples are found in scripture to illustrate what im saying here but none such story as the one where Jesus and his disciples were on the sea of Gaile and that violent storm threatento kill everyone on the boat while Jesus slept. After Jesus awoke He commanded the sea and storm to be still and it was so. However, whats interesting is the response of the disciples. They did not leap for joy for being saved by Jesus. Instead, it said "they became very MUCH AFRAID" for what "manner of man is this that can command the sea and the air and it obeys?" Humans have this process by which we evaluate and judge another human before us. It takes into account many things like height, weight, speech and so forth. Yet when they witnessed Jesus command the forces of nature by a mere word those mental process went hey wire, for never have they witnessthis form of power. This was something different and was other than anything they have ever witnessed before. There'salso a book by a secular philosopher named Rudolf Otto entitled The Idea of the Holy that is none Christian where he set out amongst the world to observe humans response to what the regarded as holy. Its an interesting read. Well that's my take.
Therefore, i agree with you in part, but it doesn't mean God does not exist, I believe he does for reasons that go beyond the worry of eternal damnation and of current survivability.
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