Atheists, how did humans evolve a phobia of death to the degree that they would 'invent' religion?

So, because I don't know the answer to that, it must mean that invisible sky critters exist.

Isn't it terrific how logic works?

Kid, it is our society that doesn't deal well with death.

If you studied anthropology, other cultures in other times, you'd know the current 'western' attitude to death is rather new.

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Becasue to start with, people didn't invent religion as a result of fear of death. It was started way back in caveman days as a way to explain natural phenomenon, such as weather, volcanoes, etc. It was very much to do with explaining how things happened. Things which we now explain with physics.

And just to point out, average life explectancy is a lot greater then it was. Once upone a time, 40 was ripe old age. As for evolutionary advantage, not everything in life has an evolutionary advantage or disadvantage. There are some things which are completely neutral. In this case however it would ba an advantage, because, it means that people fight a little bit harder to stay alive rather then not caring.

I think f you look at it, becasue without religion, and without a healthy fear of death or at least pain of death, then who would be bothered keeping yourself alive? Most people need to have some meaning in their life and if their life was meaningless, then what is stopping them from trying to end tat life unless it was fear of death? So in this case, it would be an advantage.

I know I rambled but hey

Not only do you need to read up on biology, you also need to start learning about how religion got started. You basically have put the cart before the horse. You asked how humans invented religion. Yes, humans did, but it was originally not the thing of the masses, at which time the masses were very ignorant. It was the aristocrats and royalty that invented religion, first to be able to show something to the ignorant masses as to why they were their leaders; they needed to invent the concept of a higher power having given them that power to rule, then they invented religion and had priests tell the masses whatever the ruler(s) wanted them to be told, as having come from a god etc.

Long before cell phones, tv, radio and even books, people passed on knowledge through fables. Stories that taught lessons, but written less in legal fact, more in purposefully trying to relay a message. Then, later a fundamentalist comes by and takes it a different way.

Religion has been around even before the Old Testament, and many before the book talked about the same things. Many were monotheistic, many polytheistic. Christianity was the first to come along and siad "choose ours or go to hell". Bold statement, struck fear. Other God's weren't so insecure, they didn't care if you followed others, but the Christian God, according to his brand new followers wer certain of this and made it their job to convert.

Religion has been controlled through government, churches, religions, countries, everything but the people. Even the good leaders today seem to sell out at some point.

We had no answers for the sky, stars, clouds, the sun...all of it was unexplained. We are curious, intelligent creatures. We figured it out, or at least a bunch of groups in different areas did. Each a little different beliefs. Then they murder each other over it, combine a little of the conquered religion and now have another form of religion.

I have NO fear of death and I do NOT believe in HEAVEN or HELL as written in the book people refer to as the bible. I don't believe in books, I believe in GOD. I don't believe in church or religion, I believe in God. I believe my life will continue after this life, but will change and I may not need a physical form.

I am always open to being proven wrong and I realize nobody will ever know the whole truth. But I still have faith....just more of an educated faith, not blind faith.

We have more complicated thought processes than other animals, in many ways this is to our advantage in that we can find ways to survive in a much greater variety of environments, however that does not mean that we don't have our flaws that can make survival more difficult, we merely have a greater capacity to compensate for those flaws.

We would survive perfectly well without our need for religion or belief in some sort of afterlife, but unlike other animals we have the ability to imagine our future and think beyond immediate dangers, some people, most people throughout the ages have needed the comfort of thinking that there is more life to live than we really have, we have a sense of self, it is very difficult to imagine that self, coming to an end, to imagine oblivion, other animals don't have to worry about that, they just deal with things when they happen.

Those of us who do not need this comfort, and thought of some hierarchy that takes care of things, survive perfectly well, as you say, we may even have an advantage, but we are still in the minority, once the idea of a possible god and afterlife has established it's self, most people latch onto it to one degree or another, not because it's necessary but because they want to, a lot of the things we choose to do are chosen through desire rather than need, that is human nature, it doesn't really help us to survive but it does help us in material terms, to advance our society and is one of the driving forces behind invention, technological progress and commerce:)

I agree with others that a fear of death almost certainly increases a species' survival rates. But I don't think fear of death really explains religion.

I think humans tend to seek patterns, look for explanations, and create stories and mnemonic devices in order to make their environments more manageable. This has benefits: if we notice the pattern that plants grow near water, we are more likely to figure out irrigation.

Sometimes we make inaccurate stories, but find them useful anyway. Young biologists might memorize the story "Kings Play Chess On Funny Green Squares", not because it's true, but because it helps them remember taxonomic categories.

The idea that an omniscient, omnipotent being watches everything you do and will punish your misdeeds is a useful idea for making people behave. Whether the story is true or not may well be irrelevant to its survival benefits.

Death had nothing to do with it. Religion first arose in the bad old days when the survival of the tribe literally depended on the coming of the rains or the success of the hunt; and sacrifices were offered for the purpose of propitiating any gods that might have been involved. Note the frequent allusions to sacrifice in the OT.

I agree on some points, religion is tossed into a lot wars that are caused by human nature, but morals have nothing to do with religion. Common morals , like thou shalt not murder, existed wayyyy before religions popped up. But, writings like the bible listed those morals and added a few of their own ( ex: homosexuality is an abomination)

It's not just a phobia of death. It's the mind asking those questions back in the day of how, what, when, why. And the only thing they could think of back then was religion.

If animals had the level of rational thinking that we had, they too would have religion. Kind of odd saying religion came around because of rational thinking, but I digress. A lot of people are simply so afraid to cease to exist for reasons I will never understand that they will go as far as they need to assuage that fear, and convince themselves that they will never cease to exist. Animals without our impressive minds don't really have a concept of life and death, they have only instinct that if they don't run from that thing with big teeth, they won't enjoy the result. Their instinct tells them "RUN!" and their body pumps up the adrenaline to increase speed, reaction time, thought speed, and observation.

A fear of death has no evolutionary advantage? How about this one: extreme fear of death gives people an extreme desire to survive.

Also, if you fear death more than anything else, and religion makes you believe that you will live after death, you sleep a little better at night. That's why people invented religion.