FerretBoy..... well.... As you say, I think religion is the product of tradition and culture. In the west you put your insecurity into an entity (God). I think this is pretty expleinatory for our culture. We tend to look at external wrongings. Its rarely our own fault. So we put our trust into a being. Its the will of God and so on. Its not MY fault. The eastern culture is more aimed at going "inside" with your thoughts and concerns. Trying to ignore the external faults. And whoops, we have bhuddism. Wich strives to totally ignore everything external. To achieve, Nirvana.
I know this is not exactly the history of bhuddism but I´m trying to show the relationship between culture and religion.
Now, essantially all major religions aim at one thing.
Bliss. (I hope that is the correct word)
They aim at being happy. (Good people go to heaven, where everybody is happy and no "external" prolems exist anymore. Or Nirvana, where nothing exists anymore.)

I know this is simplyfying alot. And I believe that everything can be simplified into 2 things. Two opposits. Something like bhuddism perhaps. Yin and yang. And if you think about it everything can be devided.
And it is as it says in The wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. "The wave corrects itself". If you have a child that is rough and wild, he will become calm later, and vice versa. And the more I think about this, you can find the same pattern in everything. Maybe with a splash of the multitude of the human personalety required from The Diceman by Luke Rhineheart.


Ohh... damn.... I got a little off track here, as always..=)
Everywhere people are trying to reach happyness. Then of course one might say that you use the church as a tool to obtain some of this happiness. Then who am I to say that this is wrong. I personnally think that we dont need to go to church and look for happiness. We can find it everywhere, anytime.
As a side note, I think that everybody should read "The Diceman" by Luke Rhineheart. Because it says alot about the human nature. And you will learn ALOT about yourself. One must try to look past the dice throwing part of it, and see WHY.....

I have tooooooo many theories. And few answers... I cant wait to die so that I finally can get an answer!!...=))) The worst thing i know is Not knowing! =)))