200,000 years ago, Homo Sapiens (Thinking Man) first appeared in the fossil record, and evidence of civilizations started appearing about 6,000 years ago.

Homo Sapiens had a primitive functional brain that worked to provide for the immediate needs of food and shelter, and reproduction. As the species developed, and those needs fulfilled, another facility emerged, curiosity.

Curiosity immediately went to work trying to work out answers to all things that were knowable, and a more scientific approach emerged to gain insights into the behavior of environmental elements.

And then they delved into the unknowable: “Where did all this, the universe, come from? Is there an unknown source responsible for it all? Why am I here? What happens when I die? Is there “life after death?””

There always have been individual and groups of the well-intending humans who have worked it out into a logical theory that explained what surely must be behind existence, whether the spirit of the woods and waters, or the spirits in the sky. All civilizations developed their own systems of answers, logical beliefs, systematic and within limits acceptable to their own populations. All civilizations believed their systems of belief were the only true and meaningful ones, and would defend their beliefs, by killing the non-believers and skeptic heretics, by war if necessary. Unscrupulous charlatans often took advantage of this need to believe to offer “eternal life” for the souls of the believers, and sometimes the “corpus”, the body, as well.

And so, religions were born.