i suck at writing and explaining my thought process

a few thousand years ago, before things like the police and jails were around there was too much crime going on like murder and theft and vicitims couldnt do anything about it

someone has the great idea of making up a story that there is a greater being (god) and that if you didn't behave in your life you'd end up in eternal pain and suffering (hell), vice versa if you did behave (heaven)

most people were too intelligent to believe in this so they drill it into the heads of children (which they still do today)

problem solved

imagine a row of 100 people, like chinese whisper, guy number 1 makes up a story and tells it to number 2, who tells it to number 3 and so on. naturally the story changes slightly each time and that's why he have multiple religions

in no way do i claim any of this to be true
its just my guess as to how religion came about

my guess, and i'm going to try to be as succinct as possible, is it was borne of a need to explain phenomena

Uh, no.

My guess is some guy made it up to get with chicks.

They made it up so that they would not have to work for a living. They took up collections to "do Godz work".

Poker had not been invented yet.

good point

Dude, religion precedes civilization by a long shot.

no dude , it is a very simple explanantion. thousands of years before written word there were temples/ religious rituals / depiction of gods. Se stonehnge / painted caves.

everywhere in the world where there were people , no matter how savage/ape like they were , there was a religion/myths about gods.

It came about because humans prefer a junk theory to no theory.

It stayed around because it was useful to the people in power.

Its dying in places where it's not longer useful to those in power.