is there any way to prove it isn't? of course it is man-made. each one is curiously favorable to the group that has created it. there is no religion that says "the other guys is better; you're not as good; god doesn't love you as much as those other guys." not a single one. why is that? if religion is not made by man but rather created by some deity, why would that deity make so many conflicting ones, and why would s/he tell every group it is the best and everyone else sucks? (well, ALMOST every other group, anyway.) you may as well ask if we can prove santa claus is not real.

g

Look at its history.

Preponderance of evidence. It's not proof, per se, but it sure is compelling.

Scientology

Just ask a group of Humans to stop talking about god for a year. I have not tried it but I would wager that god disappears.

I don't think natural science can prove it but I'm hopeful that psychology will do it.

It's very interesting.

Ummm what's your alternative?

Not to a believer because they operate by faith not facts. Religion proves itself to be man made because no god ever invented operated above the level of a spoiled 8 year old psychotic...

The protozoan is quoted by science to have no evolutionary history, but of course it must have. To explain my findings in full would take some explaining, so let me try it this way. The primates have an evolutionary history and part of this history is all life cannot seeing accurately. It's not seeing accurately that feeds our intelligence. An example of this is when we come against something that we cannot explain, we reach for the supernatural in a desperate attempt at clarification, but what we are actually doing is the opposite. All life is in the same boat. The male jewel beetle couldn't tell the difference between a female and a bottle because both were the same colour and pattern. The primates didn't carry on up the evolutionary ladder to our level because intelligence had been achieved; there was no need for them to reach our level, staying as they are is more beneficial to an intelligent species. This could only happen if all life is connected. Life started as one and is most likely to still be evolving as one. (One energy that is.) The jewel beetle is proof that life cannot see accurately and primates could just prove that we are all connected. The protozoan is part of that energy as is all the rest of life, which could explain the diversity..The protozoan is just fitting in with what that energy allows. The protozoan's evolutionary history is the history of a universal pattern. If all life reached the same level of intelligence, that would destroy purpose; the purpose that is paramount to our existence. Keep thinking of life as one energy and compare it to the energy pattern of a black hole. Black Holes happen when gravity becomes too much, it is determined by the size of the star. This is the same pattern designed by the laws of the universe to keep the balance that is paramount for the universe to exist. Let us ask ourselves if the same pattern applies to evolution? Does this mean that the same thing will happen to us? After all the same universal patterns apply. This overload would apply to life if all life reached the same level.of intelligence; we would implode. (Extinction.) We are made of star dust, we are part of the universe and we have to conform.

It depends on the religion.

I consider Scientology a religion (and a very toxic one at that). It was created by L. Ron Hubbard.

Buddhism was created by Buddha.

Those two, and quite a few others, including Pastafarianism and Mormonism, are easily proven to be man made.

It gets more difficult to "prove" the origins of other religions because they have been lost over time. We can make arguments based on logic and circumstantial evidence, but true believers can argue that is not proof.

All religion is man made. There are definite historic acts leading to formation of any club.

I don't see any way to prove it was man made, even if I believe it was.

Many philosophers have pontificated that very question... Descartes, and Hume and fucking Plato, et. al...have asked themselves, "Is it logical to believe in a Supreme Being?"...

@genessa and Happy_Killpot are at conflict to sort this out. My next question is going to be about the protozoan and others. Science says it has no recognizable evolutionary history, but we all know it does. How it fits with evolution will perhaps answer both of your points of view.

We will all die not knowing for sure, but objective scientific facts are as close as we can get to absolute truth.

As opposed to naturally occurring? It can't be anything but man made, there's too many to choose from.

The religious impulse is deeply embedded in the human psyche and is the source of all human creativity, science, art, etc. Individual religions were concocted by people for various reasons, some more benevolent than others, but those religions could not have been created without innate human religiosity. For evidence look at the widespread proliferation of religion throughout history.

Proofs are not absolute things. Each person has to look at the evidence and form her own opinion.

Anything made by humans is man-made but mankind itself is a product of nature or whatever you want to call it—higher power, etc.

Proof is tricky, but I think it can be illustrated to be manmade in at least some cases. For example, we can see from pre-Hebrew societies that the Israelites adopted the god Yahweh from early Sumarian and Canaanite traditions. Yahweh, being a warrior god, held special significance to the wandering, warring Hebrew people of the time. The most interesting thing to me regarding this adoption is that there was a major shift in how the Hebrews turned a god into a travel companion, as before this time gods were considered to be tied to a particular region. The wandering Hebrews carried their god with them. Anyway, getting back to the synthetic nature of religion, early Jewish writings are clear that they believe in a pantheon of gods (e.g., the gods of Canaan and Sumaria), and this is what we see with the reference to "El" as a single god but "elohim" is often used to suggest a plurality of gods (though, as I understand it, not exclusively used as a plural noun). Also, Yahweh wasn't initially considered all-loving or all-good, and Satan wasn't especially evil (more of an advisor, it seems), but we see over time, as the religion itself evolved, that the positive traits remained with Yahweh while the evil is transferred to Satan. Death is the end, too, until the New Testament when Heaven and Hell become the eternal reward and punishment for humanity. The physical burning pit of Sheol where the bodies of the dead were disposed became the ethereal torture of Hell with Satan actively corrupting humanity and presiding over eternal damnation. (Step 1: Tempt humanity. Step 2: ??? Step 3: Profit.) And, even in the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John, we see a very sharp evolution in theology, with Mark being quite simple compared to the theology of John. Then, of course, there's Paul of Tarsus. I think Paul illustrates the manmade nature of Christianity quite clearly. Without Paul, Christianity wouldn't exist. He was an effective marketing agent, but the religion itself was a means to an end. Paul was an activist. He was politically motivated. He exercised influence (yes, even before social media there were influencers). He was looking to effect change socially and politically, and religion gave him the means to reach people, to convince people to live in specific ways. And it's Paul's words that many Christians today focus on, rather than Jesus. To justify war, for example, despite Jesus being so clearly depicted as a pacifist, Paul promotes the right to self defense. There are actually many topics on which Paul contradicts Jesus, e.g., Jesus says he comes not to abolish the law but to fulfill it while Paul claims that the law of Moses ended with Jesus.

And all this above (sorry for the wall of text) is a tiny drop in just one religion (or, set of religions, in the Abrahamic tradition) — and, if we want to get down to it, the fact that there are so many denominations of Christianity is pretty powerful evidence that humanity is the author of that particular religion — but I'm sure honest inquiry into all of the well-established religions of the world with a rich history spanning millennia would reveal similar patterns. I'm not a historian, though, and I don't study world religions in any great depth. But, with all of that said, no matter how significant the evidence might be that religion is the child of humans and not representative of anything divine, the devout will reject such notions and fall back to faith-based belief. I don't think it ultimately matters whether there's proof of human invention in religion, though; the fact that there's no evidence to support religion's myriad claims is more important to me. While it may be interesting to see how religion has evolved and bent to the whims of the powerful throughout history, it's not an argument against religion's claims. Illustrating the logical flaws in theistic arguments is much more valuable in my opinion.

Thanks for your replies, like most of you say, a person of faith will not believe evidence even if it is put before them. However faith is losing the battle world wide, but it is so entrenched, it becomes a very slow process. Let's give it a go to prove religion is man made. There are thousands of different religions in the world and there are lots of football teams, all different. There are politics, all of a different position and so on and so on. An intelligent species needs these variants of intelligence or there would no intelligence. If we consider all the religions and toss in the atheists and agnostics, it gives an illusion of segregation, but the fact is they are acting as one; all are doing what is dictated to them by the laws of nature. 'Evolution.' Intelligence demands this order for it to survive. When those of faith come up with something they cannot explain they bring in the supernatural in a desperate attempt at clarification, but the truth is, they are doing exactly the opposite. If the world was ruled by one religion with these opposed views to reality, then our species would start to decline, because that would destroy purpose and purpose is the food of intelligent life. Religion is definitely man made.

It's self evident.

You mean like, maybe religion is force of nature?

Religion is man made.

The idea of divinity behind those religions is a lot more troublesome as they often are too far removed from what we know as reality to conclusively disprove.

For example. I believe in 'Dave', a 3-headed giant ostrich like being existing in another dimension who created this universe when he sneezed.

Sure, it is a religion with just one follower. But prove me wrong.

We can make our own religion. That would prove it.

Only if you have commons sense.