this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2026
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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Historically speaking yes. Religion - the fear of lightning strike / fire, hope for a successful hunt and the big spirits of the darknese - were the foundation for more organized societies.
They did those cave paintings for a reason. And those paintings were already advanced technology compared to very early human development.
Why is lightning strike or fire a religious thing and not physics?
Because you are a pre caveman and have no idea of anything.
Let me add to this. It was your shower thought. Anxiety is different for people in different situations. The birth time of religion is the same as speech. Even before speech humans had anxiety about things they couldn't explain. So everything is belief and superstition. Superstition eventually becomes religion.
So if someone in the past makes a mistake in judgement but we should continue believing in the incorrect assumption because that's what we did when we were dumb cavemen?
Even now if an american football team makes a touchdown and wins while you were eating and drinking some snacks - it was the snacks magical ability and not the athlete's skills - right?
Again my argument was never about believing in religion. But religion is being 5he foundation of morals and society. I never debated against current beliefs or believing or questioning anybody's moral compass if they are not religious. You are reading something I did not write.
I'm sorry if you thought I meant it was about believing in religion, that's not what I meant. I'm asking if you believe morals and society could exist without religion or if religion came before morals and society.
I can understand your logic up until the point you said the reason for organized religion was lightning strike/fire. I'm not understanding why that is evidence for religion as opposed to evidence for how people have misunderstood things in the past?
You keep forgetting that morals doesn't mean right.
Let me bring up some morally right things - that were 100% acceptable by the ruling class - so religion included:
Owning humans.
Raping your wife - because that's not rape.
Chemically castrate gay men.
Killing accused women without any evidence of witchcraft.
Segregation based on skin, belifs or origin.
Killing and pillaging.
Having a ruler chosen by god.
Ethnic cleansing.
Killing the old / mentally ill / poor.
Taking money for made up reasons.
That is morality.
Well now I'm a little more confused. Are you saying those things are all morals taught by religion?
No those are morals. Religion helped to use those rules against "others". 'You should not rape your friends wife, but you can do anything with yours.' look at the Bible and those marriage rules.
'You should not do business outside the tribe' - several current religions still have this rule, a bit more softened.
And so on.
Those are morals set by ruling class = religion or god kings (example: pharaohs). They are the foundation of society.And that's what I keep saying. Morals and society has the foundation in religion.
We're going to have to agree to disagree about this. I simply don't believe that religion came before society and morals unless I see some evidence.
Evidence is human history. All early civilizations had god kings. They were religious leaders. First part is that they were god given second part they were ruling class. And ruling class always sets the morals/laws of the people it rules.
It would probably be difficult to find evidence of which predates which but if you say religion is the foundation for society and morals then every society must have a religion right? As far as researchers understand, the Pirahã tribe in the Amazon have no religion. If there is a present day society with no religion then there likely were in the past as well. That makes it difficult for me to believe religion is the foundation of society if there are societies with no religion.
If there is a dozen societies that dont have religion and thousands that has .... Which ponnt stands?
Certainly not your point. Religion must not be fundamental to society if there are societies with no religion. You claim religion came before society and societies are built on religion, that can't be true if there are societies without it.
If I were to say fire requires 4 things: oxygen, fuel, heat, and marshmallows but there are instances where marshmallows are not present but there is a fire, then marshmallows must not be fundamental to a fire. Any loss of the other 3 would not result in a fire so those 3 are the foundation. If there are societies without religion, why are you so adamant that societies require religion? Why must a fire have marshmallows if there are fires with no marshmallows?
Okay don't take mg argument:
Donald E. Brown in Human Universals (1991) identifies religion (in some form) as a human universal—present in all documented cultures.
George P. Murdock’s cross-cultural work (Ethnographic Atlas) found no society lacking religious beliefs or practices among those sufficiently described.
Archeologcal evidence:
Even before written history, material evidence shows symbolic and ritual behavior:
Burials with grave goods (suggesting afterlife beliefs), e.g.
Skhul Cave (~100,000 years ago) Ritual or symbolic structures like Göbekli Tepe (~9600 BCE).
Absence of counterexamples:
No clearly documented pre-modern society (hunter-gatherer, tribal, early agrarian, or early state) has been shown to lack:
supernatural beliefs and ritual practices and symbolic meaning systems tied to them.
Even cases once proposed as “non-religious” (e.g., some interpretations of certain groups) were later found to include:
animism - animal spirits / power / speaking animals ancestor reverence - respecting dead people - believing in afterlife ritualized cosmology - cave drawings, sun gods, spirit of rain.
These may not look like organized religion (no temples, no priesthood), but it is the same.
Just because someone publishes a book about their opinion does not make it a fact. The fact is, both Donald and George were inaccurate. Daniel Everett was an evangelical missionary that tried to convert the Pirahã tribe in the '70s/'80s. He ended up becoming an atheist after seeing how everything he was taught about the world in church was a lie, that there are people who live without religion and are content. Murdock studied ~1200 societies for "Ethnographic Atlas" but he has never been documented to have met the Pirahã tribe. All that means is he gave insight based on the information available to him. For Human Universals, try googling "Human Universals outdated" you'll find that it's not a trusted source and considered outdated even at release.
Your archeological discovery part, I mentioned trying to find evidence of which predated which would be difficult. If people were around to leave evidence of their existence, that means they were there at that time, it gives no proof as to how long they were around prior to leaving evidence.
Your statement about lack of counter arguments is as wrong as Donald and George confidently stating religion is ubiquitous to all societies. It is provably incorrect based on current knowledge.