Here is my theory on the origin of religion. I'm not speaking of spirituality, or belief in the supernatural, or the impulse that makes us want to believe in something larger than ourselves. I'm speaking of Religion - with a priesthood and a place and form of worship and a set of "thou shalts" and "thou shalt nots" and all the trappings that go with that. It is unprovable, but I strongly suspect that the events I am about to describe happened. In fact, I suspect events rather like this happened more than once. Probably many times in many places around the world.
So there is this little village of hunter gatherers. They live a simple life, with the men going forth to hunt - and occasionally to fight - and the women doing most of the real work of gathering and food storage and preparation. And in the village there's this fellow. Maybe he's very near-sighted, like I am. No corrective lenses around, so someone as myopic as I would be pretty helpless in that world. Certainly he can't hunt. He can't even go out to gather with the women, since he can't see clearly more than a few inches. Or it could be he's lame, or otherwise limited. Maybe he makes a living by some sort of craft. Maybe he hangs around the edges of things and begs. Maybe family support him but, in any case, he has very little status, very little prestige, probably lives a pretty marginal existence.
So one day, he's sitting around in the village and the hunters come back from the hunt and it's the third time in a row that they've gone out and gotten nothing. The women make some jokes at their expense. Even with his poor sight he can see from their posture that they are dejected.
He has a flash of inspiration.
He gets up and strolls over to the leader of the hunters. The conversation goes like this:
"I know why you haven't made a kill"
"Yeah? Why is that?"
"Well the forest god is mad at you. He talks to me all the time and he told me so. Last time you made a kill, you didn't show your thanks by sharing some with the god. Now he hides the animals from your sight."
The hunter thinks about it for a minute.
"Well maybe you're right. But how do we give some to the god?"
"No problem. The god and I are really close - just bring it to my hut - I'll make sure he gets it!"
And thus was born religion.