God, er...Dog

I believe that ALL MEN no matter how primitive or how sophisticated needs a 'central intellectual focus' sooner or later in his evolutionary process in order to understand the world around him. Long before Jesus, or Mohammad, there were philosophers like Confucius, Mencius, Buddha, the Greek philosophers who voiced their thoughts. They were not religious sages, they simply thought about the world around them and came up with their perceptions. All thinking men will also so evolve from the primitive no matter from which tree of evolution.However, another evolution created philosophers who lived in a 'tribal community'. Because of the need for tribal survival and dominance of one tribe over a region in a harsh and poor land like the Holy Lands, tribes had to survive by exclusivity. Hence tribal philosophies and codes of tribal life created 'exclusive religions'. As a matter of fact it is nothing but an exclusive philosophy. Even atheism is a form of philosophy of the non-belief in a god. And so were the philosophies of polytheism. God, gods, your god, my god, no god, it is all just part and parcel of a philosophy turned into an ideology.So all it is is that philosophies are utilized by the clerics into ideologies, and hence the exclusivity of religions. If we do not have one form of religion, we will have another form or call it philosophy if you like. But that is the nature of MAN!