ABSTRACT
The fact that every known culture has religious beliefs should mean that humans have an innate disposition to be religious; but this seems unlikely. During the course of its history, each culture lays down its own religious beliefs, which are specific for that culture, but which share common themes with the religious beliefs of other cultures. Probably the earliest forms of religion concerned good spirits and bad spirits that inhabit rocks, ponds and so forth. During the course of social evolution, the nature of religious beliefs and rituals has tended to change from a belief in multiple gods, like the sun god, the moon god and the rain god, to a belief in one single god, the creator, controller and supervisor of the universe.
