[Michael Chui]

Not sure how I missed seeing this thread for a whole week... :P

I made a response over here that I'll repeat.

I have a theory.

Religion, near as I can tell, is about social control. Not necessarily by some Pope over the laymen, but control by a society of the society. Remember that, in the beginning, it was extremely different. You didn't have government in the usual sense; you didn't have laws or such. But these things grew quickly.

In a human society, you need two things: you need rules, like "when the leaves start to fall, it's harvest time" or "no one crosses that bridge" (that way lies dragons!); and you need explanations (because human beings are curious by nature).

Rules, over time, become laws. What might once have been, "it's hard for people to work every single day", becomes "this day is reserved for not working".

Explanations evolve into stories of culture heroes, where persons of mythical to godlike status go on a journey and do some amazing feat, which explains why such is so. An example is Noah and the Ark, which is also seen in Iroquois mythology as The Great Flood, and in Babylonian as Gilgamesh. (link)

When these are balanced, you achieve what I would call a Mythology, a belief system in which stories are as important as laws. Based on what little I know of Catholicism, this is one. A belief system that favors stories over laws I would call Folk Tales, whereas one that favors laws over stories I would call a Religion. Protestantism is, essentially, a religion.

If you'll notice, most people who interpret the Bible will disregard all literal depictions. Everything is merely fodder to derive laws from; people love stories, so it's unsurprising that some of it survived, but I think the Christian stories survive more because of a persistent Catholic influence. Apologists have been taking cues from them.