Just musing, but I've recently got to wondering how religions start up, and I've asked myself if it was because its difficult to get young men to allow themselves to die in battle for their leaders, without an afterlife/deity safety net in place. Of course, we all know there are plenty of atheists in foxholes nowadays, but in early society, we wouldn't have had the values-driven reasons for fighting eachother that we have today.
Haven't thought about it too much, just throwing it up for discussion really...