Religion as we see it today was developed by the need for unification among the people who lived where the religion was born. At the time of the formation of many of these religions, there was no set ruler or emperor. This specifically pertains to christianity. Since there was no clear ruler after the time of the Roman and Byzantine Empires, the people of Europe and even places such as Africa and the Middle East needed something to unify them. They found this unification in Christianity, which brought together the people of all these places through faith and belief that there was a wonderful place that good, virtuous people would be rewarded with after their departure from the Earth. Christianity brought people together locally because the churches not only as places of worship, but as social environments for the community.
-Aristotle
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Aristotle, I really like your answer, and it prompts a lot of questions. Why didn't the Western Europeans simply adopt the religious worldview of the Goths? What was the Gothic religion? Was there one? Why did the Christian worldview, with its inclusion of Heaven as a final resting place, emerge at this time? Did the Greeks and Romans not need a Heaven?
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