How do religonss get started? Also how do they maintain in continue to attract members in this day and age?

People's imagination. Strange coincidences which people then attribute to mystical things becasue they could not understand them, branch-offs from other religions..

Like for example lets say you imagine a deer is going to come. 5 seconds later a deer walks past you and you're like 'whoah!thats nuts maybe some invisible dude in the sky is controlling everything'

I saw a documentary about primitive man where a moose and a childs mother got struck by lightning. the moose was barely alive and the mother was presumably dead. the boy stayed by his mother for days in mourning, refusign to let the tribe move on. The moment the moose took its last breath, the mother awoke from her (presumably coma). The boy thought the moose transferred its energy into the mother to make it come alvie through its last breath. He started wearing the moose pelt for protection. and the whole tribe all saw this, they started ot believe too.. and so on and so forth

And from then on, the concept slowly changes and evolves over time. Maybe Judaism is a blend of old-school religions like zoroastrianism. christianity si a distorted version of judaism, and then later on so is Islam. christianity then morphs into latter day saints as concepts slowly change and evolve over time.

Aleister Crowley turned an insignificantfemale Egyptian deity into one of utmost importance and ascribed certain qualities to her. A concept changing over time.

This can explain how they started.

http://www.totse.com/community/showthread.php?t=2104721

In this day and age, you have to follow a formula:

1) Pick an unanswerable question (afterlife, gods, etc.) and answer it.

2) Determine punishment for failing to follow your religion.

3) Use said fear to get more members.

*optional favorites include, milking your flock for cash, determining punishment for failing to spread your faith to others, manipulate core and base natural human desires such as sex.