As a firm proponent of evolution, and natural selection, I’ve started giving some thought to the end of religion. Will we reach a point in time where religion no longer exists? Or when organized religion no longer exists. Thinking about this from a Darwinian point of view, it’s very easy to imagine the possible causes for religions to cease existing. One of the ideas I kept coming back to is the concept of religion being “educated out of” mainstream thought. I’m not suggesting that we actively push the idea that religion is wrong in schools, just give pupils the tools necessary for them to decide for themselves. This currently doesn’t happen, and we’ve seen that certain parties with a vested interest are pushing for religion to be more prominent in schools. Once pupils are educated to a sufficient level, the majority will come to the correct conclusion that religion is built upon a series of lies and tricks.
Looking further at this concept allows us to boil it down into two related variables. Firstly we have education (nurture) and then we have evolution (nature).
It’s possible to easily track the effect education can have on religion by looking at the proportion of religious people by nation. Different nations have different levels of education, and likewise, different nations have different levels of belief. There’s a nifty website called YesNoGod.com that has one purpose, to measure the levels of belief in God by country. At the time of writing there’s a clear tilt towards non-believing from the more educated countries. Dare I say, the more developed countries.
At this point I need to point out that correlation is not the same as causation. Not by any means. However, there is a strong correlation and we can hope, that in this case, a certain degree of causation exists. There’s certainly something there to suggest that as the level of education increases, the level of belief decreases. There are, of course, some conditions that need to be applied. For example, it has to be good, impartial education. Teach facts, not beliefs, basically.
So what about evolution? We need to take a limited view of evolution and natural selection in this context. Natural selection doesn’t work as well in such a developed species as humans as we are in the almost unique position of having the superior members of the species preventing the inferior members from failing. But, suppose we are still evolving mentally. I would suggest the following graph as a fair representation of what we will experience.
So what does this mean? To understand it, we have to look at the labels on the axis. Human Evolution refers to evolution of us as a species. This isn’t necessarily physical or mental evolution, but also represents societal knowledge and awareness. The sum of us as species, something that is steadily increasing. The other axis indicates the amount of faith required to be religious. Many believe this to be fixed, but I would suggest otherwise. To be frank, as scientific knowledge improves, and the stories written about in the various holy books are disproved, it will be harder to believe them. It will require more faith, more devotion. My anecdotal evidence for this is the sharp decrease in the number of people who literally believe the Bible’s description of Genesis as scientific evidence continues to prove it to be factually inaccurate. For example, completely disproving the Bible’s claimed age of the earth.
You’ll note that the graph isn’t smooth. In fact, it has a number of points which see sharp rises. These are events, or discoveries, that make a significant impact on the teachings of the various religious books. Discovering the earth’s true age would be one such discovery.
Unfortunately, this inevitable path brings with it the most hated form of religion. Extremism. As the amount of faith required increases, the type of person who believes changes. Moderately religious people evolve into agnostics, or even atheists, and extremists begin to be considered mainstream. And as you can see from the graph, I don’t for see a complete end to religion at any point. It will just reach the stage where the amount of faith required to believe will mean only the most extreme, the most vulnerable, the least educated and the most suggestible will consider themselves religious.
I’m putting this out there, I’m interested in your opinions. And whether you think my theories, and reasoning, are sound.
Tags: Theories
I’ve often wondered what would happen if I suddenly started believing in a religion. And some times, this thought extends and grows and I find myself wondering what would happen if everyone suddenly started following one religion. The entire world. So using the mindset of a Christian, I thought I’d take a look at the Bible to see what God ultimately has planned for us, and I came across this: -
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”
1 Corinthians 1:18-31
So, just to be clear. It is in God’s plans to destroy the wisdom of the wise and to frustrate the intelligent. If there’s anyone out there who would classify themselves as “wise” or “intelligent” I have one question for you. Why would God, the all powerful being, want to destroy wisdom and frustrate the intelligent?
Let’s think about this logically. If the bible says that God will destroy wisdom, and frustrate the intelligent, those who are not in possession of those attributes will look at those who do with, at best suspicion or at worse contempt. Therefore, when the wise and intelligent amongst us stand up and declare that God clearly does not exist, the calls will fall on ears deafened to the people who can actually help us move on as a species.
Whoever wrote The Bible wants the readers to believe that God can destroy wisdom and intelligence because both wisdom and intelligence will lead to the inevitable conclusion the The Bible is a lie, and the God described within it is not real. And as far as those in positions of power are concerned, the longer they can stunt the development of us as a people, us as a nation, the more they gain. Because once wisdom and intelligence become widespread, so will the realization that religion is the biggest con of all time.
Tags: Christianity, Logic, The Bible
I’m no bible expert, so any questions I raise about the bible are always from an outsider, non-expert viewpoint. Having said that, maybe someone can clear something up for me. In the bible, it suggests that the devil tried to tempt Jesus with things like food, power and, important for this article, invincibility. Jesus, obviously, turned him down. Or did he? Later on in the bible Jesus, after being crucified (and killed) comes back to life. Does this mean that Jesus did a deal with the Devil? Was it the Devil, and not God, who allowed Jesus to come back to life?
I’d be interested in what you think about this. It seems as if the Devil made the offer to Jesus and at a later point Jesus exhibited one of the attributes the Devil offered to furnish him with. Like I said, I’m no bible scholar (nor would I want to be) but it seems this is at least a possibility. Just putting it out there.
Tags: Bible, Christianity, Jesus, The Devil
Want to catch up on religions progress through the world, and the wars that shaped the current religious map, but don’t have hours to spend reading about it? Well this short film is the one for you. Essentially it plots the major points in history which created areas of religion and drew the borders. It’s worth 90 seconds of your site, if only because it will remind you of Risk.
Timeline Map of Religion
Tags: , History
Just because the Bible is so entertaining, and pointing out what the Bible actually says to Christians can be enlightening, I’ve quoted some passages from the Bible below. Ask and ye shall receive.
But if the thing is true, that evidence of virginity was not found in the young woman, then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done an outrageous thing in Israel by whoring in her father’s house. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
Deuteronomy 22:20-1
If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.
Leviticus 20:10
Moreover, I gave them statutes that were not good and rules by which they could not have life, and I defiled them through their very gifts in their offering up all their firstborn, that I might devastate them. I did it that they might know that I am the Lord.
Ezekiel 20:25-26
And following three which really should be read together. If you are going to believe the Bible, which bits?
And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.
Genesis 32:30
And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend.
Exodus 33:11
No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
John 1:18
So as long as you’re clear, no one has seen God, apart from the people who have. Got that?
Tags: Christianity, Quotes, The Bible
After posting some Bible quotes, I thought it only fair to give the Atheists a chance of a rebuttal. So I’ve gathered together some of my favorite quotes on religion from some of the great thinkers of the recent, and not so recent past.
What I like about these quotes is that they are mostly logical, from logical thinkers. While logical thinking, and a total commitment to logical thinking, may not be entirely ideal, it’s certainly better than blind faith.
The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.
Denis Diderot
A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
Albert Einstein
Insanity in individuals is something rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.
Nietzsche
If you talk to God, you are praying. If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia.
Thomas Szasz
We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes.
Gene Roddenberry
Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.
Napoleon
Are there any quotes you would add to this list? If you had to give a one sentence sound bite on religion, what would it be?
Source: Vagabox Picture of Einstein: Oren Turner 1947
Tags: Philosophy, Quotes
One of the issues I have with any organized religion is the way the rules governing the religion are passed on. Typically, this is through some sort of book, The Bible, The Quran, Battlefield Earth for example. The problems with these books, as I see it, are two fold. Firstly, they are written by third parties, not directly by the deity. Secondly, and inexplicably, they are directly tied to the time and place they were originally written. In some cases this means talking about animals and tasks that were around at the time, in others it’s raging sexism or homophobia. Either way this results in proponents of the religion interpreting certain aspects in their own way. A way which tends to suit their already established beliefs. And they can do this because of the inherent ambiguity of language. This essentially gives practitioners an “out”, and allows them to selectively believe parts of their holy book. Compounding this is the fact that many of these books have been translated multiple times between numerous languages.
So when reading this short list of quotes taken from The Bible, remember that many Christians choose not to follow these statements, because that would be ridiculous. They did choose to believe that a man can walk on water, and an invisible entity created everything in seven days.
For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it must be put to death.
Exodus 35:2
If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property.
Exodus 21:20-21
For anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death; he has cursed his father or his mother; his blood is upon him.
Leviticus 20:9
When you draw near to a city to fight against it, offer terms of peace to it. And if it responds to you peaceably and it opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you and shall serve you. But if it makes no peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it. And when the Lord your God gives it into your hand, you shall put all its males to the sword, but the women and the little ones, the livestock, and everything else in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as plunder for yourselves. And you shall enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the Lord your God has given you. Thus you shall do to all the cities that are very far from you, which are not cities of the nations here. But in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded.
Deuteronomy 20:10-17
I’m an “all or nothing” sort of guy so I find it hard to understand the stance that Christians take on the numerous contradictions and inaccuracies in the bible. If you were to ever read The Bible, it becomes blatantly obvious that it was written by people of the time who had no divine guidance. The simple scientific mistakes, which very much reflect the thoughts of the people at the time, really back this up.
Source: Scary Bible Quotes
Tags: Christianity, Quotes, The Bible
