Subject:
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Re: 22/7 & infinities (was: Re: The nature of the JC god, good or evil?)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 27 Aug 1999 03:46:29 GMT
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Viewed:
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1486 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, "David Eaton" <wpieaton@wpi.edu> writes:
> [...]
> I can't say I despise ALL religions-- I just despise religions that won't
> bend. Christianity is deeply seated there. Christianity, and particularly
> Judiasm has a great respect for tradition. "My father before me thought
> this way, so I'm going to do the same." The problem is that the world
> changes. Every once in a while when the mentality changes enough, a reform
> happens, giving birth to a new religion, which embraces whatever change has
> occurred. Judiasm gave birth to Catholisism, which gave birth to Islam, and
> also to Protestantism. And Protestantism gave birth two somewhere beyond
> quintuplets with all the quakers, shakers, amish, lutherins, etc that broke
> off. The problem is that despite all of this, the old religions are still
> there, and still refuse to change. What is more, they all try and prevent
> the birth of a new religion. This works marvelously with the "societies are
> living beings in and of themselves" idea; it is unnatural to go against the
> life ethic, which is to spread and multiply; to become diverse (this falls
> into evolution-- survival of the fittest). Thus a lot of these religions
> are quite wrong in my opinion. (I happen to like Buddhism, though)
I like the note in there about survival of the fittest! IMHO, all of the
religions popular today are memes or viruses of the mind which have adapted
and evolved to serve the human condition and local political climates.
Those religions which do not include means for self-preservation and, more
importantly, self-propagation -- and fail to adapt to the changing times --
eventually perish.
Now here's a purely hypothetical question: If you had a magic button that
you could press to cause the instant extirpation of all religion from the
face of the planet (thus instantly and simultaneously transmuting everyone
on the planet into athiests), would religion then cease to exist forever,
or would it just pop right back up again and within a few decades' time
resume flourishing? With all our modern science and knowledge, has humanity
finally overcome the need for religion, or is the need permanently rooted in
what we are? Will it take another 10,000 years of human evolution before
this need fully abates?
--Todd
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