I have been observing the human race for some time and still don't understand why humans take religion so differently than everything else. That is this blog.
When normal humans encounter a new situation, they tend to look at the facts and come to a reasonable conclusion. If they don't normal humans conclude that there must be something wrong with the person. That is how most things work, but not when it comes to religion. Why is that? It seems that all the work done by "Darwin" to provide them with a working brain goes out the window. "Darwin" provided humans with better and better brains over time to compensate for their lack of the physical attributes needed so that they could survive in the "cruel" world. Notice that humans can not run very fast or climb trees very well. They have to depend on their "brains", but there seems to be a problem with their brains when it comes to religion.
We know that billions of humans have taken up the Muslim religion and are totally irrational about giving it up. Why is that? If in the Muslim book, it tells them the kill one of their children, they will do it. If it tells them to stone their wife, they will do it. If it tells them to kill a Christian, they will do it. If it tells them to strap a bomb to their body and blow it up in a crowd of people, they will do it. What part of the normal human brain would agree to do the above? Are you starting to see the danger buried within religion?
Other religions appear more civilized, only by comparison. Their followers also contain the same degree of zeal. Each can see the folly of the other religion, but not of their own. Each has some kind of path to the "happy hunting ground" which they feel is unique and only available to those who follow their special slice of religion. All other religions are "wrong" in their eyes and thus doomed to end up in "the other place". I have shown in the past that if we have a million religions practiced by the human race and only "one" is valid, then the only logical conclusion is that "all" are invalid. Why is that concept so difficult to grasp by religious followers?
May be a little look at history is in order. The human race has been around a very long time and has toyed with some form of religion during most of those millions of years. During that time many religions have come and gone. Why do you think that was? It was because there was no basis for all of those religions and over time humans saw thru the hoax that they represented. You have to ask why, just 2,000 years ago,was Christianity cooked up in the way that it was? At the time, their were millions of humans scattered all over the Earth, including millions right here in the Americas. Why didn't all those other millions of people get the message? Why were they ignored? It was because those who cooked up this new religion did not know that these other groups of people even existed. Very interesting isn't it? I think that why this new religion stuck was that it combined at least three important elements that the human brain was having difficulty dealing with.
The first was fear of death and what happened to a person after death. Inside a human body is a brain that has the ability to think and be aware of what is happening around one. A normal human see's themselves in two parts. The physical body like any other animal and the awareness within their brains. They see dead animals and bodies every day and know what happens to them, but what about this other part of a human, the awareness? This new religion addressed this problem by promising "heaven". They were cleaver enough to place "heaven" in some place where its existence could not be verified and left to the believer to create their own image of the benefits of being there. Great idea!
The other thing that religion picked up on was the ignorance of humans when it came to understanding their very complex world. No matter how complex a situation was, it could be easily answered by claiming that "God" created it or made it happen. In a prior blog, I told the story of how the caveman father dealt with his inquisitive son about "where he came from". The caveman told his son the "Adam and Eve story" and the kid never bothered him again for an answer. You also have to look at the time when Christianity was created. At that time Kings ran things and that was the only civil order known. If you needed something, you went to the King and begged for it. Since this new religion was built on the existence of an even bigger King, "God", followers were encouraged to beg God for the things that the King used to provide. Rather than begging, they called it "praying".
The final hook was a stroke of genius and I don't know how they pulled this one off. It was "guilt" or "sin". There must be some quirk in the human mind that makes them think that they "must" have done something wrong some time in their lives. I don't know, but the idea stuck. Once the new religion had convinced humans that they had awful "sins" they next pulled out the cure. This new "God" would cancel their sins. Note that you can not get into the happy hunting grounds if you have any sins and if you played along with God he would "cleans" you of any sins and you could then get in to Heaven. What a concept! Again, I wish that I had thought of that one!
This whole religion thing was great. The Kings could keep their jobs and the humans who followed the new religion were well behaved and much easier to manage by the King. Any laws passed by the religion were executed only after death in heaven while the King's laws were executed here on Earth. This was a very nice arrangement and all were happy. One of the problems was that this new religion applied mostly to Jews and left out much of the rest of the people in the region. Next, the solution to that one.
About a thousand years after this first modern religion was cooked up along came another person who had the idea for a "second" religion, Mohamad. He saw the genius of this new religion and adopted many of it's concepts, but went a few steps farther. Rather that waiting until after death to apply his religious laws, he decided to apply them now while the person was still alive. Further, since his new religious laws were so extensive, there was no need for the King's laws. What a "clean" arrangement! Mohamad also picked up on the "only one path" to heaven idea and made it clear that his new religion was the only path to heaven, not the Christian one. Mohamad also noticed that the Christian religion was damaging the human race by selling them on the mistaken idea that the path to heaven was only thru the Christian door. He had to stop that and knew how hard headed people could become in following their religion that no argument could change them. That meant that killing them was the only solution.
Now what do we have? We have many religions around the world, but the most significant are Christianity and Muslim and they are totally at odds with each other. No logical argument can change either. Muslims are on a breed and kill strategy that they feel will allow them to win in the end. The Christians are less aggressive and are playing a stall game that has no chance of winning in the end.
Where are all the Atheists when we need them? I am sorry, but Atheists are passive too and can't understand how dangerous religion has become, "What is it with religion"?
When normal humans encounter a new situation, they tend to look at the facts and come to a reasonable conclusion. If they don't normal humans conclude that there must be something wrong with the person. That is how most things work, but not when it comes to religion. Why is that? It seems that all the work done by "Darwin" to provide them with a working brain goes out the window. "Darwin" provided humans with better and better brains over time to compensate for their lack of the physical attributes needed so that they could survive in the "cruel" world. Notice that humans can not run very fast or climb trees very well. They have to depend on their "brains", but there seems to be a problem with their brains when it comes to religion.
We know that billions of humans have taken up the Muslim religion and are totally irrational about giving it up. Why is that? If in the Muslim book, it tells them the kill one of their children, they will do it. If it tells them to stone their wife, they will do it. If it tells them to kill a Christian, they will do it. If it tells them to strap a bomb to their body and blow it up in a crowd of people, they will do it. What part of the normal human brain would agree to do the above? Are you starting to see the danger buried within religion?
Other religions appear more civilized, only by comparison. Their followers also contain the same degree of zeal. Each can see the folly of the other religion, but not of their own. Each has some kind of path to the "happy hunting ground" which they feel is unique and only available to those who follow their special slice of religion. All other religions are "wrong" in their eyes and thus doomed to end up in "the other place". I have shown in the past that if we have a million religions practiced by the human race and only "one" is valid, then the only logical conclusion is that "all" are invalid. Why is that concept so difficult to grasp by religious followers?
May be a little look at history is in order. The human race has been around a very long time and has toyed with some form of religion during most of those millions of years. During that time many religions have come and gone. Why do you think that was? It was because there was no basis for all of those religions and over time humans saw thru the hoax that they represented. You have to ask why, just 2,000 years ago,was Christianity cooked up in the way that it was? At the time, their were millions of humans scattered all over the Earth, including millions right here in the Americas. Why didn't all those other millions of people get the message? Why were they ignored? It was because those who cooked up this new religion did not know that these other groups of people even existed. Very interesting isn't it? I think that why this new religion stuck was that it combined at least three important elements that the human brain was having difficulty dealing with.
The first was fear of death and what happened to a person after death. Inside a human body is a brain that has the ability to think and be aware of what is happening around one. A normal human see's themselves in two parts. The physical body like any other animal and the awareness within their brains. They see dead animals and bodies every day and know what happens to them, but what about this other part of a human, the awareness? This new religion addressed this problem by promising "heaven". They were cleaver enough to place "heaven" in some place where its existence could not be verified and left to the believer to create their own image of the benefits of being there. Great idea!
The other thing that religion picked up on was the ignorance of humans when it came to understanding their very complex world. No matter how complex a situation was, it could be easily answered by claiming that "God" created it or made it happen. In a prior blog, I told the story of how the caveman father dealt with his inquisitive son about "where he came from". The caveman told his son the "Adam and Eve story" and the kid never bothered him again for an answer. You also have to look at the time when Christianity was created. At that time Kings ran things and that was the only civil order known. If you needed something, you went to the King and begged for it. Since this new religion was built on the existence of an even bigger King, "God", followers were encouraged to beg God for the things that the King used to provide. Rather than begging, they called it "praying".
The final hook was a stroke of genius and I don't know how they pulled this one off. It was "guilt" or "sin". There must be some quirk in the human mind that makes them think that they "must" have done something wrong some time in their lives. I don't know, but the idea stuck. Once the new religion had convinced humans that they had awful "sins" they next pulled out the cure. This new "God" would cancel their sins. Note that you can not get into the happy hunting grounds if you have any sins and if you played along with God he would "cleans" you of any sins and you could then get in to Heaven. What a concept! Again, I wish that I had thought of that one!
This whole religion thing was great. The Kings could keep their jobs and the humans who followed the new religion were well behaved and much easier to manage by the King. Any laws passed by the religion were executed only after death in heaven while the King's laws were executed here on Earth. This was a very nice arrangement and all were happy. One of the problems was that this new religion applied mostly to Jews and left out much of the rest of the people in the region. Next, the solution to that one.
About a thousand years after this first modern religion was cooked up along came another person who had the idea for a "second" religion, Mohamad. He saw the genius of this new religion and adopted many of it's concepts, but went a few steps farther. Rather that waiting until after death to apply his religious laws, he decided to apply them now while the person was still alive. Further, since his new religious laws were so extensive, there was no need for the King's laws. What a "clean" arrangement! Mohamad also picked up on the "only one path" to heaven idea and made it clear that his new religion was the only path to heaven, not the Christian one. Mohamad also noticed that the Christian religion was damaging the human race by selling them on the mistaken idea that the path to heaven was only thru the Christian door. He had to stop that and knew how hard headed people could become in following their religion that no argument could change them. That meant that killing them was the only solution.
Now what do we have? We have many religions around the world, but the most significant are Christianity and Muslim and they are totally at odds with each other. No logical argument can change either. Muslims are on a breed and kill strategy that they feel will allow them to win in the end. The Christians are less aggressive and are playing a stall game that has no chance of winning in the end.
Where are all the Atheists when we need them? I am sorry, but Atheists are passive too and can't understand how dangerous religion has become, "What is it with religion"?
