Quote:
Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen
Religion has been in evolution, as has the rest of man's social structures.
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Well the evolution stopped rather a long time ago. Make up a religion tomorrow. You will be called a cult leader. The 3 major monotheisms already have claim to all the knowledge of the universe, and they wrote that down unerringly a long time ago.
Someone like myself who studied physics 25 years ago is hopelessly out of date in physics, yet a biblical (or koranic) expert from 250 (or
far longer) years ago knows no less than a biblical expert now. What has evolved in judaism and christianity is that the people who claim membership to the religions ignore huge swaths of it. How many people who want the 10 Commandments treated with respect in a courtroom know that the punishment for violating most of them is
death? In the case of islam, the trouble is that it is currently evolving in the wrong direction---towards being more true to the book, rather than dumping all the insane parts. Regardless, though, the insane parts are still there, even in the other 2 that precede islam. Ignoring them makes for better people and societies, but the religions themselves are no better.
Religion is by definition irrational. Science is known in common sense as "trial and error." Every human uses the scientific method almost every day. If they treated religion with the same critical eye they use to so much as cross a busy street, they'd have dumped it long ago.
For the "spiritual" take from a non-religious POV, Sam Harris is pretty interesting, actually.