Ok, so hypothetically evolution is true. We evolved very slowly over time and today's culture is the pinnacle of existance.

Would it be so hard to believe that over the course of human evolution that we would naturally come to believe in a supernatural being to answer the questions that are impossible to understand?

A big part of me says that religion is bullshit and it was created and widely accepted as abn inebriation of the masses but what seems like an instinctive part of me says that there is a supreme being that is responsible for this mess. Confusion begins....

evolution is true. it's fact. we have an appendix, it isn't there because god liked the look of it.

but anyway, it is obvious that gods have played a huge role in our development. and it is not hard to see why, a cohesive group with the same aim is going to last longer than individuals. religion fits that bill nicely. religion has survived because it enabled people to act as one.

it has only really been useful in the middle ages where survival of the individual was at stake, with war and famine big killers. people who stuck together, lived; but now it isn't so. (unless you jingoistic and have a huge forehead)

i can believe in whatever i want, and it won't affect my survival in any appreciable way. not true in all places, but they still wipe their arse with their hands, they have bigger problems.

it is like the whole pork thing. back in the day, if you ate pork, you died. parasites and insufficient understanding of hygiene made pork a pretty dodgy animal to eat. so the appropriate churches said 'don't eat pork'; and the people were happy, and stopped dropping dead. it is a simple example of religion increasing the chance of survival by eliminating a cause of death.

my point is this, evolution is about adaption and mutation increasing the chance of survival for an individual and it's family. religion did that, and in some cases still does. but the difference is negligible in industrial nations, and as the world progresses the benefit to belonging to a religion will decrease for all.

religion has very little to do with a diety, or a warm fuzzy feeling. control and survival are the objectives of the game.

quote:Originally posted by Black Flag:



Would it be so hard to believe that over the course of human evolution that we would naturally come to believe in a supernatural being to answer the questions that are impossible to understand?

A good, relevant read:

Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by Dan Dennett.

Religion is just a tool people throughout history to control mass amounts of people, wage wars, and accomplish goals. Most of which are contradictory to religion itself.

I fucking hate sheep.