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Religion is a vestigial appendage

from my friend Vash:

"Religion is a vestigial appendage that global society as a whole has evolved beyond the need for.

"It is human societies appendix. And like an appendix, it is better at harming or even killing than it is at anything else.

"Religions contribution to the development of the humanity cannot be argued and should not be disregarded, however, as Dr. Neil deGrasse-Tyson so eloquently put it “God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance that's getting smaller and smaller and smaller as time moves on.”

"When we did not yet understand, or had not yet discovered how the world, or our bodies, or our universe or our minds worked "God" was an easy and seemingly valid answer. It calmed, comforted and controlled large groups of people. Which helped us survive as a species and develope into cultures.

"The problem of religion is that it necessarily clings to it's divinely revealed truths as facts, even when they are provably not.

"Should religion have NEVER existed? No, I don't think so.

"Should it STILL exist? No, I don't think it is needed.

"It should be allowed to exist, but people should see no need for it.

"Just my 2 cents."

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by booklover on November 12, 2012 at 8:43am

I totally agree! Thanks for posting this!

Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on November 12, 2012 at 11:19am

Religion SHOULD fade into the background as people learn more and become more intelligent.

That's the theory. The reality is considerably more complex. As I have stated elsewhere, so long as stupidity persists, the effects of stupidity will follow along. These effects include all forms of woo, including religion. It is also worth noting that, while we in the US enjoy a given level of education, those in the interior of Africa deal with a considerably lower level, and those in some countries dominated by islam are forced to deal with a level dominated by that religion and its own warped sense of reality.

The only way to even remotely consider the end of religion or at least the end of religion's influence is to remain strong in our POV, to support and argue for it and to Not Back Down in the face of religion's irrational insistence on its own way.

Religion was inevitable in a beginning which was dominated by ignorance. It persists now because people take advantage of ignorance to grab power and to push their own agendas, agendas which, almost without exception, favor a few while disadvantaging a great many. Focus on that, expose it and stop it, and we have a chance.

Permalink Reply by Joan Denoo on November 15, 2012 at 3:12pm