Death Knell of Religion

Religion is dying, and it’s not the fault of Science, or Atheists, or “Satan’s influence”. Religion is dying through the same process that allowed it to dominate tribal superstition and spread like wildfire.

Before the advent of writing, the only method of perpetuating knowledge was through human memory and word of mouth. Human memory is a dynamic beast. People forget things, remember them wrong, and apply interpretations of previous knowledge to current events. When someone makes a prophetic statement, and it gets passed down through the ages, there is no way of verifying that the current incarnation of that prophecy is the original statement. Prophecy in this era is fulfilled as much by alteration of the original prophecy as by current events that allegedly fulfill that old prophecy.

When writing comes on the scene, though, it becomes possible for people to record their thoughts for all eternity. Suddenly, it becomes possible to spread religion to the distant masses without the message being corrupted along the way.

In the Religion Experiment, writing allowed us to review that original hypothesis after conducting our tests.

Due to writing, religion loses the ability to claim complete inerrancy and perfection. Christianity rests on a pre-industrial state of human development, attributing everything that can’t be completely understood by humanity on the will of anall-powerful entity. It records the sum of that ancient knowledge into the Bible, claims it is the Ultimate Truth, thus anything that contradicts the Bible is, by definition, untrue. Spreading lies about Christianity becomes Heresy, and Europe welcomes the Dark Ages.

The Printing Press is invented, and before long, everyone who wants their own copy of the Bible has the capability of getting one.

The Printing Press spreads this Bible/hypothesis far and wide, and the vast majority of people agree with it. But some believers are in for a rude awakening when, in the course of discovering how God went about building all of Creation, it becomes obvious that certain aspects do not agree with the Biblical Truths they have studied all their lives.

The Church, in accepted Copernicus’s heliocentric theories as “mathematically convenient” - basically saying that the calculations were worthwhile, but of course the sun, moon, and stars revolved around the Earth, it says so in the Bible.

Galileo Galilei began rocking the religious world in 1610. He demonstrated that although the Bible says the world is firmly fixed (Psalm 93:1, Psalm 96:10, Psalm 104:5, 1 Chronicles 16:30, Ecclesiastes 1:5) the reality is that the earth is constantly in motion, revolving around the sun and rotating on its axis.

Religion can’t cope with that: The Inerrant, Complete word of God has been demonstrated to be in error. Unlike earlier religions and spirituality, the arrogant church has precious little room to operate. If it is demonstrated that the Bible is false, they believe their entire purpose for existence has been called into question. Galileo is condemned as a heretic. It’s not until 1992 that the Church finally gets on board and says that the 17th century theologians should not have used a literal biblical interpretation.

With this condemnation, the battle between Science and Christianity takes shape, and numerous scientific discoveries emerge that discredit the Bible. The Church responds with new interpretations and infighting, as some adopt these new interpretations, some maintain the old ones. All the while, the intellectuals steadily funnel towards deism. Reason and rationality is the order of the day here. The inconsistent and fallacious nature of this 1700 year old religion is abandoned. God remains in the picture, though, to account for concepts that presently have no means of being understood. Most of the US founding fathers were Deists, who feared control by Christian authoritarian rule, and so created a land where all were free to believe as they chose to do so.

Deism wasn’t to be long lived, however. It’s sole purpose was to maintain belief in God in light of all the scientific advances that challenge the Bible. During this time, it is thought that all creatures can only reproduce to create slightly different copies within the same species. If this is the case, then all creatures must have been created in their present forms.

Enter Charles Darwin, who demonstrated that variation within a species can become so great as to develop new species. Suddenly even deistic belief wasn’t viable, as all the major theories attributed to this 5800-year-old myth had been challenged and disproven as literal accounts of reality.

Christianity (Hinduism, Judaism, Islam) exists today as a moral code. It is a failing code - it’s major functions are replicated in universally applicable laws the world around. (with the notable exceptions of theocracies in the Middle East, and personality cults in North Korea, China, and elsewhere) Unlike law, which is interpreted by other people, Christian Morality is interpreted by the individual. Some interpret the Bible to permit the denigration of non-Christians, Atheists, homosexuals. Historically, it’s been used to support slavery, condemn communism, Islam. It has not only supported, but perpetuated widespread ignorance.

It is time for Religion to take its rightful place in history. It served a vital purpose in ancient times, uniting thousands of people in shared goals. It helped to create global trade, and make early scientific discoveries. I thank Christianity for not only making modern Science possible, but also for inspiring its monumental discoveries.

But those days are long gone. Religion has no significant purpose in modern life that isn’t fulfilled and surpassed by other ideologies, organizations, groups, or fiction. It’s cost outweighs its benefits.

Let us turn our greatest holy places into living history. Like the pioneer farms that litter the US with technology of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, the revolutionary and civil war forts and battle sites. Like that old Spanish Mission, the Alamo. Let us revere our religious heritage as we embrace a future brighter than it could have ever predicted. A future where ignorance is fought instead of embraced; where intellectualism is more valuable than recitation; where Tolerance isn’t qualified with “For the people who think like me”; where Charity and Altruism helps our fellow man, instead of building massive temples to our superstitions; where evil men can’t find refuge for their evil ways, and good men have nothing to fear.

(all photos from Wikimedia Commons)