Religion, is it still necessary?

Unfortunately Time Has Proven: We Need It

Look at it from a completely different angle that has no politics in it. In the animal kingdom, there are always leaders and followers. All the lions can't just go where they please, they follow the leader. Ants don't move about for the sake of exercise! They follow the leader. We're not much different from animals. We need direction too and most of us follow religious leaders because they fill the void.

Human beings are just like animals and they've learned they need direction through various cultural experimentations in the past thousands of years.

We need common values and common societal goals. It's difficult to find these among all the politics and every day lives that we have. But like it or not, religion gives human beings some sense of values and goals. For example, all religions (and I've been a part of many of them) preach goodness and grace. That's a common societal goal. Because humans know that if we aren't good to each other, we can destroy each other without mercy. And for the masses, these values or rules have to be set out very clearly and preached on a regular basis. It's very ritualistic.

Many modern societies are questioning religion, thinking they've reached a level of human evolution where they can control themselves without being controlled. This is absurd because all that's happening is that religion is changing face. This is a historical fact.

Every time a religion stops to fulfill a society's need for common values or hinders our advancement, we question it. Every time a society goes through major changes that no longer fit the previous religious order, we question our religion. In our case, perhaps this change is technological advancement or mass access to education. Of course, war and force have done their part in changing people's religion too.

At those times of transformation, religion changes form but it never disappears. For example, the Amazon religions where changed as humans discovered the link between s and pregnancy. Or, pagan religions largely disappeared when monotheistic thought was better suited to address the needs of societies. This is a gradual process. Also, when cultures come in contact with each other, they easily exchange religious ideas.

My point is, religion has always existed and it will always be around. And we need it. We've proven that we need it. And it's logical. Because we are animals and crave direction and we want to set common goals and values that most of society would follow (sure, there's an element of fear here, some things can't be achieved by asking politely). Also, as a group, humans are pretty smart and we're always questioning things around us. Some things have no answers and we cannot ignore them. So we come up with ideas of why certain things exist. We do this in science too.

Right now, we can sit and debate God, but what's really happening is the God we were taught doesn't make sense in our world. So we will question him (so far, it has been a man) and eventually change him to fulfill our needs in 2008 (as opposed to 2008 BCE). This is logical, we evolve in technology, ideas and our needs change. Keep in mind, Atheism is a religion on its own too. To say that God doesn't exist is a non verifiable belief by itself and it comes with its own set of values on how we should live!

A religion that needs the

A religion that needs the rule of law to force its moral concepts has no spiritual validity.

A state that needs religion as a basis of authority has no focus on justice.

Religions come and go. In the long history of religious beliefs and practices, only one is recorded lasting more than 10,000 years, and that was some 40,000 years ago.

We are bickering now about the three rather recent and shallow Abraham religions that so pervasively dominate our lives today, but in the larger scheme of things human, they amount to very little. They will all very soon disappear from our mental horizon as a species, and it's probably not because of the rise of empirical rationality and scientific inquiry, but merely because they will follow on the foot steps of all other previous religious beliefs towards inevitable extinction...

BeeTaraf jan

I enjoyed rading your blog.  I like your line of logic.

Science is my Religion!

I believed what a religion has not proved; science has proved and continues to do miracles in all different areas of life. Therefore, I think instead of Bs and all superstitions which go with any religion we must take a scientific view of thing happening around us.  Besides, we Iranians can always follow GOOD WORD, GOOD THOUGHT and GOOD DEEDS tenent for our spiritual guide.