I don’t know about you, but I’m getting fed up with the “Religion is so bad to us -- why won’t it go away” camp. (See this article and the snippets from it below).First, dust off your anthropology books, sweeties. Religion won’t go away ‘cause we humans exit mommy’s womb blank slates – stupidos, really – and we need something to clue us in on how to behave.
Animals have all the luck – they’re born with instincts. We aren’t. To survive, we hafta hang on for dear life to a “culture” – a connected spider web of rules for how to do everything from raising baby Bing to tying your shoe laces.
And religion is the center around which all cultures spin. Every single society anthropologists have studied has had religion. Why? ‘Cause without religion, humans can’t cope. (Well, dudes like Chris Hitchens can cope, but that’s only because they suck off a society already organized around a religion).
Second, the only reason some think religion is bad is this: The only religions they “see” are the ones with daddy-war gods ruling the roost: Yahweh’s religion, and Allah’s, and Jehovah’s, Ares’, Mars’, Zeus’, Indra’s, and the daddy-war god religions of the ancient Aztecs, Incas, Mayans, and Egyptians.
Jeesh, dudes, get a grip! Reams of other religions in the world haven’t lead to “political excesses … intolerance, persecutions, expulsions, forced conversions, [and] autos-da-fé…”. And guess what? They weren’t run by daddy-war gods. Look for example at the religions of the Pueblos, the Tahitians, or the Inuit.
And for big, beautiful complex civilizations run without daddy-war gods, feast your eyes on the Minoan and the Indus Valley Civilizations. All signs point to these two swirling around not daddy-war gods, but gorgeous guiding oddesses.
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“Prominent secularization theorists like Peter L. Berger who, as recently as the 1960s, openly conceded religion's demise, are having to radically alter their forecasts. They have had to invent new concepts and categories to describe the phenomenon of religion's unexpected global resurgence.”From Reason vs. Faith: the Battle Continues
SNIP
But Jeesh, look at “… the historical and political excesses of dogmatic belief: the intolerance, the persecutions, the expulsions, the forced conversions, the autos-da-fé….”
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thnx to SLS Photography for the fine foto; go HERE to see more of her work.
