It is usually culturally painful (sometimes physically destructive) to paddle a rational canoe against the supernatural tide of society. There are many rational concepts that societies ensnared in religious cultures abjure but none is so disdained as those that battle the raging waters for universal religious conviction with reason. In some ways, fortunately, and in many ways unfortunately, every flavor of religion rages not only against rationality and reason, but also against other religious concepts that deny the validity of their own perceived correct and infallible word of an all knowing and all powerful god. In the United States, the Abrahamic religions, Judaism (2%), Islam (0.5%), and Christianity and its offshoots (75 to 80%) dominate our culture. The unaffiliated (16%), including those that consider themselves agnostics, atheists, free-thinkers, and nothings, are growing in number and in our free society they have a voice that is heard and heeded, but they are still marginalized in many areas. Creationism has a large following because of its religious foundation, but serious science has shown evolution to be biological, geological, and astronomical fact, and no amount of pseudo science, derision, and denial can change the way science, law, and industry use the products of this knowledge to advance our society.
There are three events in the life of every plant and animal of almost every species on Earth, including Homo sapiens, that are the basis of evolution and ecology. And in humanity, they also drive religion, and religion drives culture. These events are birth, reproduction, and death. The birth of a new genetically unique individual is a result of reproductive biology and the recombination of the genetic code of two separate individuals, male and female. There is nothing supernatural about birth, it is all biology. In human religious culture however, birth is mysterious and is considered as a personal gift from a god. At some point god supposedly endows the newly genetically formed human with a supernatural spirit that lifts human life above the biology of life on Earth. Thus religion has captured the biological event of birth and it becomes a tool of cultural religion
Reproduction is among our strongest biological drives. Individual survival depends on satisfying our immediate needs for breath, water, sustenance, and shelter. Once these basic needs are met, we turn to the biological imperative of our innate reproductive drive; and species without that instinctive behavior would become extinct, actually such a species could never evolve into being. Interestingly, humanity can now create species without or with only a marginal reproductive drive through domestication and artificial reproduction. But the human reproductive drive rages on, and over the ages has also become a cultural drive that aids survival of groups without satisfying the reproductive imperative. Separation of sex from reproduction has had great religious and cultural ramifications. Sex for pleasure creates strong survival based human ties as well as the potential for intense personal conflicts and religion seems to provide a source of societal control by institutionalizing male/female relationships through marriage initiated by a god concept and promulgated and controlled by institutional religion. Thus the biological and sociological human reproductive drive that enhanced the evolution of the human species has become a tool of cultural religion.
The meaning and inevitability of death is known and understood by humans. A few other animal species may know death but they do not understand its inevitability and its meaning. Such is the price we pay for our intelligence. The feared meaning of death is that we no longer exist. And this is not acceptable to an intelligent being. However without biological death there would be no life. Not just human life would, not exist, no sexually reproductive life of any kind could exist without death. Obviously reproduction without death, even slow reproduction within a closed system such as the Earth, cannot exist indefinitely. The life span of every species is part of the genetic code of that species. Of course human Imagination can conceive of a race of intelligent beings with eternal life, or close to it, that experience a reproductive rate equal to the rate of expansion to habitable planets throughout the universe. But that is not our reality. Death allows for survival of a species in a changing physical environment through the evolutionary change n of that species. All life on Earth exists within an ecological balance with other species that also evolve. Homo sapiens has managed to disrupt the natural balance of evolution, but unless we establish a functional balance between civilization and the natural ecology of the Earth, we will also go the way of the dinosaurs.
Even if the physical environment changes extremely slowly, the ecological balance changes and that stimulates biological change (evolution) within the species that populate that environment. The ecological balance between species can change slowly or rapidly, (as it is now changing) and those species that can evolve under rapidly changing conditions survive, those that cannot become extinct. No other species in the biological history of our Earth has changed world wide ecology as intensely and as rapidly as the human species. Life on Earth depends on evolution, either natural evolution or evolution created by humans, and evolution cannot exist without death
Ever since humanity developed intelligence, humans feared and worked to avoid death. Avoidance of biological death did not prove possible (at least not yet) so of course, an afterlife must exist. And it must be created and regulated by a being or beings much greater than mere humans. Obviously they must be the beings that created humans in the first place. These beings beyond human life must have the power to punish and reward and require acknowledgement and worship, and have the power to provide for human existence after physical death. Thus religion, like evolution, depends on biological death for a reason to exist, and death, like birth and sex, becomes a tool, the ultimate tool of cultural religion.
I find it interesting that the biological process of evolution that makes life on Earth possible, and that also provides the rational for religion, is vehemently denied by the organized religions of society.
There are three events in the life of every plant and animal of almost every species on Earth, including Homo sapiens, that are the basis of evolution and ecology. And in humanity, they also drive religion, and religion drives culture. These events are birth, reproduction, and death. The birth of a new genetically unique individual is a result of reproductive biology and the recombination of the genetic code of two separate individuals, male and female. There is nothing supernatural about birth, it is all biology. In human religious culture however, birth is mysterious and is considered as a personal gift from a god. At some point god supposedly endows the newly genetically formed human with a supernatural spirit that lifts human life above the biology of life on Earth. Thus religion has captured the biological event of birth and it becomes a tool of cultural religion
Reproduction is among our strongest biological drives. Individual survival depends on satisfying our immediate needs for breath, water, sustenance, and shelter. Once these basic needs are met, we turn to the biological imperative of our innate reproductive drive; and species without that instinctive behavior would become extinct, actually such a species could never evolve into being. Interestingly, humanity can now create species without or with only a marginal reproductive drive through domestication and artificial reproduction. But the human reproductive drive rages on, and over the ages has also become a cultural drive that aids survival of groups without satisfying the reproductive imperative. Separation of sex from reproduction has had great religious and cultural ramifications. Sex for pleasure creates strong survival based human ties as well as the potential for intense personal conflicts and religion seems to provide a source of societal control by institutionalizing male/female relationships through marriage initiated by a god concept and promulgated and controlled by institutional religion. Thus the biological and sociological human reproductive drive that enhanced the evolution of the human species has become a tool of cultural religion.
The meaning and inevitability of death is known and understood by humans. A few other animal species may know death but they do not understand its inevitability and its meaning. Such is the price we pay for our intelligence. The feared meaning of death is that we no longer exist. And this is not acceptable to an intelligent being. However without biological death there would be no life. Not just human life would, not exist, no sexually reproductive life of any kind could exist without death. Obviously reproduction without death, even slow reproduction within a closed system such as the Earth, cannot exist indefinitely. The life span of every species is part of the genetic code of that species. Of course human Imagination can conceive of a race of intelligent beings with eternal life, or close to it, that experience a reproductive rate equal to the rate of expansion to habitable planets throughout the universe. But that is not our reality. Death allows for survival of a species in a changing physical environment through the evolutionary change n of that species. All life on Earth exists within an ecological balance with other species that also evolve. Homo sapiens has managed to disrupt the natural balance of evolution, but unless we establish a functional balance between civilization and the natural ecology of the Earth, we will also go the way of the dinosaurs.
Even if the physical environment changes extremely slowly, the ecological balance changes and that stimulates biological change (evolution) within the species that populate that environment. The ecological balance between species can change slowly or rapidly, (as it is now changing) and those species that can evolve under rapidly changing conditions survive, those that cannot become extinct. No other species in the biological history of our Earth has changed world wide ecology as intensely and as rapidly as the human species. Life on Earth depends on evolution, either natural evolution or evolution created by humans, and evolution cannot exist without death
Ever since humanity developed intelligence, humans feared and worked to avoid death. Avoidance of biological death did not prove possible (at least not yet) so of course, an afterlife must exist. And it must be created and regulated by a being or beings much greater than mere humans. Obviously they must be the beings that created humans in the first place. These beings beyond human life must have the power to punish and reward and require acknowledgement and worship, and have the power to provide for human existence after physical death. Thus religion, like evolution, depends on biological death for a reason to exist, and death, like birth and sex, becomes a tool, the ultimate tool of cultural religion.
I find it interesting that the biological process of evolution that makes life on Earth possible, and that also provides the rational for religion, is vehemently denied by the organized religions of society.