Is organised religion a general enemy of humanity?

Post Reply New Topic

So even if all the bible scholars agree on the meaning and intention of every verse in the bible, the inherent contradictions of the text make it impossible to reach a consensus on theology, anyway. I see.

The denominations are the result of Martin Luther's heresies. After the Reformation, every layman with a bible became his own pope. That doesn't mean biblical literalism is true.

The great schism took place centuries before that however.

If you cannot see what is under your nose, then I will waste no time in explaining it.

It sounds so smart to say, doesn't it?

And there were other schisms as well in that time and before.

Let me rephrase my question then. Why do you think our species is "so incredibly far in front of what evolution would have achieved during the same time period." And a related question, how well do you understand evolution or the nature of the universe for you to be able to make such a judgment?

She was talking about the denominations that sprang up after the Reformation. The schism was not due to a difference in scriptural interpretation, it was due to culture and church politics. Basically, the eastern churches did not like being governed by the latin church. The Orthodox regard themselves as the true Catholic Church.

bunch of scumbag paedophiles

Remember Arius and the Athanasius? They were long before the Reformation, and the disagreement was due to difference in scriptural interpretation.

Yes, but Arius was not trying to start a new denomination. He died a Catholic.

Human beings essentially unchanged from us appeared on the scene 100,000 to 50,000 years ago. People who would look indistinguishable on a tube train or in a modern office.
Our species is endowed with astonishing abilities. and by far the hardest one to account for is a belief in a higher power.
But even more sedate talents, such as a gifted musician, whom can captivate an audience with the recitation of a single note. Or an artist who's works have people stopping and staring and meticulously recreating it in their own minds.
Then there are writers whom create entire worlds for the pleasure and adventure of others.
The human form itself is art-like as well as functional. there exists no more captivating form to the human mind.
Our 'plague' proportions, and harnessing of nature, engineering of cities and miraculous inventions all put us in a league incomparable to the rest of the animal kingdom. And we had the genesis of it only 50,000 years ago or so.
Compare this to the greatest achievements of our nearest ancestors.

Superficially speaking, maybe. But there should be distinctions regardless of whether they're easily perceived or not.

Keep in mind outstanding changes via evolution take a very long time to be noticed superficially.



So do other animals.



What's so hard about this exactly? Thanks to millions of years of evolution, humans have brains that are able to try to rationalize things around them.



As above, all thanks to a highly evolved brain.



Nice rhetorical speech, but nothing that falsifies evolution. Once again, a highly evolved brain can do wonders.



So are monkeys and apes and all other animals.



Meaningless statement that demonstrates nothing in support of your view.



And for the zillionth time, it takes a highly evolved brain to allow you to do all that. So obviously other animals with brains that aren't as highly evolved are not going to collectively do what we, as human beings, have been able to do.

The human brain has developed capacities that are well beyond what was required to forage for food and build shelters. Maybe our mental capacity for abstract math and philosophy is a by-product of some activity way back when, but it's hard to think of what that could be. What use would deductive reasoning have for upper paleolithic hunter-gatherers on the plains of the Serengeti?

It is question begging to say that the brain is highly evolved, since the debate is about whether evolution occurred at all.



It seems that scientists would have to observe the course of natural history to falsify evolution. What sort of lab experiment could falsify speciation?

But it doesn't mean it's not the best explanation thus far. What generally happened is that nature at the time had been favoring the gradual growth of the brain in our distant ancestor and had been allowing it to evolve through successive generations. This would definitely be a more rational explanation than God deciding to intervene in the middle of the evolution process to magically give human beings special powers.



As you said just before, it may have been a by-product of evolving a brain that's capable of advanced deductive reasoning.



The point is that, if you were to assume that evolution was true, then it should be reasonable to accept that we have a highly evolved brain as a result and that this brain can do things we see as wonderful and amazing (something that we also owe to our brain).

It may be a challenge to pinpoint what went on exactly when it comes to the human brain, but it doesn't falsify and negate all the evidence available for human evolution anyway. We can know with certainty that human evolution from "ancestral apes" is a fact, regardless of whether or not we know exactly what went on concerning how the human brain came about.

Anyway, hopefully, an expert in evolution will jump in and give us his/her ideas on what exactly led to the highly evolved brain residing in humans.



Well, you would have to falsify mutation and natural selection of all other things. If you can't do that, then there's nothing much you can to falsify evolution altogether as the theory of evolution itself is the simplest explanation that fits the currently available evidence. Using God to explain the evidence only complicates things unnecessarily.

It's interesting that it took only three pages before the thread was derailed from "Is organised religion a general enemy of humanity?" to "I believe in God." "You're an idiot!"