For many scientists, the evidence that moral reasoning is a result of physical traits that evolve along with everything else is just more evidence against the existence of the soul, or of a God to imbue humans with souls. For many believers, particularly in the United States, the findings show the error, even wickedness, of viewing the world in strictly material terms. And they provide for theologians a growing impetus to reconcile the existence of the soul with the growing evidence that humans are not, physically or even mentally, in a class by themselves.
The idea that human minds are the product of evolution is “unassailable fact,” the journal Nature said this month in an editorial on new findings on the physical basis of moral thought. A headline on the editorial drove the point home: “With all deference to the sensibilities of religious people, the idea that man was created in the image of God can surely be put aside.”
Or as V. S. Ramachandran, a brain scientist at the University of California, San Diego, put it in an interview, there may be soul in the sense of “the universal spirit of the cosmos,” but the soul as it is usually spoken of, “an immaterial spirit that occupies individual brains and that only evolved in humans — all that is complete nonsense.” Belief in that kind of soul “is basically superstition,” he said.This article is of particular interest to me right now because I have been pondering of late that the idea of a monotheistic God with followers created in his image may be the most poisonous belief system ever created by man.
Now I know that the previous sentence probably made a number of visitors simply click to the next page and refuse to read any further, but if you did stay allow me to elaborate.
You see evolution explains more then just how all living things arrived at the stage we see them in today, it also explains how religions came to be as well. It is a false assumption to believe that Judaism was given to the Jewish people by Yahweh, it actually evolved over time from a more "primitive" belief system.
Ancient people, including those who would one day become Jews, were puzzled by the world around them and in an attempt to understand it better began to give the things that they saw familiar human traits, which is called anthropomorphous, or humanizing non-humans. So trees were imbued with spirits, and animals were determined to be creatures who could speak to each other and occasionally to certain special humans. This then evolved from believing that there were unseen spirits in creatures and inanimate objects to believing that there were various gods in charge of different parts of our world, god of the feast, god of the harvest, goddess of beauty, etc., etc., etc..
Then came Zoroastrianism in the 5th century B.C., which was the first known religion to be monotheistic. It is also the religion which inspired Judaism, followed by Christianity, and then Islam.
And this is when things went south. The idea that there is a God that made this planet for the sole use of his children, the faithful, allowed these people to literally destroy the planet in their greed to use its natural resources for their benefit. Animals hunted to extinction, forests chopped down, oceans polluted, and the very air damaged beyond repair.
You see the people in other religious beliefs are far more connected to the world around them, they do not think of it as a incredibly generous gift from their sky father, they think of themselves as being part of an amazing organism and therefore not at all special or superior to it.
You can see this in how these other religions interact with the planet.
Buddhists are careful in only using what they need and never intentionally harming a creature, while carefully cultivating the land around them, often growing beautiful gardens in an homage to nature. Taoists are also as non-intrusive as they can be, and feel a kinship to everything that surrounds them. Native Americans lived and traveled with the animals that they hunted believing the animals sacrificed themselves to the hunters and were therefore a gift to be honored and whose flesh, skin and bones were never wasted. The same is true of the natives in my Alaskan home.
When the Christians came to the countries inhabited by people who had these simple belief systems they endeavored to obliterate them. Either by enslaving them, or taking their lands, or even hiding their agenda in educational opportunities.(That is how it was done to the native Alaskans. They were given Christian names and punished for speaking their native tongue in school. The result? Many native languages are almost completely extinct.)
But the sad fact is that if we had all remained "pagans", as the Christian or Muslim faith would label these other beliefs, the world would not have suffered the harm that it has suffered in the last 2,000 years. I know that some will think that I have oversimplified the situation, but you will have to agree that my logic is bulletproof.
So to sum up, Christianity is killing our planet. You should all be ashamed of yourselves!
