After reading the post "mire of atheism" which is a really interesting thread, I came to a thought. When I first came to this board I wanted to add conviction to beliefs that I was not yet convinced of. When I first started studying with the JW's I wanted to find God in the world. So much craziness, killing, people who just don't care, slums, homelessness, hunger, no praying in public places, school shootings, wars. .. . . all that stuff- I thought the only answer was religion and God . I thought if people could go back to religion what a better world this would be.
But, I was wrong.
I started thinking about the original Planet of the Apes movies (I've not seen the new one). Any of you who have seen it know that the apes have their own religion with an Ape Jesus/God person or something like that. Anyhow my thought was that religion has always served a purpose- but it is a man made purpose. When the first people were on earth they didn't know a whole lot about the whys and hows. Religion explained the unexplainable & it gave some order to the chaos. Now we are in the scientific age and we can explain things. There are still many mysteries but what we've learned about the heavens and the earth shows that our Bible stories may be as fictional as reading about the great Greek gods or the story of Buddha. Why keep holding on and trying to justify the stories are true? Maybe it's time for the next thing. Maybe it's coming down the road a century or two from now.
My big revelation though has been that religion can't change the world, people do. . . .yeah I know, reeeaaall deep but it was just a thought and I wanted to share it and kind of say thanks because if this board wasn't here and the posters who post here weren't here my mind may not of made that u turn.[;}]
Is Religion Evolving?
by peacepipe 2 Replies latest jw friends
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peacepipe
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conflicted
Peacepipe, great thread! That is the very next step after 'mire of ateism'. It got kind of silly after I posted, but I'm glad you took it to another level. I do believe that religion evolves.
Lets look at Catholisism, 500 years ago it was a very different religion than it is today. They used to perform exorsisms to rid their followers from demon possesion, they thought it was ok to torture people into believing as they do, they thought torturing themselves in the manner Christ was tortured brought them closer to God. That last one still goes on, but less and less frequently.
Jehovah's Witnesses is another example of this religous evolution, even though they are fairly new. I don't need to tell you how many times they changed policy - the evidence is all over this board. They changed to please the majority of their followers - to prevent mass exodus. And they will continue to change if they want to keep their members. Eventually one of two things will happen; a) They will make the proper changes to create an equilibrium between the top echelon and the rank and file, and thus continue on as a stronger faith. Or b) They will remain rigid in their faults and lose more and more followers until there is nothing left.
Neither of these scenarios will manifest themselves immediately, as this is an evolutionary process - we will see the results in time.
But in the end, all religions must evolve as the people who make up their numbers grow as a civilization.
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Hojon
All religions have to change as science uncovers things. Like it was said above, religions 500 years ago taught a great many ideas that have been proven to be false by science. If they didn't change, they would not exist today. Can you imagine someone today claiming that the earth is the center of the universe because it is god's creation? They would be laughed out of the room.