The suicidal nature of religion.

No no no, this is not posted in the aim of discussing the almost systematic and centuries old murdering of religious followers at the hands one another in the never ending arguments that continue to this day, this is not a debate of the “I'm right, you're wrong” nature in any way shape or form. Instead this post will look to draw a conclusion in my mind on whether, religious followers are largely contributing to the downfall of their own religion.

Ever since the English naturalist and much acclaimed Charles Robert Darwin presented compelling evidence that all species of life have evolved over time, from common ancestors, through the process he called natural selection, religion has since that fateful day ridiculed these findings, largely unknowingly and systematically de-constructing their own belief systems through the much documented criticism of the evolutionary theory.

The evolutionary theory presented through the release of texts on and entitled The Origin of Species caused an instant and unrelenting response from religious groups, with many followers dismantling the theory peace by peace, section by section highlighting any section of the currently unknown/unresearched for their own gain, with the ultimate aim of strengthening the beliefs they present to people through religion. Only to eventually strengthen their opposition.

Darwin himself said, and can be found being quoted as saying "Light will be thrown on the origin of man," each and every person to exist in humanities past and present at some point, whether Religious, Creationist or another form of Atheist each man or woman has at some point pondered the question of our creation, however arguably none greater than people driven to believe in religion as being the answer to this ever evasive question. I believe they will ultimately have one of the largest impacts on the issue of mankind's origin, perhaps unknowingly.

Even at the beginning Darwin was given much support from friends such as Gray, Hooker, Huxley and Lyell, all of these friends however still expressed various reservations but gave strong support, as did many others, particularly younger naturalists. These strong reservations where seen to have ultimately largely substantiated the theories of Darwin, not immediately but their intelligent counter arguments against the given theories ultimately lead Darwin toward the answers he required to sway the minds of many to believe in his findings, through the birth of facts he hadn't previously contemplated resolving.

The Origin of Species was translated into many languages, becoming a staple scientific text attracting thoughtful attention from all and massively varied walks of life, including the 'working men' (working class citizens) who flocked to Huxley’s lectures. Darwin’s theory also resonated with various movements at the time and became a key fixture of popular culture. Darwinism became a movement covering a wide range of evolutionary ideas. All the time faced by great opposition by religious movements, the very opponents of the theory all the time fanning the small fire to ultimately create a flame of magnitudes unseen before, all through there own publicity... any news is good news after all.

Although the Churches of England produced a flame of unrivalled magnitudes through the continuous publicity they gave to Darwin's theories, this is not what I consider to have been the suicidal element in their opposition to Creationism, the unrelenting opposition at this time was where the opposition to his theories gave birth to the child of Darwin's mind.

I argue however and ask you to conclude and share your views. Religion created a monster in trying to kill off the theories of Darwin, undeniably. But, has since then religious sects continued in a vein attempt to kill contradicting theories too their beliefs missed a huge lesson given, through their past attempts to shut this ever increasing in popular belief down. Have they missed the lesson that they only fuel the fire and continually make the texts they so nobly oppose stronger and stronger day by day, year by year, thought by thought and counter argument by counter argument.

Lessons should have been learnt by the Religious peoples, I suggest and conclude myself that perhaps the people in opposition and a relentless battle against us Evolutionary believers, are to this day as in the past contributing more greatly than any other theories or religion to the downfall of their very own beliefs. Through continued ridicule we're handed on a plate the very answers that are most significant and need to be resolved, and I'm sure just as every other question has been answered in the past, that our scientific knowledge allows, we will find the answers Religious peoples feed the Evolutionary theory.

So I beg the question, why do religious followers wish the feed the fire? I also ask, please if you agree or disagree could you please put forward your thoughts, has religion ultimately since day one been destined to kill itself?

These considerations can only lead me to be thankful of religion and religious followers for being by and large the greatest contributors to our establishment, research and continued pursuit of the answer that is so hard to find yet so desired.

Religions were created by humans to better dominate the mind of other humans.

I've said it before, religion is the worst poison that humanity has ever encountered but a necessary poison for humans could not think by themselves. But now, with consciousness and awareness on the rise, religions are on the decline.

The biggest problem that arrises with religions is the memory of the race.
The memory of the race imposes ways of thinking and living thru tools such as religion. All religion are based on the past to prevent humans from evolving.

Religions were also created to secure humans in their lower mental body or if you prefer, the mind. Fear of the unknown was replaced with faith.

Faith is nothing more than domination of the mind. Freedom of the mind is the ultimate goal for humans evolving on this planet. Religions prevents consciousness.

I respect those who need religion, for it is part of their experience. As a certain point of evolution, humans will let go of religions for consciousness will allow them to understand all of the universal mysteries that has been in the minds of humans throughout our experience in this physical reality.



[edit on 29-3-2009 by teklordz]

Ponder this:

If there is truly a global battle between christianity and the NWO, then why do both sides withold so much secretive information? The vatican has a massive archive of secrets that it will not disclose to the public. WHY? The NWO/Freemasonry only permits knowledge at various degrees of it's rites. WHY? If this struggle is so epic it would be prudent for either side to gain as many followers as possible to prevent the other from gaining dominance. Is the Vatican in a sense contributing to it's own destruction?

There has been far too much finger pointing and not enough disclosure by either faction. Why must people be forced to come to their own conclusions and thus we have so many varying religions, and ideals that the entire population feels lost? I think there is a truth and I think revealing that truth must be detrimental to the existance of the religion in the sense they would lose controll of their followers.

[edit on 29-3-2009 by Ellirium113]

reply to post by MrAnonUK


As a devout and practising member of the by far biggest Christian denomination - Catholicism - I think I should point out that that religion at least has never condemned evolution. Wiki provides a nice overview of the Catholic response to Evolution here. Contrary to popular belief the Church did not recently give in and say evolution was fine, it has been a developing appreciation of it over the last 150 years - Rome never does anything in a day. Catholicism is not a nay-sayer to evolution but, as with all things, attends to it as it relates to dogma, salvation history and the good of individual souls. So, to use a very loose analogy, as the Church does not comdemn nuclear physics it may at time have serious questions and concerns about what is done with the knowledge acquired.

I think, as I end up repeating here often in "religion v science" threads that people refer to the stories of George LeMaitre and Gregor Mendel both celebrated Catholic clerics whose contributions to cosmology and genetics are foundation stones to a lot of modern science.

WIthout doubt there are many fundamentalist Christians who denounce and deny Evolution, many of these are in the US where access to the media makes their objections disproportionately publicised. But all religious people by no means reject Evolution out of hand.

The analogy of "suicide" might perhaps be rendered an analogy of "genocide" where certain parties take a feature present among some members of a particular group and use it as an excuse to denounce, dismiss and dismantle the rest. So if some "religious" people reject evolution lets claim all religious people do. Deny ignorance, as they say.

I believe that scientists are equally at fault in not getting people to accept their views.

Scientists try and sell their theories as "fact" when they should actually be phrased as " the most likely theory which fits all the available evidence.

It is not surprising that someone would retaliate against a "fact" which is not really a "fact."

I believe that if scientists had presented their theories as "the most likely theory which fits all the available evidence" from the start, religious followers would have been much less likely to show strong opposition.

I do not believe that the religious are destroying their religion as the OP has suggested. Rather, I believe that disputing "scientific fact" unites the religious in a common purpose, thereby strengthening the bonds which exist between religious followers.

reply to post by MrAnonUK

An intriguing take on the opposition of some religious believers to evolution, certainly. You're suggesting that their opposition has the same effect as scientific peer review.

I suppose it does, or rather did, to some degree, but I feel all the serious objections to evolutionary theory have long since been laid to rest. And what progress can there be when divinely inflamed non-peer reviewers, unqualified to assess rationally the counterarguments they have been presented with, simply stop their ears to them and repeat the same old objections ad nauseum?

Originally posted by MrAnonUK
So I beg the question, why do religious followers wish the feed the fire? I also ask, please if you agree or disagree could you please put forward your thoughts, has religion ultimately since day one been destined to kill itself?

Why, you ask ?

Desperation ?

It is my belief, lol, that Doubt and Curiosity are two most "strongest" properties of the mind (besides Love, of course) Faith will never be able to counteract efficiently (like it does with Fear of death for example) in the presence of scientifically explained phenomena (A.K.A. as a FACT)...

Destined to kill itself ?

As they say, nothing is forever (except diamonds, lol), so it will end at one point, that is for sure, it is just an episode in the course of our development as a species...

Will it go away with the bang or just slowly fade away, nobody knows, time will certainly tell

Originally posted by 5thElement

Originally posted by MrAnonUK
So I beg the question, why do religious followers wish the feed the fire? I also ask, please if you agree or disagree could you please put forward your thoughts, has religion ultimately since day one been destined to kill itself?

Why, you ask ?

Desperation ?

It is my belief, lol, that Doubt and Curiosity are two most "strongest" properties of the mind (besides Love, of course) Faith will never be able to counteract efficiently (like it does with Fear of death for example) in the presence of scientifically explained phenomena (A.K.A. as a FACT)...

Destined to kill itself ?

As they say, nothing is forever (except diamonds, lol), so it will end at one point, that is for sure, it is just an episode in the course of our development as a species...

Will it go away with the bang or just slowly fade away, nobody knows, time will certainly tell

Why do I ask? well it's clearly as the article reads something I was contemplating and pondering, It is entirely reasonable on a forum to attempt to gain the input of others.

Also you go onto mention desperation, what planet are you on, how does desperation even remotely enter into this? Please try harder to be smart next time because that was neither funny nor made any reasoned sense other than pointing towards your many assumptions perhaps.

After the incredibly comical comments you make a good point which I agree with, faith will perhaps be heightened or diminished by curiosity and doubt. My stance being an a non believer of our documented religions still leads me to believe the followers are accelerating their own religions demise.

I'm just still trying to figure out where desperation could come into it, sorry mate really don't get what on earth you're on about with that question so obviously cannot reply.

"it will end at one point." I partially agree, but cannot help but feel the introduction of new facts will only lead to another question, and another, and another. But ultimately, it'll perhaps prove our texts to have been fabrication of ideas thought up to explain our existence, whilst also exposing how many wars have been fought in the name of false beliefs.


P.s. I didn't reply to the initial responses as I feel perhaps, possibly due to me misunderstanding but they only look to work a way around the question to benefit their own beliefs. The point of the thread was to ask the question, do you believe my theory to be correct, not, can you work a way around it too benefit your own belief system.

So for that reason only, whether I agree or disagree I don't want to respond and curtail away from the initial topic too much.

[edit on 3-4-2009 by MrAnonUK]

[Why, you ask ?] was meant to say [You ask : why ?]

My apologies, English is my 3rd language, even after all these years I still make mistakes


Word: Desperation (?) was aimed to those who feed the fire related to your question below:

So I beg the question, why do religious followers wish the feed the fire?

Apologies again if I caused confusion

reply to post by 5thElement


Oh I understand now mate, in that case I apologise. Totally misunderstood what you meant by it and could only envisage you having meant it in a way which was trying to knock me for posing the question.

Sorry mate, my bad.