from what i remember of history the catholic church came about after the fall of the roman empire. At that time all chaos was loose on the world. Many reasons of misfortune and death could not be explained plainly so in comes Satan. It's easy to get the populas together if the enemy can be named. I remember when i first started to question the christian faith. Of course it was the devil that was tempting me or when i finaly dropped the faith altogether i then served the devil even though i didn't even believe in that entity.
Fear and guilt have always been the tools of choice in the monotheistic faiths and as long as people fall to such trickery then it will survive for quite a while as you said.
My humble theory is that there are two main forces at work in the human evolution. Fear and drive to become better... i cant think of better words but i'm sure there are some.
Fear is our natural animal side and of course religion plays well into that. On the other hand if you ask most people they would want a life with less fear and more individual choice. For example; when we are kids we dont know any better than to not look down the street for cars as we chase the ball...SPLAT! so our parents teach us not to cross the street and instill a good sense of fear of the SPLAT. Eventualy we grow up and learn to look down the street but we want to see what's across the street.
Now we have a choice. Do we never cross that street because our parents told us to be afraid or do we explore but with the wisdom we have learned.
Christianity is based on the idea that we are all connected to the guilty party of Adam and Eve. Some will accept this and remain where they are but many don't accept this idea as a reason we shouldn't move on away from guilt and fear.
I feel that for us to evolve we must move away from the 2000 year old ideas. It may well be that the church will see this and adapt.
Fear and guilt have always been the tools of choice in the monotheistic faiths and as long as people fall to such trickery then it will survive for quite a while as you said.
My humble theory is that there are two main forces at work in the human evolution. Fear and drive to become better... i cant think of better words but i'm sure there are some.
Fear is our natural animal side and of course religion plays well into that. On the other hand if you ask most people they would want a life with less fear and more individual choice. For example; when we are kids we dont know any better than to not look down the street for cars as we chase the ball...SPLAT! so our parents teach us not to cross the street and instill a good sense of fear of the SPLAT. Eventualy we grow up and learn to look down the street but we want to see what's across the street.
Now we have a choice. Do we never cross that street because our parents told us to be afraid or do we explore but with the wisdom we have learned.
Christianity is based on the idea that we are all connected to the guilty party of Adam and Eve. Some will accept this and remain where they are but many don't accept this idea as a reason we shouldn't move on away from guilt and fear.
I feel that for us to evolve we must move away from the 2000 year old ideas. It may well be that the church will see this and adapt.
