Is religion the root of all our ills?

I don't think it is. It is a contributing factor for sure. It's much akin to racism. It divides people by assigning a label to groups of people who might otherwise get along if not for tensions regarding the speculation of an after-life and how to live your life in order to get there.

In all perfect and actual clarity, I will say this: religion is a tool. Nothing more and nothing less. Organized religion is composed of leadership just as any government on the earth is. Leaders are not infallible as we see time and again. Leaders lead by example, by extolling virtues to live by and to aspire to. In this post I will try to explain how I see no difference between organized religion and national governments.

One simple explanation is hierarchy. It's been around for a very, very long time (since our beginnings and no Creationist or Darwinist could disagree with that statement).

Human survival has depended upon our forbears showing us the way to live. How to hunt and gather food for our families and tribe. How to learn by example. To look to our elders for wisdom that we may need to draw upon in times to come.

Here is where it gets kind of complicated. How does religion fit into all of this? I have no good answers to that question. I can only speculate that somebody somewhere thought about death and feared it and then attempted to explain it. And then that meme evolved into what we know as religion today. I'm sure it was probably a simple explanation at the time, but memes evolve and so we have a collection of memes vying for supremacy in survival of the fittest meme.

What happens when we die? That is purely a philosophical question. And purely a hypothetical question that cannot be answered imperically. Not with complete certainty. That's why I truly believe that all religious peoples are undeniably agnostic. If one has a rational head on ones shoulders then one can only come to the conclusion that an after-life is unknowable. If you believe with utmost certainty about what an after-life entails for all of us then obviously that argument is not rational because it can't be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. When somebody comes back from the dead and tells me to my face about what being dead is about then (and maybe not even then) I will consider the argument. Even then it is still not imperical because it would be outside the realm of physical reality.

Expanding upon that; I guess my stance regarding this is that our life on earth (in physical reality) trumps a so-called after-life. It has much more meaning. It warrants greater attention. The life we live today matters much more to our descendants than an after-life that may or may not exist. I am not discounting claims of such an after-life.

What I am getting at is that we should really look around and really live our lives as if there is no after-life. To leave a legacy of gratitude for the generations that go before us. And not the other way around.

If religion is not the root of all our ills, then what is? Human nature.

In all of its foibles, its follies. All the atrocities that people have committed upon one another. All the advancements. The progress we have made as a species. The foundations we have laid for future generations to stand upon and examine and then determine with their own rationale if it is viable. If what we as society has presented as the pillar of exemplification is to be validated...or torn down. It is up to us to put forth the best way for our species to survive.

I'm not talking about our children, our immediate children. I am talking of thousands of years in the future. Thousands! Be you of biblical belief or not, it is undeniable that human beings exist to survive and have done so for thousands of years.

I almost started to bash the bible (as much as I like to do so), but this post is not about trying to convince people of faith that what they believe is wrong. It's about trying to connect us all as human beings. As a species on a journey through time. However different the memes has evolved we are all s one.

It all seems so superfluous, I know, but it is absolutely true. I want to see the human race beyond anything we could imagine today. I want my brothers and sisters to put aside such simple things as a "god" concept and to really, really envision humankind thousands of years in the making...starting in the now.

Sadly, I was thinking, that some folks believe that the "end times" are near. This is mere fortune-telling and is detrimental to the survival of the human species. This kind of thinking (which I think is probably prevalent among most American Xians) only perpetuates a "glass half-full" mentality. Revelations only spell out the doom of mankind on this earth.

And here (I guess I veer from the premise of this post) is a dark perception of our future as humanity.

I can't possibly imagine some terrible tribulations visited upon the human species. For what? Being human?

Here again we get back to the label thing, and how it separates us, because obviously (according to Revelations) those who don't believe are just plain out of the club. The doors are locked and only the "special" people are allowed in.

The real evil in this world can be defined as not recognizing your fellow human being as a viable contributor to the future of humanity. That is the real evil.

*memes are thought processes that evolve just like genes. It was coined by Richard Dawkins.