It’s not because I am obstinate, though I can be obstinate.
Rather, I simply can’t believe things like: “A virgin had a baby” or “A man who was dead later became alive” or “This piece of bread is really a man’s flesh.” I can’t believe such things because these things are simply not true. To me, such assertions are nonsense and it befuddles me when I hear other people uttering them. It’s especially befuddling to see the way many people utter religious claims. It’s as though they believe they have knives in their backs and they damned well say such things, or else. “Or else what?” I often think. “Let go of those scary thoughts. It’s just a bad dream. Free yourselves! Wake up!”
I also try to be kind. I am sadded to see people wasting their time and energy due to fear and ignorance. I want to do my part to help those who feel compelled to utter patently untrue things, even if they only do this on Sundays.
I am not alone, of course. In our frustration, many of us non-Believers wish to come up with a quick and dirty explanation for why other people publicly proclaim oxymoronic religious claims. It is this urge to quickly dispense of this mystery of religion (the mystery that anyone takes religious claims seriously) that is addressed by Pascal Boyer in his 2003 article, “Religious thought and behavior as byproducts of brain function.” Boyer is a faculty member in the departments of anthropology and psychology at Washington University in St. Louis.
In an earlier post, I briefly mentioned Boyer as one of the prominent writers on religion who holds the position that religion is a byproduct of normal human cognition. This byproduct theory is certainly one emphasis of Boyer’s article. He also reminds us, however, that it might not be easy to determine a simple mechanism causing this byproduct. After all, human cognition, the source of this “byproduct,” is exceedingly complicated.
In his article, Boyer notes that most attempts to explain religion in terms of evolution have proved unsatisfactory “because a single characteristic identified as crucial to the origin of religion is not in fact general.” For instance, my characterization above (that people follow religions due to fear and ignorance) is one of the overly-simple explanations Boyer had in mind. Boyer suggests that any meaningful explanation for religion would to be a cognitive cocktail, requiring reference to many aspects of human cognition.
In his article, Boyer presents a chart to warn us to avoid many of the commonly heard simple (and false) explanations for “why does religion exist?” Here are the commonly heard overly-simple explanations for religion, coupled with Boyer’s refutations:
The claim: Religion answers people’s metaphysical questions.
Why it’s not true: Religious thoughts are typically activated when people deal with concrete situations (this crop, that disease, this new birth, this dead body, etc.).The claim: Religion is about a transcendent God.
Why it’s not true: It is about a variety of agents: ghouls, ghosts, spirits, ancestors, gods, etc., in direct interaction with people.The claim: Religion allays anxiety.
Why it’s not true: It generates as much anxiety as it allays: vengeful ghosts, nasty spirits and aggressive gods are as common as protective deities.The claim: Religion was created at time t in human history.
Why it’s not true: There is no reason to think that the various kinds of thoughts we call ‘religious’ all appeared in human cultures at the same time.The claim: Religion is about explaining natural phenomena.
Why it’s not true: Most religious explanations of natural phenomena actually explain little but produce salient mysteries.The claim: Religion is about explaining mental phenomena (dreams, visions).
Why it’s not true: In places where religion is not invoked to explain them, such phenomena are not seen as intrinsically mystical or supernatural.The claim: Religion is about mortality and the salvation of the soul.
Why it’s not true: The notion of salvation is particular to a few doctrines (Christianity and doctrinal religions of Asia and the Middle-East) and unheard of in most other traditions.The claim: Religion creates social cohesion Religious commitment can (under some conditions) be used as signal of coalitional affiliation.
Why it’s not true: But coalitions create social fission (secession) as often as group integration.The claim: Religious claims are irrefutable. That is why people believe them.
Why it’s not true: There are many irrefutable statements that no-one believes; what makes some of them plausible to some people is what we need to explain.The claim: Religion is irrational/superstitious (therefore not worthy of study).
Why it’s not true: Commitment to imagined agents does not really relax or suspend ordinary mechanisms of belief-formation; indeed it can provide important evidence for their functioning (and therefore should be studied attentively).
Boyer warns that most of the mental machinery inviting believe in religion “is not consciously accessible.” Our conscious beliefs represent the tip of the cognitive iceberg. Further, he cites experimental tests demonstrating that
people’s actual religious concepts often diverge from what they believe they believe. This is why theology’s, explicit dogmas, scholarly interpretations of religion cannot be taken as a reliable description of either the contents or the causes of peoples beliefs.
Rather than first-order beliefs, Boyer argues that religious beliefs, which are conscious and explicit, are “interpretations of one’s own mental states.”
As an example of how religious beliefs dovetail with normal cognitive function, Boyer raises the issue of communication with non-present nonphysical entities. When we think of a friendship, we often imagine walking are talking with a friend. Boyer reminds us, however, that “a good deal of spontaneous reflection in humans focuses on past or future social interaction and on counterfactual scenarios. This capacity to run off-line social interaction is already present in young children.” He reminds us that all of us have lingering thoughts and feelings about our acquaintances who are recently dead; all of us are capable of carrying on conversations in our head with dead people.
Indeed, our spiritual “friends” are much like our real-life friends. How startling is should be to us that spirits and gods all communicate with English-speaking believers in English. How odd it should be that the spirits so often agree with our own moral intuitions. How surprising it should be that the things that we find disgusting are also disgusting to them. Their favorite foods and hobbies are the same as ours!
What are the other cognitive systems from which religious beliefs might sprout? Boyer suggests these: “detection and representation of animacy and agency, social exchange, moral intuitions, precaution against natural hazards and understanding of misfortune.”
All of this is fodder for Boyer’s suggestion that we should look for our explanation for religion in the blossoming research on cognitive neuroscience. At bottom, Boyer warns that religion might not be a spectacular or fundamental error of reasoning, as many skeptics would like to believe. Rather, cognitive science suggests “a less dramatic but perhaps more empirically grounded picture of religion as a probable, although by no means inevitable byproduct of the normal operation of human cognition.”
Regarding wonder's question on Voltaire: His last words are disputed. Some say he recanted his positions and others say that he simply said good-bye to his valet-de-chambre. http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7308/deathbed.htm
If your question is whether I might someday recant my position, I hope I have many years of life on Earth before I find out!
A wonderful new book on why religion poisons everything has recently been released..
"god is not great"
Can a one celled amoeba see a star?
More importantly, can a one celled amoeba understand itself and, if so, how well?
Ask the same question of a mosquito, a squirrel, a badger, …, a human.
Are we not limited to understand this most important aspect of ourselves.
There are no atheists in foxholes.
Bottom line: there is no argument (yet) that completely convinces, or disproves , 'virgin birth' OR 'the big bang'.
WE don't have all the answers — about anything. And neither Religion nor Science gives any ultimate truth.
We only see as through a glass darkly, whether we are an amoeba or a human.
Cesar,
So I guess Christianity is the only non-man made religion?
Is this the same Christianity that at one time: Thought the world was flat?
Launched the Inquisition? Imprisoned Galileo for beleiving the planets revolved around the sun? Burnt witches and non belivers at the stake?
Killed innocent Indians, unless they converted to Christianity? Split entire continents into countries and fifedoms? The same Christianty that tells other world religions that their followers will burn in hell for not following Christ?
Sure sounds like an angry and vengeful diety to me. No wonder the term "a God fearing man" came into existence, and some people think that state is a positive attribute. How very sad.
I contend that religion in general has been responsible for more death and destruction, and ignorance, than all the 20th century wars combined.
It's not about your soul, or spirituality…..it's about control, and keeping them dumb down on the farm. Why? Because institutions die hard, and will do most anything to retain their "power" over the populace. For instance, if
Catholic priests are to be held to high esteem based on their occupation of choice, how do they square their piousness with all the corroborated/concealed kidde raping? And, will they be sent to hell for this abomination, or revered in heaven cause their God wanted them to molest
children? Those who claim to have all the answers are welcome to take a stab at the above question.
Erich, you choose to not believe. I choose to believe. My choice is based upon faith, a belief in the absence of proof. Perhaps your choice is also based upon an absence of proof. Time will tell.
Well said Eve: I like to think I am open-minded. However, I have fear of those who hold their personal beliefs above those of others, be they ones of believer vs non-believer, or science vs religeon.
I fear the intolerance you speak of, and judging the responses of many here, have good reason to be fearful. I am a scientifically educated person, non-believer, who usually holds my personal beliefs to myself. I could offer my experiences with faith seen in the health care world, or proof of evolution (think about how quickly bacteria have shared with other bacteria the genetic ability to resist antibiotics ). These experiences and sceintificlly studied human experiencec help to keep my mind open to all possibilities.
If I may use these words here; I prey (hope) that someday, we all can live in harmony.
I dont think anyone believes that you need God to see beauty, etc… Christanity, did however, tried to establish a moral standard/baseline, (yes there have been other religions that have also). Ive read arguments here that talk about all the harm done in the name of religion and that is true. However, you think the removal of a belief in God will make our society kinder? – I simply do not believe that to be the case. Whether Christanity has been misused, (and of course it has – name anything that humans have touched that has not been). What moral standard(s), (even if it they are bare bones and misused), do you think exists if you remove that idealogy, a legal one? Wouldnt you at least agree that politics and our legal system have been misused also? Dont you think that perhaps even science has been misused at times as well – though that never seems to be stated – as if it is a god itself – and in my opinion that is kind of the trap of it all. Science vs Religion – well certainly scientific application has allow us to rise to rise to the top of the food chain and to mode our environments to a great degree, (the latter could be debated as whether having been positive of not), therefore I understand why it seems a logical extension to say science good, religion bad. However, also in my opinion it is absolute foolishness to take all of science as if it simply correct when even it's base guidelines dictate that it can never really be fact at all, (and bottomline anyway that you slice this, take any branch of science far enough and it's just a guess – but one that is repeated as if it is scripture) – which makes me wonder why people have a hard time seeing why other people need religion – people need to feel they have the answer. All of that for this,
I am not stating religion is correct, of course at least parts of it cannot be, but it simply blows my mind that people argue with what roughly amounts to scriptual guesses as fact when they would be screaming bloody murder if anyone of religion slant did exactly the same thing.
Let's face it – whether you choose to believe or not believe is exactly that – a personal choice. You don't need to explain to me why you have chosen what you have chosen, just as I don't feel the need to explain my choices to you. If you ask, I will be happy to tell you, and I offer you the same right.
By the way – I haven't asked. . .
Gary Gittings
>>>
I contend that religion in general has been responsible for more death and destruction, and ignorance, than all the 20th century wars combined.
>>
It’s not about your soul, or spirituality…..it’s about control, and keeping them dumb down on the farm.
>>
The same Christianty that tells other world religions that their followers will burn in hell for not following Christ?
> This is a remarkable statement from a man many view as an iceage survivor.
I believe in the possibility of humans (notice the plural!) the world over to eventually live in a dynamic harmonious world of great human understanding and support, and, to this end, I strongly believe that in every country, sooner than later, and from kiddie schools up, there should be a conversation on religious, scientific and philosophical ideas and how they relate to human culture. However, I do not know , in practical terms, how this could be achieved. The alternative is for continuous human strife based on the so-called truthfulnes of one religion or religious creed over the others. By the way, although reared as a Christian, I acknowledge other religious notions as being on a par with Christianity, even those notions in tribal groups the world over and in Egypt , Greece and Rome of antiquity..I am now an agnostic, and was once an atheist too…………….Al
Erich Vieth
One thing you failed to mention was that religion was about…the truth or the search for what is true. As a Catholic I believe the words of Jesus when he said "Veritas, Veritas…" (truly, truly…) This is the only religion that has its founder saying that what he said was the truth.
Religion is not so much about trying to teach someone to be a better person or live a better life. Those are part of what religion is all about but it is not the main point. It is about what is true and real in this world and the afterlife. Is it ok to kill your child in the womb? Is there heaven and hell, God, Purgatory, ect.? If you think that this world is all there is then good luck to you and you might as well live it up since there is nothing for you after this life.
BTW we have already exprimented with Godless, atheistic societies…Nazism and Communism. How many people did they whacked?
Nathan der Weise (whoever you are) shame on you for putting tthe old chestnut about atheists in foxholes in the mouth of a character in a play banned by religious authorities for its message of religious tolerance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_the_Wise
Christanity is nothing more than a Myth. It is the last in a long line of myths promoting a dead-man-sun god, born of a virgin who died and was resurrected in three days. Study history people, study! Horus, Isis, Christus, Krishna, Buddha, Dionysus and Mithra all were born on Dec. 25th of virgin mothers, all began their ministries at age 30, all were crucified and were resurrected after 3 days. Christianity promotes their latest sun-god, jesus who again mirrors "God's Sun", which dies on December 22nd in the sky only to be "reborn" on the 25th. To put your trust in a mythological sun god who doesn't meet any of the requirements of the Messiah is pure folly.
You see, you are all the simple truth of the scriptures yourselves. You personify the end days and they say it would be. God is and we are all sinners and liars. He has mercy on who he has mercy; and whom he will, he destroys.
Your evolution is a fantasy explanation to the truth you know to be existent. You deny the truth because you do not like the fact you must go to God and confess your life as unworthy of redemption. So, you say it is foolish. False and repugnent. Actually you attribute this to mental instability, those who are of the faith of any religion that accepts a literal Creator/God. Yet, how can anything come together without work and a plan. Chaos does not lead to evolution. You would answer that Evolution is a systematic process of trial and error. Except, that the odds make it impossible to occur. There are three possibilities here. 1. God created. 2. Universe created itself. 3. Existent matter formed from a chaotic state to orderly. Entropy answers the matter totally as for evidence.
Evolution of itself is non-sustainable due to the state of the animal, plant, or geologic evidences suppressed by your science. Maybe the lack of is more accurate. Louis Pasteur proved amongst others your science of Evolution false and lacking merit. Too bad you don't look up the science of truth.
Please explain why the helium in rock has not escaped as would be the case for your time template!!
If God doesn't exist, then all this banter and bickering is wasted energy. Just believe what you want; we are products of evolution; morallity and civil discourse are made up by other humans to make themselves feel good. One man's morallity is another man's trash pit………Right? No God- no rules, mate. Do what you want, because it doesn't matter. That is pure evolution.
The Bible is claimed to be the Word of the Creator. Is it? To prove that it is, you 'simply' have to compare prophetic statements made in the older parts of it (Old Testament), and see if these events took place later in the O.T., or even in the New Testament. I have done that, and can tell you emphatically that the Bible proves itself to be true. If you don't believe that, then nothing I say will sway you……you must prove it for yourself.
Then, and ONLY then, will you begin to understand that God works in a much higher, more powerful and different realm than we comprehend. If in fact He created mankind (He did), then it's nothing for Him to impregnate a virgin woman. No science study will ever understand that or show that this is possible.
As far as past 'religious' history is concerned- man has made mistakes virtually from day-one, and will continue to do so right up to Christ's 2nd Coming. We will NEVER get it right until then. To blame God for our hideous mistakes is quite ignorant and naive. People need to get off that arguement, and look to God, in an open, humble spirit, to strive daily for a better existence. But one point- the Crusades were not a black mark on Christianity as most are taught today. That was a period where Muslim hoards were trying to take over the Western World, and through much time, energy and spilled blood were they pushed back. That problem has resurfaced today. So far, we haven't fully realized our peril as Europe did during that awful period we call the 'Crusades'.
So believe what you want; but realize that the Creator does exist, and it's up to you to prove beyond any doubt that He does (or doesn't in your opinion), before you spout your un-belief to others.
Wow. I am amazed by the responses here. It would be better for those who know Jesus personally to respond but most would believe it a waste of time speaking to an 'I've made up my mind' group. You can't really speak about something you know nothing about.
Same reason most marriages fail. Each person says they know the other person but they don't spend time together, talk together, communicate with depth of understanding. Then, after it's over say I thought I knew them.
I have a personal relationship with Jesus. Jesus is real, alive, and very much interested in me. I was created by this awesome God and He knows all about me, what I need, what I was created for, and has a great desire to bless me and lead me to a full life.
He has worked miracles in my life and transformed me from the inside from the day I gave my life to Him. From where you are you cannot prove that I don't have a wife but those around me know the truth, I do. For you to say there is no Jesus, you are absolutly correct from your point of view, but the truth is…
Love you anyway my friend. Have an awesome life.
Blessings.
Rob
There Are No (A)theists in Foxholes
Quite a few soldiers have entered battle devout believers but ended up coming away without any faith at all. Consider the following:
"My great-grandfather returned from the Somme in the winter of 1916. He was an officer in a Welsh Guards regiment. He had been gassed and shot and had seen his platoon numerically wiped out and replaced more than three times since he first took command of it. He had used his side arm, a Webley revolver, so much that its barrel was pitted into uselessness. I heard a story about one of his advances across no-man's-land in which he set out with a full company and by the time he arrived at the German wire was one of only two men left alive.
Until that time, this branch of my family had been Calvinistic Methodists. . . But when he returned from the war, my great-grandfather had seen enough to change his mind. He gathered the family together and banned religion in his house. 'Either god is a bastard,' he said, 'or god isn't there at all."
If it isn't true that there are no atheists in foxholes and that many theists leave their foxholes as atheists, why does the myth persist? It certainly can't be employed as an argument against atheism — even if it were true, that would not mean that atheism is unreasonable or theism valid. To suggest otherwise would be little more than an ad hominem fallacy.
http://atheism.about.com/od/atheismmyths/a/Atheis…
In the past several years, atheists have organized letter-writing campaigns against Katie Couric, Tom Brokaw, Bob Schieffer (who issued a public apology) and other news anchors for repeating the "no atheists in foxholes" line on TV. And on Veterans Day 2005, several dozen atheist veterans paraded down the National Mall bearing American flags and signs reading ATHEIST VETERAN—WE SHARED YOUR FOXHOLES! Johnson says atheists in the military face prejudice. "Before I got to be the rank I am I had to keep my head down and my mouth shut. I had commanding officers who made it clear that they wouldn't tolerate atheism in their ranks." Military leaders deny any discrimination. "Service in the military is open to people of all creeds and religions," says Michael Milord, a lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard. Officially, the Department of Defense considers atheism a creed like other faiths. New recruits can choose ATHEIST, AGNOSTIC, or NO RELIGIOUS PREFERENCE for their dog-tag identifications. And an atheist symbol, which resembles an atom, is among the dozens of "approved emblems of belief" that can appear on the headstones of fallen soldiers in military cemeteries.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14322117/
Not being a very religious person myself i have asked some of these questions before. However it was my father who answered them for me in one simple word…Faith. It is faith that allows people to believe in the "impossible" such as a vergin having a baby. Those who have faith in some greater being do not need scientific explanations.
When I read my Bible, I find a few historic facts and a lot of symbolic language. Now symbols are used tot speak the unspeakable. I believe that there is more to it then the eye meets. Relmigion has its reason of exitence. I believe in God, but I believe in science too. The two are not incompatible, but must not interfere.
I do not want to discuss individual stories from the Bible. We have to apply science to the Bible as well and try to find out what is fact and what is symbolism. The Bible is not a science book. If you believe that, it's like saying the film "Babe" reflects reality.
By the way, the theory of the éBig Bang" stems from a countryman of mine, a belgian priest named Georges Lemaitre, and the most fervent advocate of evolutionism was a french jesuit and mystic, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.
Mthys always have some relationship to past experience myth and its meaning become dissociated over time. Furthermore, myth itself changes over time making any intepretation difficualt. But historically there were alwys those people who were able to mediate between the material and immaterial world, between dream and awake state. This ability to move from one world to aother from one perspective to another gave these individuals the power to effect a transformation. These are the dreamers who act to turn the dream into reality.
In ancient times these individuals were called shamans and depicted as half-man half-animal, with the move away from the natureal to the man-made we find these people depicted as half-man half-god. The ability to imagine and dream and turn that dream into reality (act of creation) is what makes us god like. In fact ultimately one cannot tell which is creatore and which is created man or god.
Becasue these individuals were depicted as half-man half god there were thought to be born of a god father and an earthly mother. It is not a literal truth, but rather a symbolic Truth.
But in conjuction with the move from a spirityal society to a material society we now see all of these individuals as mere men and gods with feet of clay. We essentually destroy tham as gods.
The story of the dreamer is that thos who are threatened by this dream always attempt to kill the dream by killing the dreamer. But this doesn't work becasue the dream comes back in the form of another person.
To kill a dream one must kill the spirit of the dream,
Behold cometh the Dreamer let us throw him in the pit.
Talking about Joseph with the coat of many colors. Here the coat of many colors referred to the fiery dragon, the rainbow snake, the which is a symbol for the power to effect a transformation. The old dies and the new is reborn.
So today we might argue that the spirit of our founding fathers has re-occurred in the form of Lincoln, FDR, and JFK, MLK, and in all those who fight for freedom, liberty, and justice.
Erich you are absolutely justified in being disgusted by "simple yet false explainations of religion. Religions are too diverse and the reasons why they exist are too complicated as you will have to go back in time and talk to each and every person who contributed to each of the multitudes of sects if not the originators of each religion to understand their reasoning for saying or writing what they said. Even a single religion over time has been changed by people who are involved in the transmission of it. Much of the true meanings of religion have been lost in time. What we have now is very different from what may have been say even a hundred years ago. So, to explain relgion in a book would instead take I would say volumes that would overflow the Library of Congress and a new book would be added everyday as, even something like Christianity for example, a new church opens with a person preaching a different interpretation of what Christianity should be.
Boyer should be soundly berated for his lack of understanding in even attempting to explain religion. One cannot make such broad statements as I have stated before.
The only thing I can say Erich is that you should be happy with what you have because in a way you are religious.You believe that all the things in your life can be explained by what you know. So, let those Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and Extraterrastrial Mind Controlling Beings Coming To Take You to Eutopia Believer say what they want. They just want to be happy. If they talk to you it is because they believe that you could be happy like them if you believe in what they believe. Perhaps a few years down the road you would find them believing is something else. Still it probably will still be yet another religion.
Thank you for the article. I was studying to be a religious anthropologist but quickly realized that I didn't want to be in debt for the rest of my life to pay for my studies in a field that amounted to fiscal suicide 😉 However, I'm always eager to read what other anthropologists have dreamt up in terms of discovering some truth about religion.
What I know from my studies is that all peoples throughout time have had some sort of religious belief. That because of the variety and depth of these religious beliefs, science doesn't actually have a definition for religion (its just too vast to categorize, yet). But that doesn't mean that they aren't out there trying to figure it out.
There are some very famous studies on religion throughout the history of this young science. And it is most interesting to read theories about how one religion might impact others. For those of us who are Christian, for instance, I think you'd be surprised to discover how much our own religion has changed because of contact with other religions, much less how many other religions we've influenced. My own interest in the study of religion was sparked by the thought of how these deep personal beliefs might be altered to create new deep personal beliefs. The whole controversy surrounding the DaVinci Code is an example of the way an organized religion can be challenged by outside beliefs.
That these beliefs might be maleable, as suggested by the above research, is not terribly surprising then. But their maleableness doesn't necessarily point to the source of these thoughts. While they may spring wholesale from the subconscious, we are not yet aware of what it is that informs our subconscious thoughts. Or to put it another way, just because our thoughts upon religion change regularly does not mean that we are inventing our gods. Its quite possible that we are all reacting to some universal phenomenon, but that we are filtering that experience through our subconscious, our culture, and our belief system to inform our conscious mind. In that case, even so-called atheists would be religious in a non-religious sort of way.
I think science would be better off in this area of study if they first accepted religion as part of the human experience and not as some mass delusion that affects all but the most sophisticated scientific minds. That idea is merely an intellectual revisiting of the old cultural imperialism of the 19th century.
.. the bottom line to the author is: if he is right in his assertions of atheism than both the atheist and the religious person gain nor lose anything.. but, if on the other hand, the author is wrong-he losses everything- while the religious person gains everthing for all eternity..
I see that a few people are actually reading the post and responding to the ideas of Pascal Boyer. Mostly, though, this post is turning into a psychology experiment demonstrating the vast number of people who are willing to write a comment without taking time to carefully read the post.
It's startling how many people are willing to quote the Bible in an attempt to prove the truth of the Bible. And it's startling how many people would rather rely upon their subjective hopes, dreams and fears than intellectually engage with Boyer's analysis.
Like most mid western Americans i was raised in a Christian home. As a young adult in my early 20's i dutiful attended church. from my late 20's to early 30's i had a small fitness business in which approx. 90% of my clients were Jewish. Over the years i came to understand the Jewish faith as well as developed a love and respect for these kind, and generous people. I began to question what kind of God would condemn millions of good, honest, spiritual beings of all faiths to burn in hell simply because they were following beliefs their families, communities, or countries had taught them. At age 32 i returned to college and have studied poli-sci for 6yrs. In studying history, gov't, philosophy etc. This question of why generation after generation of men were willing to sacrifice all with the idea that their religion was the right one baffled me. I began taking every religion and science course my college and university offered. I have studied this subject from several angels, and the philosophy i have adopted is that its ok to say "I don't know,and neither do you." Science has made recent discoveries proving that life forms (as in bacterias) have traveled from space via meteors and survived. Indicating life could have began elsewhere and traveled here and then evolved. With that said, scientists have also studied the effects of faith and spirituality as related to health, an quality of life and have found profoundly positive results. There is nothing wrong with believing in something if it improves a persons quality of life. The problems arise when narrow-minded, arrogant, bullies w/ superiority complexes try to impose their beliefs on others. I am not just talking about religious fanatics but non-believers as well that look down on religious people as ignorant, brainwashed, or uneducated. People need to get beyond their own self- righteous, arrogance and learn to say "I don't know",and "you might be right". Someday we may find that the truth is a combination of all of our beliefs. I am neither a believer or non-believer. Not to say I don't have beliefs. I believe in compassion, tolerance, education, personal and civic responsibility, honesty, and communication. I could continue on and on w/ the things I believe in, but wish to express more importantly what I know. Our leaders use religion as a way to divide us, they use it as a fear-mongering tool. Making people believe we are fighting religious fanatics. that are trying to destroy our way of life. The truth is this war is about power, money, control, and revenge. Their fear and manipulation tactics have paralyzed us as a nation and the result's are catastrophic. That is the discussion we should be having.