Evolution seems to promote a moral society once it becomes advanced, as an immoral one will destroy itself.
That is true for the first couple of major social eras, but does not have to hold for later time periods. As I said before, the laws are the next generation of morals, and a new systems will come up later on. Also, you need to make a distinction between morals for the sake of a social good, and being actively conscious that the
only reason that you don't constantly kill everyone around you is because other paths of action lead to logical contradictions, not because it is the "right" thing to do or a book tells you to.
Religion was prevalent when life was difficult and a reason to hope was needed. That's one explanation about religion.
That is certainly one of the sub-reasons, but another, possibly more important one is that something was needed to enforce the emerging laws as societies started to form, since a civilization will collapse without an orderly system of law. The god was the police force of the world and performed both of its functions: god protected people from the "outside world," thus giving them the sense of safety and hope you talked of, and god also punished those people who went against the laws. The morals we see so finely embedded in the minds of people today are merely the first laws of our civilization. The other major reason for the formation and acceptance of religion is that of the scientific explanation, but I won't get into that just yet.
And to anyone who says that a powerful man flying above in the clouds is impossible so therefore God is, you're assuming that God is a life form or matter you can touch.
If we get into a perceptual mode of thought, anything basically goes. I mentioned this in that old thread several times but never got a response (probably because there can be none): tell me why the god is more likely to exist than a purple ghost dragon who rules the universe.
All the religions I have seen teach morals or themes but do not teach the purpose or true nature of the universe. My opinion is that was left for us to figure out.
But in that case the religions are not too useful, because the morals and themes will follow directly once we learn the true nature of reality, and they will be very difficult, if not impossible, to determine without knowing the latter.
I disagree... there were governments even when Jesus was on the earth, and yet religion was still strong! so, is it dying REALLLLYYYY slowly? (like over thousands of years) !?
Of course it is occurring over tens of thousands of years; almost all such social phenomena go on in a subtle manner like this. We are now approaching the climax of our morality system, at which point the distinctions between the morals will form. (this can already be seen today: the Palestinian terrorists truly think they are doing the morally right thing, and so do the Israelis, but this is only the beginning) Also, Christianity is definitely not among the older religions; some others like Judaism and Hinduism go back several thousand more years, and so it is not really a good case to use for that argument. The governments back then were strong only because they knew how to manipulate religion into the people's minds.
CP, you probably don't know what you're talking about... do you believe in the Bible? (just curious)
I think you can tell the answer to that from my postings.
In the end, it all boils down to this:
or explains their beliefs with something like "I just have faith, in spite of logic"
It is perfectly fine to go by this, but then don't expect to be able to argue it out with total nuts like me.
