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longship

(40,416 posts)
3. Other than the fact that a premise of this article is falsified.
Tue Jun 19, 2012, 06:35 PM
Jun 2012

There are many religions newer than the cited Bahai. Religious belief seems to be a part of human evolution. I don't want to get into a chair throwing argument about psychological evolution, but there is some research indicating that these religious feelings are part of our humanity.

Probably one of the best way to understand the process of how a religion can be born is to look at the history of the Cargo Cults which were born out of Western explorers and WWII military landing on South Pacific islands.

What is most interesting is that the Christian missionaries that landed on these islands utterly failed in their attempts to convert the natives. Instead, the locals made their own religion out of whole cloth based on the visitors' apparent higher technology. The John Frum cult exists to this day.

Religion is a social construct. Science is too. But whereas religion tells stories, none of which are backed by data, science looks at the universe and asks the question, What can we know? That is a question that religion rarely, if ever, asks. Another difference is the second question, What if I am wrong? It is a question
asked every day in science and one which is never even considered with religion.

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