General Discussion

but in my mind they have a valid reason to rise. We humans are not special or above other creatures, not at all... but we humans are capable of asking this question... WHERE DID WE COME FROM? The answer has changed over the last 100,000 years at least several major times. We are at the threshold, imo, of another major change where paternalistic religions are facing a direct threat.

For the record, after sharing my home with three, and now, two parrots, and seeing one of them go through a serious grieving process that you could say was human like... I know better. But this is part of what I see also as cultural evolution

The old testament is a collection of stories, but look at it from the point of view of how god is described and his actions are described from the Bronze Age, all the way to the book of Macabees, not part of the Canon. You will notice an evolution that our fundies refuse to see. Then you add things like the Talmud, the Kabbala, and later people like Spinoza, one of the most influential medieval philosophers, and you can see that evolution. And yes, Spinoza would be considered a very liberal non religious thinker today.

In some ways I think science (which is not a religion) is a threat, because in some ways it is the end stage for all abrahamic religions (As well as other religions, the parallel between the cycles of the universe as accepted by some cosmology and Indian faiths is astounding)... you look at the evolution and yes, pretty much they lead there, at least with the philosophers who are part of it.

Why there is pretty much no real conflict between the liberal sects of all these religions and science. But the orthodox or conservative sects see both liberals and science as a threat.

I will even predict a schism or two between those two major factions in all three abrahamic religions. It will happen over the next hundred or two hundred years, and it will accelerate as Climate change accelerates. Humans need to find comfort in something, and quite honest, most humans have a little problem with the idea that we are not that special and nobody cares about us.

Me, that is quite self centered and actually selfish... but chiefly, self centered. Me, we are part of evolution... and the only comfort, now let me get all sciency with you. I know that we just don't die and become dust... but there is no heaven or hell either. It is simple, and the law of conservation of information is clear. Whatever you learned is information. So when you die, and our brains might very well be a quantum mechanics computer, all that information that you learned is not lost. For the record, when my Cockatiel Tuky died, all that information was not lost either. It is physics. Just the kind of physics that most people can't truly grasp. And that is what scares conservative religious figures to no end. Hell is a powerful control mechanism.