Dear babayada,
The other example one could offer which demonstrates how humans are not
yet ready to abandon all religious beliefs is the failed communist
experiments. Both the Soviet and Chinese communist ideologies embraced
atheism and for a time banished all organized religion, resulting in
spiritual vacuums among its people. They merely drove religion
underground. Today, of course, religions are allowed in
reformed-communist states, and they cater to a significant portion of the
populous. But those in Europe seem to be ahead of the U.S. in being able
to be non-religious and still live very fulfilling lives, since a
comparably larger proportion of the people there is atheistic.
No, I don't think religion is "hard-wired" into humans. I think religion
served an important purpose during a stage in the development of human
civilization, a stage when we were not yet mature enough to reason out
things carefully and really probe what is the true nature of things. It
was once part of religious belief that when God (the gods) was angry, He
(It, They) threw lightning bolts in righteous indignation. Today, we know
better how lightening originates. The fact that we once collectively
held the non-rational belief about lightening does not mean we can not
collectively let it go and adopt its more rational explanation today.
One by one, as humans adopted a rational view of the world, the need to
invoke non-rational notions to explain it fell by the way-side. Sure,
someone can continue to hold on to non-rational beliefs today, but do they
really serve her the best? Likewise, as we understand more and more about
human nature and behavior, we will be able to provide satisfying, rational
explanations and tools by which humans can function in the world without
needing to resort to the non-rational idioms provided by ancient
religions. Granted, we are barely scratching the surface, but our vision
is clear enough to allow us to see a realistic future based on objectivity
and rationality. People like Mr. Harris are models of what humans can
collectively be, and while I won't go so far as to say Mr. Harris is our
messiah, I do at least have to acknowledge that he is a good prophet
pointing us in the right direction. At this point, it is a dream, a hope,
a vision. We can only achieve this goal one step at a time, one person at
a time.
Mr. Harris is asking humans to be very human, that is, to be able to
adapt, learn, grow, and evolve.
The "Church of Reason" is an oxymoron. The "Age of Reason" or the "Age of
Rationality" might be better ways to describe our goal.
Best,
HF
