How did it start?

All religions are based on the human need to believe in a force larger than life that controls their destiny. Religions have been a part of us since we first started asking questions of our place in an otherwise confusing world. It is easy to see how comforting it must have been for our ancestors to believe in something larger than life, not knowing any better.We know more today about science, physics, maths, cosmology and evolution than any others have ever done throughout history. Myself I believe it make more sense to listen to todays scientists and scholars about how life came to be, than our parents and elders who try to pass their beliefs onto you.I have friends that are Muslims, Young Earth Creationists, Jews and more liberal Christians that believe so strongly that their view is the right one, and refuses to believe otherwise. I can't blame them really. If they were to break out of what their religion are today, they would loose much more than their beliefs. Some of them would even loose the connection with their family, so I can't blame them for not wanting to accept anything else.I would call myself an atheist, in that I believe in natural selection and survival of the fittest. I see examples of it everyday. In many ways we are still the stoneage man living in a very hi-tech world. For example, take a look at the divorce-statistics and couples cheating on each other. They clearly indicate that we humans easily fall back on our instinct to mate with others (which I believe is a natural instinct to spread our genes. We are not monogamous by nature. I'm not saying that we can't control these urges so we can live in a monogamous relationship, but the urges will still be there).Anyway, I know from discussing with my friends of different religions that it is futile to convince them otherwise. I can easily see why it's comforting to believe in an omnipitent being from one of the religions, but I think it makes more sense to learn about more "down to earth" solutions from science and knowledge of today

Thanks for the link AbbyLeever,I think it is fascinating to compare everyday observations into our evolution theory compared to our religious beliefs (like why we find some people more attractive than others (symmetry), our 4 carnivor teeth, why babychimp skulls look a lot more human than human baby skulls and so on).I am probably a bit biased here because I have allready stated that I am an Evolutionist. I believe that the most important discoveries throughout time have been discovered during the last century. From Einsteins Relativity Theory, The M-Theory (superstring theory), genetics (Hox-genes, mapping the human genome), cosmology (hubble, Drakes Equation), C14 dating and so on.
When looking at all these discoveries and compare them up against religion passed on by our forefathers, I find it hard to believe in religion. Even Creationists must have some doubts when looking at all this...- The best evidence that there is inteligent life out there, is that we still haven't been contacted - Calvin and Hobbes[This message has been edited by SkepticScand, 03-26-2004]

Hi Darwin Storm,I would tend to agree with you. I don't consider Drakes Equation to be more than a formula trying to focus on the factors which determine how many intelligent, communicating civilizations there are in our galaxy. After all, they used his equation as a basis for the SETI project. The input you put into the formula doesn't give a final answer, but it's an interesting equation. And if they find that there have been life on Mars (even extinct bacterial life) and perhaps Europe (Jupiters moon), the equation will become more important as a speculative tool...So you're right, the equation can not be used to prove anything scientificly