A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME

I think we all know that our opposable thumbs and our large brains are what distinguish humans from all other life forms on this planet. We didn’t have claws or fangs so we built spears. We didn’t have fur or leathery hides so we made clothes. We weren’t very strong so we developed levers and wheels. And we weren’t very big so we learned to work together. So far, we have overcome every threat to our survival as a species and now dominate the planet we call Earth. We have even traveled to the moon and have sent satellites beyond that. It’s amazing. What isn’t amazing is that, while we did learn to work together, we never really learned how to live together and, as a result, we have become our own worst enemy.

There have always been wise people among us called prophets who understood that we humans need to live together in harmony with each other and the natural world around us in order to survive and thrive on this planet over the long term. Whether they were given that wisdom by some supreme being, or created the illusion of a God or Gods in their own image to add an incontrovertible degree of authority to their teachings, is still subject to debate. What isn't subject to debate is we humans developed belief systems that we call religions, which are really just a collection of stories about our origins and a set of rules to live by, around the prophets' teachings. These religions were a response to our tendency to mistreat one another. They were the first systematic attempt to stop people from behaving badly. The problem is they haven't worked. In fact, there is some empirical evidence that strongly suggests religion has actually caused more bad behavior than would have existed without it.

There are several reasons for its failure.

First, the consequences for breaking the rules set out by the various religions are not tangible or timely. They are theoretical and most of them don’t go into effect until after we die. Since no living person has ever actually experienced any of those consequences, we don’t really take them seriously so they never have and still don’t have their intended deterrent effect.

Second, religions were, and still are, easily compromised. If prostitution was the first profession, religion was the first business. Enterprising people called priests have always managed to set themselves up as the “authorized distributor” of a particular God’s wisdom or the “exclusive representative” of a particular prophet’s teachings, and they have used their position as the “middle man” to manipulate their God’s wisdom or their prophet’s teachings to their own advantage.

Third, priests also happen to be human so they are susceptible to, and often demonstrate, the same bad behavior as everyone else (i.e. greed, cruelty, lust, prejudice, etc.), which undermines their authority and their value as role models.

Finally, as human knowledge has expanded it is has often conflicted with various religions' origin stories, and that has undermined the credibility of those stories and, in turn, those religions.

In retrospect, religion was probably a good idea at the time. It was definitely worth trying. But as a way of stopping people from behaving badly, which was its intended purpose, it just doesn’t work. It’s time to set it aside, or at least set aside the belief that religion stops people from behaving badly, and focus our energies on creating a systematic approach to bad behavior that has tangible and timely consequences, cannot be compromised, has legitimate authority and is consistent with current human knowledge. We have given religion all of recorded history, and then some, to prove it can stop people from behaving badly and it hasn’t been able to do that. Isn’t it time we tried something else?