Surely, no woman thought it up! I began reading this article over at SamHarris.org and wanted to share.
“[R]eligions, like languages, evolve with sufficient randomness, from beginnings that are sufficiently arbitrary, to generate the bewildering – and sometimes dangerous – richness of diversity.” Harris finds a historical origin for religion and religious traditions, and it is not flattering: “The Bible, it seems certain, was the work of sand-strewn men and women who thought the earth was flat and for whom a wheelbarrow would have been a breathtaking example of emerging technology.”
Of course, it seems as an obvious truth to some and an esoteric theory never to be grasped by others.
The criticism made by atheists that the existence of God cannot be demonstrated is no criticism at all; for a God whose existence could be demonstrated wouldn’t be a God; he would just be another object in the field of human vision.
Theists often confuse me. Many believe in a god of their own creation, yet continue to enforce the idea that they all believe in the same one god. When further engaged, many theists differ almost completely on the views of their god. Sometimes Christians have three gods, sometimes they’re all one. (And that’s all within the same basic religion.) Some theists believe in an angry yet just man with a long white beard, while some believe in a genderless ball of energy. And everything else in between. So is religion human-made? I think so because god surely is.
