While true, what I don’t like about this quote is that it’s self evident to atheists and incomprehensible or just wrong to believers, changing no minds at all.
Well, they wouldn’t come back the same though. Simple concepts like “Love Thy Neighbor” or “Being one with the Universe” might pop up again, but the religions as a whole would be different, have different origins, different names, diferent dogmas, etc.
We wouldn’t call a quark a quark but we’d still know that quarks exist and what they are. My point is aside from some simple ideas that are simply too basic to not think of, religions would still be fundamentally different.
Perhaps i’m putting religion through a higher scrutiny here, but that’s because we’re comparing two things with a very different level for complexity here.
The idea that there’s some invisible force that makes things you don’t understand happen, or that we should love and respect eachother, or even more specific ones like “we shouldn’t eat so and so food” or “we should dress in x or y way” are still simple enough that anyone could come up with at any point in their lives with little effort. All that remains is a game of chance of how similar the combination of these ideas is to the religions we had previously.
With science, it gets much more complex, each field of science, or even each concept within that field, required way more effort to learn, and goes much more indepth than anything religion can provide.
So while i’d consider humanity rediscovering even basic arithmetic to be most certainly more than just chance, forgive me for thinking people eventually coming up with a religion that uses a cross as a symbol isn’t enough to say that that is christianity reborn.
That’s all very interesting, but i’m not sure what you’re trying to get at. I’ve already agreed that certain ideas are simple enough that they’re very likely to be thought of again, but is that enough to say that “so and so religion has re-appeared”? How close to their original counterparts do they have to be for you to consider them to be essentially the same?
Because i’m fairly certain that save for minor discrepancies in areas that are more subjective, every field of science could re-emerge and get to the same state it’s in now simply by studying the world around us. And i don’t think the same can be said of religion. Do you genuinely believe that near perfect counterparts for all current religions would be formed again? Or at least to the same level that science could?
I don’t think they’re talking about ethical principles. Ethical principles are a part of psychology, and exist outside of religion. They’re talking about details. Jesus Christ wouldn’t be rediscovered, because he didn’t exist in the first place. Whatever would take his place would be different.
While true, what I don’t like about this quote is that it’s self evident to atheists and incomprehensible or just wrong to believers, changing no minds at all.
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Well, they wouldn’t come back the same though. Simple concepts like “Love Thy Neighbor” or “Being one with the Universe” might pop up again, but the religions as a whole would be different, have different origins, different names, diferent dogmas, etc.
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We wouldn’t call a quark a quark but we’d still know that quarks exist and what they are. My point is aside from some simple ideas that are simply too basic to not think of, religions would still be fundamentally different.
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Perhaps i’m putting religion through a higher scrutiny here, but that’s because we’re comparing two things with a very different level for complexity here.
The idea that there’s some invisible force that makes things you don’t understand happen, or that we should love and respect eachother, or even more specific ones like “we shouldn’t eat so and so food” or “we should dress in x or y way” are still simple enough that anyone could come up with at any point in their lives with little effort. All that remains is a game of chance of how similar the combination of these ideas is to the religions we had previously.
With science, it gets much more complex, each field of science, or even each concept within that field, required way more effort to learn, and goes much more indepth than anything religion can provide.
So while i’d consider humanity rediscovering even basic arithmetic to be most certainly more than just chance, forgive me for thinking people eventually coming up with a religion that uses a cross as a symbol isn’t enough to say that that is christianity reborn.
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That’s all very interesting, but i’m not sure what you’re trying to get at. I’ve already agreed that certain ideas are simple enough that they’re very likely to be thought of again, but is that enough to say that “so and so religion has re-appeared”? How close to their original counterparts do they have to be for you to consider them to be essentially the same?
Because i’m fairly certain that save for minor discrepancies in areas that are more subjective, every field of science could re-emerge and get to the same state it’s in now simply by studying the world around us. And i don’t think the same can be said of religion. Do you genuinely believe that near perfect counterparts for all current religions would be formed again? Or at least to the same level that science could?
I don’t think they’re talking about ethical principles. Ethical principles are a part of psychology, and exist outside of religion. They’re talking about details. Jesus Christ wouldn’t be rediscovered, because he didn’t exist in the first place. Whatever would take his place would be different.