If religion was forgotten today , would our brains evolve faster than if not ?
969720
Yes, because it would not be stiffled by dogma!\nIt takes room to grow and expand, but religion puts up road blocks in the mind that prevent people from being able to do this!\nTear down the walls!
291236
1.  Ancient people, having no technical knowledge of a thing, would revert to the simplest answer to expalin it.  They were also much more religous than today's society and more readily accepted religous explanations for "evil."\n2.  I don't think this needs an answer...except...do you believe what you see?\n3.  See #2.
729726
yes definitely\n\nthere are some questions that science just cant provide answers to, and until we have scientific proof of everything (which i dont personally think will ever happen, but thats just my opinion) there will always be room for religion.\n\nand anyway - religion provides existence with a meaning. if we just took a scienfitic view - we are born, we exist, we die. and thats it. so whats the point? why bother being nice to people?  why bother with trying to gain respect/earn money/build relationships? sure we're all going to die anyway.\n\nor at least, thats what science says. religion begs to differ.\n\nand by the way - before anyone criticises me - im a scientist.
793581
Yes - and no.\n\nReligion is a by-product of evolution. As we developed into thinking humans, our brains developed an interesting trait - it will beleive ANYTHING it is told if it is told so by a parent or an elder. This served a certain survival mechanism. When a child was told by its parent not to stray too close to the lion's den, the child did one of two things - he either listened and lived, or he didnt listen and ended up lion food. Those that survived passed on a good survival tool - listen to your elders...\nProblem is, your elders can also tell you things that arent so useful to survival. Such as "You must sacrifice a goat to the sun god to ensure it rains." Now, we all know this to be false, yet beleifs in deities still persist. \nThe reason for the persistence is because the human brain STILL listens and beleives what it is told by its elders. And nowadays, people have no respect for their parents - but they listen to their pastors. So the myths persist.\n\n\nSo you are corect in your assumption that religion is an evolutionary mechanism - but not for war. Thats just another by-product of religion as well.
730859
Certainly. In fact, if ALL religions were equally respected or if ALL religions were equally non-existant, we would have a LOT more peace than we do now.
170837
No, but I think modern monkeys and I had a common ancestor a very, very long time ago.  When a family diverges, they start getting different pretty quickly, depending on who they marry.  If one of my more recent ancestors went to China while my branch went to America, we'd look rather different now, wouldn't we? Why is it so hard to believe a more ancient equivalent, except because you are trying to take literally something which was written when scientific knowledge was extremely primative?\n\nScience and religion have two different goals, two different world views, and two vastly different vocabularies.  Religion is writing about things so beyond human experience that our words just do not fit, and we have to resort to symbols.  When you look at ancient manuscripts and ponder the symbols, you get a lot more than you get from words which have been sorted through any number of translations and interpretations since they were written.  Not a single word of the modern Bible (and remember, you go into a Bible Bookstore, you will find a great many modern versions, not just one) was originally written in English.  The writers had probably never even heard about that far-off island, and English as we know it had not been born.\n\nPlease, don't ridicule those of us who accept the theory of evolution as the most reasonable one.  We have let you continue to label it "theory" once most the rest of us have accepted it as fact.  Don't ask for more!
1112884
Of course, you are being sarcastic, but your underlying point is whether Christianity will be viewed in the distant future the same as Greek, Roman and Egyptian mythology.  It's a good question.  As humans continue to make social, economic, and technological advances, will people still hold true to their current religious beliefs.\n\nWill today's religions be replaced by newer more popular religions which have the effect of relegating older ones to mythology?  It is certainly possible.
497677
Well, scientically it would be attributed to evoltion and how each evolved,\n\nhowever the answer may lay in the concept of the soul, or whatever is in control of the brain.
74621
the following Wikipedia article links some studies.  Personally, I think that such a relation likely exists, but not due so much to greater intelligence of those without religion, but because a) academic institutions can be hostile toawrd people of faith, 2) non-religious people are more likely to seek divine purpose and meaning in academic pursuits, while religious people seek meaning from religious pursuits, and 3) intelligent/educated people are going to place more faith on the powers of human intellect than those who do not have such values.
481841
Do yourself a favor and wake up.  Religion was invented by men.  You are basing your life on something dreamed up thousands of years ago by ignorant people and passed on from generation to generation as fact.  You're expected to just believe it and without any possible way of getting confirmation until you are already dead.  You want to spend this existence worrying about invisible beings that someone else told you about?  Get a grip!
1169955
It's an age-old question, and one that is the very basis of religion.  It's incredible that we can understand both the creation of the universe and the creation of life itself.  We're very lucky to live in this time!\n\nGood comment for "brainless".
123134
Of course it's possible. Evolution is merely the mechanism of God's creation.\n\nPersonally, I feel the inherent contradiction is in the opposite direction. Rejection of evolutionary theory reduces God to a deceiver, to a 'God of parts' filling in the gaps in our understanding of creation, rather than underpinning it in it's entirety, it also rejects one of the greatest of God's gifts, the faculty of pure reason.\n\nPeople are, of course, welcome to their opinion, but I feel that the belief that God would create the universe in seven days, ten thousand years ago and then fix it in such a manner as to give all the impressions to the contrary is close to blasphemy
1156770
LOL thats a touchy subject for religion... I mean if we can modify genes then the natural process of mutation can be proven... And on my god that would mean that they would have less to argue with evolution.
1032526
no. yes. Originally, the religions allowed us to have civilization.\nWithout them, we would still be living in tribal or feudal warfare states. However, they have become sick and abused paradigms,\nand we should junk the whole lot of them in favor of modern sociology and civil engineering and ethics and psychology.
799997
That takes a two part answer, Yes it has, and no it will never change as long as we have religion to deal with.
661049
it depends on your own metaphysics\n\ngods and devils are on explanation into the unknown.\n\nscience is another\n\nperhaps, today's science will be consider ignorant in the future\n\nperhaps, religion is yesterday's science
1169271
Its an interesting thought.\nMost popular religions are 2000+ years old and althought many of the basic principles are applicable today, a lot of the dogma isn't.\nWould a modern day religion have a flood story, a 7 day creation story or would the Big Bang be the creation story? Would it be based on science and evolution?\nLooking forward to reading the answers...