The Cogenitor

With respect, I'd suggest that it's normal for sufficiently evolved sentient creatures to wonder about the origins and operation of the world around them and to make up an account that makes sense. Given that without advanced scientific knowledge this would almost certainly involve the concept of 'higher powers', you immediately have the question of 'how do I relate to / influence this higher power in my favour?' and hey presto - religion.

 

With respect returned, you're not telling me anything new, here.

 

The only point I was trying to make (certainly not claiming or even attempting to be original) was that the existence of religion per se is probably 'reasonably normal'. Its various practices may not be 'normal' or even 'reasonable', but it in itself is a natural development of thought.

Everyone has a perfect right to their own opinion for or against religion. Without feeling the need to resort to 'the big man in the sky', I personally rather go with Sir James Jean's observation that 'The human race, whose intelligence dates back only a single tick of the astronomical clock, could hardly hope to understand so soon what it all means'. Surely science can only hope to answer the 'how' questions of existence, such as 'this is how stars are born' or 'this is how life evolved on Earth' or 'this is how something behaved when I examined it under a microscope'; but when humanity has reached the point when we can answer every 'how' in the Universe, I still wonder if we will have discovered the definitive answer to 'why'.

 

Presupposing there even is a "why" at all.

 

Synonyms for "normal" include standard, usual and common. So yes, religion is normal.

Normal for Human Beings.

 

You took the words right out of my mouth.

 

I entirely agree, there well may not be a reason at all, but the fact remains that science will never be able to prove that there is or there isn't.

Perhaps we can all agree on the fact that whether or not there is a 'why', the Universe is a pretty amazing thing, and there's still a place in it for human wonder!

 

There may be things to wonder about but only because we're not familiar with them. How many people do you know that look at smartphones with wonder? Yet it's some amazing technology when you stop to think about it.

 

History shows we don't need alien spaceship sightings as an excuse for such goings on. As always, people twist religion (or any belief) to support what they wanted to do anyway.

 

Or maybe that's precisely what said religion was there, to begin with.

 

Just because something becomes familiar doesn't mean it has to lose its wonder.

 

That's what it does though. Familiarity breeds contempt.