The Dark Side of Religion

In the present article we will talk about religion as it influenced the development of humanity, especially looking at the harm it did in the past. There is a reason only one side of the story will be told, theory is not like practice.

Let us start by looking at the 20th century, like all things, we will find good and bad. This period in our history is perfect if one tries to research the true nature of man, we have it all, mass killings, disasters, ignorance, but we also have developments in science and a better understanding of the world we live in. Atomic energy was used to destroy in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but it was also used to power the engines of long term development. We could say that our species barely passed the test. Science boomed, look at the space industry, genetics, computers, even engineering, all of this will help humanity in one way or the other.

Our brain capacity did not change much in the past two thousand years, so why didn't this revolution happen earlier. The reason is religion, not only Christianity, all belief systems imposed restrictions in research and the spreading of knowledge. The question is where would we be now if at least for five hundred years, humans would have been able to study this world, in the real sense. People will argue that by embracing science we started to loose control and will give examples of wars, this is false, science didn't do this, just like religion didn't kill in the Middle Ages, we did. Even now many die for their spiritual beliefs.

The real religion in my humble opinion is knowledge, the search for it, but not in a philosophical way as you would probably think. We have the brains to do more than foolish rituals so why do we persist in thinking that a God will listen to us if we act like this? We should try to understand how the world works because the vast majority of religious texts tell us that man was created to look after this world and you can't do this if you don't know where and why you are. We don't need churches, we need schools, research institutes, these are the real places where we will find God.

This was a short article but I hope at least some of you found it useful. I see our species as being designed to learn and understand. Imagine your life if this scientific revolution would have started in the 16th century or would have continued past the destruction of the Roman Empire, remember the great centers of learning in the ancient world, the great libraries that were destroyed.