The Survival of Religion

Loyal Rue (I don't know how to spell his name) made some important points to the survival of religion, and it almost sounded like an evolution of religion. I would not argue that point to much. But I would suggest that it is more than a change in a story to adapt to the naturalistic and evolutionary cosmology, but rather a better understanding of the very story and belief in which we partake. I will explain my case a a believer.

In Christianity there are many scholars studying the ancient texts in their original languages and many trying to interpret them into our language, our case English. Sometimes there are many things lost in a translation, as was noted in the acknowledgments by the translator of Nietzsche's Antichrist. Some people translate very literally and some very loosely, therefore in one translation we lose the turns of phrases and cultural settings to what is being said behind the text, and in other translations we lose the literal meanings in the text. When we learn things about nature for example, sometimes that allows us to better understand what something meant in the scripture. For example, in the story of Lot and his family leaving Sodom and Gomorrah Lot's wife is said to have turned to stone upon turning around to see the cities being destroyed by the wrath of God. But many scholars have taken this as a metaphorical saying to explain her inability to take her eyes off of the power and awe in what was being down. We cannot ever know for sure. But what if one day archaeologists uncover a pillar of salt in the form of a woman in the same region that Sodom and Gomorrah were, we would then know that this was a literal saying and we would better understand our text.

Now there are some people who are very literal in all things and would say that it says this so it is this, literally, no budging. But then a fact will come out that will prove they are wrong. They would then have to reject reason and logic and the fact that is presented, or they would have to change their story to adapt to what has been found. I find that when religions are not will to be open to the very meaning to some of the open-ended texts they have, their religion will either not exist very long or they will be inconsistent in the beliefs and doctrines. This has happened in the Catholic church a lot because they take the word of the pope as the word of God himself, whatever he says is divine. This does not allow them to recognize the many errors and contradictions in their sayings that people like Martin Luther pointed out to them. And when they do change it is a huge deal around the whole world. No one can say exactly what a certain historical text says when there it is layered in metaphors and stories. There are times that things are clear and there is no need for thinking to much about them, but I am not referring to such cases here.