Another good friend of mine said to me, "We used to live in caves. We are where we are because of religion. If not for religion, we would still be barbarians in a cave." I could not disagree more.
Religion is an important force and has played its part in promoting harmony and stability as I pointed out in my last article. However crediting it with all the progress that human beings have made is preposterous and downright ridiculous. Any form of mass/mob/group is never known to have played a positive role in any kind of tangible progress of humanity. Religion is no exception.
The progress of the humankind has been due to the spirit, defiance, vision and intelligence of a few people in every age. Religion and the society (other word for the mass), if anything, has tried to pull back such people. Especially if their views run contrary to dogma and the so called established rules of the times. Religion's, or any other social structure's, function is to create or impose harmony. Change is not a friend of an imposed harmony and progress is the enemy of state. Besides that, well-informed people with strong reasoning are difficult to mislead, rule or exploit. Mediocrity, on the other hand, burns with jealousy and tries to impose itself on everything it can while trying to destroy anything great. Thank God it doesn't succeed always or we would indeed still be in caves. A support system is for the growing and those not sure of what is to be. People who have really experienced God do not need any religion to go to Him. They are with Him.
The man has come from caves to skyscrapers due to inventors, explorers, entrepreneurs, artists, thinkers and other individuals who dared to see beyond the gibberish of finality. People who had the vision, belief and love for their work and what it could achieve. Their religion was their work, their God only their passion and their creations the manifestations of the divine. Nobody else can be or should be credited with our progress except these heroes of mankind.
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