The Origin of Religion
Although there is no doubt that religion has been the tool of the con man (and the tyrant) since the early days of humankind, I doubt that Mark Twain meant this as a serious statement.
It seems far more likely that when Homo sapiens came along somewhere around 100,000 years ago, with his enormous, recently developed brain, he began to pose important questions like: How did all this stuff get here? What causes day and night and the dozens of other features of our world that are now referred to collectively as astronomy? Why do bad things happen to good people, and vice-versa? What causes illness? What happens to us after we die?
The idea of an all-powerful God, or perhaps a number of them, seemed at the time to be the best possible explanation. But about 2500 years ago there arose a stirring in our species that perhaps we might begin to figure this stuff out by studying it and applying reason to it.
Aristotle told his pupils to design and use experiments, and the scientific method was born. Ever since, we’ve been chipping away at the vastness of our ignorance of natural phenomena.
The handsome pilot here with the winning smile writes on social media: Hi all! I joined to be part of a great group of people!
Tom Cepel writes: I went to a job fair at my alma mater. A lady at registration gave me this name tag. I told her I couldn’t wear it because there’s only one of me.
A piece of cartoonist Dan Piraro’s work is shown here; the man’s a genius.
Thanks for the clarification, but no one with any sense gives a damn about what your husband thinks about people’s right to choose how many (including zero) kids they want to bring into this world.
It appears possible that Trumpism is waning here in the U.S. and progressive forces are beginning to take hold.
The meme here reminds me of an interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson in which he was asked, “Given that we understand less than 10% of what the universe is composed of, with all this dark energy and dark matter, couldn’t that be God?”
I love this lawn sign.
Here’s a gentleman representing “Prepared Patriots” who claims: “America is on the cusp of the greatest food shortage in American (sic) history, but the mainstream media refuses to report on this. Did you know that close to two thirds of the world’s food reserve is being hoarded inside China? Corn, rice, wheat, all of it.”
The meme here is completely incorrect.
