Dear Stranger,
Can you define exactly what you meant and in what way you think history and science back it up?
I will give it a bash, where to start, well us, us mere humans, religion has been with us, well when has religion not been with us, Karen Armstrong in one of her books takes it all the way back to some cave painting in France, something like 75 thousand years ago, one of the figures in these paintings has been recognised as a Shaman/Priest/Holy man, he is shown to be crying over some kind of beast that has just been killed.
Now the Myth is that these Holy men are easing the poor beast into the spiritual world, now this Myth, this thought has been backed up by studying tribes in Africa, they also cry over their prey.
That is one part of the history bit, another is, I remember posting about this back on the old Beeb, some tribe on a remote island untouched by civilisation, but they were religious, they had their own religion.
History tells us that we are religious creatures, part of what we are.
Then we have the link old Sane posted weeks ago, something about Apes showing signs of religion, they seem to have a special tree or place, so religious practice could be in us even before we began to walk upright.
The science, well dodgy ground but, I am told we are mean seeking creatures, it is what we do, why we do it? but we seem to have evolved to make sense of the world, we don't like not knowing.
We then have the scientific study that we are born believers, contentious, yes, but to me it makes perfect sense, religion is in our genes, you do something for long enough it becomes part of what we are, and is this not how evolution works, the creatures who learn to adapt to their environment survive, religion and spirituality help us survive.
Gonnagle.
