James T. Kirk: Well, have you learned how religion came into existence?

Tefdon: No, actually

James T. Kirk: it didn't always exist
Tefdon: People wanted something to believe in?
James T. Kirk: sorta
James T. Kirk: let's go all the way back to the cave men
Tefdon: They were like "That keeps us warm. We should keep it happy!"
James T. Kirk: the cave men first worshipped everything (literally)
Tefdon: Wat
James T. Kirk: they were amazed that animals survived so easily
James T. Kirk: they were amazed by weather
James T. Kirk: by water
James T. Kirk: so they worshipped everything
James T. Kirk: and believed themselves to be LESSER than everything
James T. Kirk: well, except a rock
James T. Kirk: anyway, eventually they figured out how to make spears and pointy
objects
James T. Kirk: and they were able to kill the same animals they worshipped
James T. Kirk: so animals became lesser than humans
James T. Kirk: okay, scratch that off the worship list
James T. Kirk: next they learned how to predict seasons
James T. Kirk: fall, winter, etc.
James T. Kirk: and they began to notice that crops grow during spring and summer
James T. Kirk: and die during the cold months
James T. Kirk: with that knowledge they were able to farm
James T. Kirk: okay, that stuff is no longer worth worshipping
James T. Kirk: with that knowledge they were able to farm
James T. Kirk: okay, that stuff is no longer worth worshipping
James T. Kirk: (you might see where this is leading)
James T. Kirk: so over time civilizations developed
James T. Kirk: and they were able to start understanding stuff
James T. Kirk: the stars, the moon, etc.
James T. Kirk: they began to view them as objects, not entities
James T. Kirk: eventually, like with the greeks, things they couldn't explain, l
ike lightning
James T. Kirk: were attributed to a human-like entity
James T. Kirk: in this case, Zeus
James T. Kirk: you see by now they viewed humans as superior to earthly things
James T. Kirk: and thought humans were becoming superior, so the gods must be hu
man-like
James T. Kirk: enter Science
James T. Kirk: astronomers emerged during the greek and roman eras
James T. Kirk: and they were began to peer into space and the like
James T. Kirk: alright, so the moon was really just a giant rock in space
James T. Kirk: (supposedly made of cheese to people in the 50s.......)
James T. Kirk: Eventually as humans began to understand more and more
James T. Kirk: less and less gods existed
James T. Kirk: until monotheism emerged
James T. Kirk: the belief in one god
James T. Kirk: the first religion to practice this was not judaism or christiani
ty
James T. Kirk: but the Egyptians
Tefdon: With... Ra?
Tefdon: Osiris?
James T. Kirk: Under Akhenaten, he invented the God Amon (check spelling, been a
 few years since I had to write it)
James T. Kirk: no not those gods
James T. Kirk: AKhenaten is an inbetween period
James T. Kirk: anyway
Tefdon: Amon Ra
James T. Kirk: during this time hebrews (not jews quite yet) were living in Egyp
t
James T. Kirk: not all were slaves but we think many were
James T. Kirk: Akhenaten became so obsessed
James T. Kirk: he changed his name to Amen
James T. Kirk: (gee, I heard that somewhere before)
Tefdon: "amen."
James T. Kirk: after he died
James T. Kirk: (and he liked the hebrews)
James T. Kirk: the next pharaoh reverted back to the multi-god religion with osi
rus n stuff
James T. Kirk: (that religion had over 1000 gods btw)
James T. Kirk: and the hebrews, now becoming jews
James T. Kirk: were persecuted
James T. Kirk: this eventually lead to Ramses II (now we know it wasn't Ramses,
aka the bible is wrong)
James T. Kirk: chased Moses and his followers out of Egypt
James T. Kirk: according to biblical references
James T. Kirk: "God" separated the waters of the red sea
James T. Kirk: allowed Moses to pass
James T. Kirk: and then flooded the sea again to drown the pharaoh and his men
James T. Kirk: no historical records exist to indicate a pharaoh drowned to deat
h
James T. Kirk: and no pharaoh personally chased moses
James T. Kirk: his military did
James T. Kirk: so yeah, that whole story went to the bunker
James T. Kirk: anyway
James T. Kirk: archaeologists discovered that the red sea did recede during this
period
James T. Kirk: but not for holy reasons
James T. Kirk: an island in the mediterranean with a volcano exploded
James T. Kirk: which caused a temporary shift in water levels
James T. Kirk: we also now suspect moses survived in the desert by raiding other
villages
James T. Kirk: not the holy man he's made out to be
James T. Kirk: so to explain the stuff we haven't figured out by now
James T. Kirk: death, unexplained mysteries, disease, etc.
James T. Kirk: everything is thus attributed to religious occurences
James T. Kirk: for the longest time the catholic church believed disease was the
work of Satan
James T. Kirk: and thus prayer to God and other archaic means would heal you
James T. Kirk: they viewed medicine as witchcraft
James T. Kirk: eventually medicine got so good they couldn't deny it's use
James T. Kirk: so it was no longer evil
James T. Kirk: but wait! Earth is the center of the Universe
James T. Kirk: oh wait, it's not
James T. Kirk: we must excommunicate the blasphemer!
James T. Kirk: then we can prove it isn't the center
James T. Kirk: well then..
James T. Kirk: our solar system is the center!
James T. Kirk: same story
James T. Kirk: turns out it's not
James T. Kirk: damnit!
James T. Kirk: now we know there's trillions of galaxies
James T. Kirk: and potentially multiple universes
James T. Kirk: and alternate realities
James T. Kirk: which then brings into question the whole thing about death
James T. Kirk: under religion we're meant to have a soul
James T. Kirk: meaning it's ours, and we're only one
James T. Kirk: but if we exist in multiple realities
James T. Kirk: that means there's multiple "mes" and "yous"
James T. Kirk: which debunks the whole singular-soul theory
James T. Kirk: and now with the whole thing that we may be visited by aliens (th
ough I doubt they're analy probing people....)
James T. Kirk: that means humans might not be the supreme beings of the universe
James T. Kirk: and we're finding microscopic (potentially) life on other planets
James T. Kirk: which means other planets might have life
James T. Kirk: the whole point of this long-winded description
James T. Kirk: is religion simply serves as a means for humans to cope with what
they can't understand
Tefdon: So. You're an atheist?
James T. Kirk: when we can understand something, initially the religious zealots
oppose it, until it becomes so engrained into public knowledge that it's imposs
ible to deny.
James T. Kirk: Not exactly. I know too much to believe that God doesn't exist,
or any religious thing.
James T. Kirk: I think it's possible stuff might exist but we just miscomprehend
it all
James T. Kirk: who's to say God wasn't some distant alien
Tefdon: Soooo
James T. Kirk: who teraformed earth
James T. Kirk: ?
Tefdon: Agnosticism?
Tefdon: Very open minded agnosticism.
James T. Kirk: yeah, I'd say open minded agnosticism
James T. Kirk: or rather
James T. Kirk: extremely open minded
James T. Kirk: if we were to discover that God or Heaven do exist
James T. Kirk: I'd be like "alright, so where did they come from?"
James T. Kirk: and move on from there
James T. Kirk: also if we were to discover it was all false
James T. Kirk: I'd still be fine
Tefdon: Dude
Tefdon: Imagine the shitstorm if someone disproved God and Heaven completely.
James T. Kirk: lol
James T. Kirk: given that for the past 2000 years people have been coming up wit
h excuses, I doubt that'll happen
James T. Kirk: but who knows
James T. Kirk: that'd be fun to watch
Tefdon: It would
Tefdon: If you were safe in a bunker.
James T. Kirk: ...yea
James T. Kirk: lol
James T. Kirk: or rather
James T. Kirk: in a space colony or something
James T. Kirk: I don't think I'd want to be on a planet with a few hundred nukes
James T. Kirk: "boom"
Tefdon: With lots of women.
James T. Kirk: I'd like to think humans will naturally become educated enough to
become more open minded
James T. Kirk: but I doubt it
Tefdon: It takes one man to repopulate the world, but one hundred women.
Tefdon: That's why we send men to war. We only need one.