--- Steven Brust <skzb at dreamcafe.com> wrote: > > > To say, "there has always been religion" and leave > it at that is like > saying, "there has always been interest in numbers," > as if our > understanding of mathematics has not progressed in > the last five thousand > years. Well, it was a start, and I wasn't sure I would get agreement even with those statements. :) >This would lead to the conclusion that any > place you put your > finger on the time line of man's knowledge of > mathematics is as valid as > any other; we can thus throw out logarithms, the > square root of -1, all of > calculous, &tc &tc. > I think we are discussing more man's interest in religion (or mathematics) than his achievements. David seemed to be saying it's not believable that there would be interest in religion (or, as I prefer it, spirituality) in the far future, since we would have explained everything with science that religion sought to answer. I think there are questions that are unanswerable by science > Man's religious beliefs have changed over the > millennia. In my opinion, an > examination of these changes would lead to the > conclusion that the gods > have been shrinking. Those areas where the > supernatural is required for > understanding have gotten smaller and smaller. The > idea that they might > vanish entirely in the not-to-distant future doesn't > seem farfetched to me. I agree if you restrict your focus to the Western world (by which I mean Europe and North America). I would argue that religion is THE focus of many populous societies in other parts of the world; India, China (Falon Gong), the MidEast... > > On the other hand, it might be that the devil is > making me say this. > No, the Devil wants people to be religious so that they believe in him as well. :)