The Irony of People Who Do Not Believe in Evolution...

The Irony of People Who Do Not Believe in Evolution, Why Mainstream Christianity in the West is the iPhone of Religion, and a Case for Why China is More Evolved Than America.

Let me first acknowledge from what perch I derive my view. I am an Absurdist through and through and as such, I find staunch and devout atheists just as annoying as the similarly described religious.

To expound on my personal belief, the first thing you need to know is that my belief presupposes that, as a species, we have realized that our survival is more likely encouraged if we group and work together. (There is a meaningful distinction I should make here in that "group together" does not mean every human being should live, this is as paradox in that it is concurrently exclusive and inclusive.)

To that end, religion in general and the flavor of Christianity that is mainstream in America, is equal to all philosophical beliefs in that it is nothing more than a construct to help groups, by way of individuals, survive this world.  Whether it be a philosophy that inspires one to live for its own purposes, a religion that obligates one to live in a certain way, or any of the other infinite possibilities a human mind can conjure up and put a flawed and mortal sense of belief or faith in, the dictation of a behavior code and pattern is being adopted to promote the creation of a standard; a standard which will serve to stabilize the (also, perhaps, infinite) possibilities of human behavior in an attempt to, as a group, avoid being lost in the human ignorance and resulting chaos of our material universe and world.

My personal belief further dictates that because we as a people and a condition cannot know inherent meaning for life (ergo, we cannot know "God"), we are free to conceptualize and implement whatever the fuck philosophy (or religion, which can be used interchangeably at this point in my explanation) we want as long as it helps to yield the result of our survival. It is in this way that religion is nothing more than the best product our species has been able to produce for easing the lives of and maintaining the order for our kind. (As a side point and at the risk of delving into political philosophy, it’s my belief that this is why until the modern era you see religion as a basis of laws and rights, as well.)

Because our species has evolved to believe that the best case for survival is through banding together and creating standards to promote harmony and convenience for the most basic needs of human life, and because philosophy and the group adoption of said philosophy is a product of this evolution, one can only surmise that philosophy is a product of evolution, ergo religion is a product of evolution.

It is in that sense, not through a pejorative or dismissive tone, that I say Christianity in the West (and specifically in America) is the equivalent of the iPhone and Jesus was Steve Jobs. Jesus (or his executive handlers depending on the Apocrypha to which one subscribes) and the latter, evolved iterations that we see today, is a democratized product whose design is very easy to digest without much work or thought.

The packaging of a product that solves the human problems of having to work to create a personal meaning to live is important because instead of each individual being compelled to actively live, experience, think and create a philosophy by which to live, the inheriting or otherwise accepting a philosophy that one has not earned (or in the modern case, even understands) eliminates the need to know and critically think about anything in the world one lives in, and instead frees these specimens to eat, sleep and procreate in larger numbers.

It is in this way that religion has a tipping point from being beneficial to survival to detrimental to survival, through the encouragement of the procreation of people who have shown a propensity to be indoctrinated as well as have exhibited a lack of appetite for critical analysis*.

Because as a species we have historically ascribed the philosophy that encourages the survival of the group, it can be deduced that societies birthing larger percentages of a population that has not inherited cheap dogma, defined as any philosophy not sufficiently earned, is more evolved. If we are to accept the aforementioned definitions and controls then logically we can interpret that China is an example of a more evolved society than America **.

Notes

*Religious people who have come by their religion through a personal interest, study, or experience are not included in the inherited and indoctrinated as it could be said their philosophy is just as legitimate and valid as any other.

** China has reports of 60-80% of its 1.3 Billion people as non-religious or beholden to an inherited doctrine (780 million on the low end). America has reports of 20% of its 313 Million people as non-religious or beholden to an inherited doctrine (62 million).