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Originally written by SkeleTony:

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Originally written by All-American Alorael:

Another little point is that change and evolution are not the same.

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But they ARE! EXACTLY the same thing! Evolution does not mean "progress". It means CHANGE. Most of the mutations and such that appear in individual members of a species are either disadvantageous or at least not advantageous. A few select quirks will prove to be advantageous in that environment adn will be more likely to be passed on.

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Religion and culture, for example, are memes that change quickly and erratically, but not necessarily for the better. There is hardly any pressure towards cultural "fitness," and one would be hard pressed to define an evolutionarily fit meme.

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Oh there most certainly IS selection pressure on religions. The reason why Christianity is not being led by Charlemagne's descendents on bloody sword-point conversions today is because the environment changed, making such 'traits' a disadvantage. There is not a religion you could name which did not either change or die due to selection pressures.

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Language, incidentally, does the same. There's no real reason why the way we speak now is superior to the way we spoke hundreds or thousands of years ago. Things just change.

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You are correct that there is no such thing as "superior" in evolution. Only "better fit" for whatever environment the thing exists in. English has evolved drastically in the last hundred years or so and, like ancestral species has branched into several new "species"/variations. The english spoken by a Mississipi mountain man is quite different from the 'King's english' and the english spoken by urban youths in South Central L.A. is different from both of those.

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Polytheism went out of style in the western world, but millions and millions of Hindus would disagree if you asserted that monotheism is more fit.

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Please understand that "better fit" does not = "Better quality". It is a simple fact that the progress of technology & scientific discovery puts selection pressure on religion. We become increasingly reliant on 'convenience' and it is much more convenient & user friendly to have one almighty deity who can allegedly do anything and more than someone else's whole pantheon. It is easier to teach/indoctrinate one about what "God" wants/commands then it is to do so for scores of conflicting personalities who allegedly control our lives.

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Other things do that. A particularly fit religion might be one that mandates the forcible conversion of all infidels, but that's arguable.

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Not today though, except perhaps in some isolated instances(tribal governments and such in remote areas of the world). BGut yes, that would be correct. In an envirnment where such totalitarian & despotic measures flourish, a religion which peacefully encourages otehrs to use their own free will to decide will be at a disadvantage against the "sword-point conversion religion".

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—Alorael, who would also argue that trying to say that gods are or are not worthy of worship based on human standards is starting from a false premise. Gods aren't human. ... Can you claim to know better than God, assuming He exists?

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We humans, no matter WHAT our attitudes towards religion are, make determinations about what is moral, immoral and amoral based upon our own subjective experiences. We cannot think with God's mind. We must use our own faculties and experience to determine if an action is 'right' or 'wrong'. THat we often argue/rationalize that God agrees/commands/disagrees is beside the point.

To that end, we are hard pressed to find someone who runs around demanding praise or worship or otherwise making it clear that he desires such treatment as being worth of such treatment. Humility and treating others as equals is a pretty universal condition for someone being worthy of idolation/worship and such persons would not want such(and would probably be dismayed by such behavior).

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Originally written by Waffle Guy:

-Waffle guy, who believes that anly arogant people talk in third person and therefore alorael should be publicly executed

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