The power of the passage of time is something humans are not equipped to truly grasp. Just like atoms, large numbers and interstellar distances, only a computer can interpret them effectively. And yet we instinctively refer to ones years on this planet as a long time. As if 36,500 days is anything but a random photon plucked from the sunny days of our existence. We only live one life, and over that life we witness an amazing amount of change. We take wonder in how the dreams when we were young have turned into the realities of our own children. And these are the results we bear witness to over the most massive thing we ever get to know or experience: One human lifetime.
As humans progress in intelligence and all manner of sciences, technology builds onto technology and learning compounds learning causing the time between major technological accomplishments to get shorter. About 250 years ago, humans learned to fly using lighter than air technology. 120 years after that, humans created the first heavier than air flight. Only 60 years after the airplane, humans were flying into space. It only took 25 years after space flight to create the internet which has arguably enabled the widespread sharing of intelligence and education that would have taken at least one human lifetime to have achieved without it. We have effectively condensed many lifetimes of learning and technology into a single lifetime.
In my own fraction of a full lifetime, I’ve experienced:
- the nationwide controversies that animated every religion over Cher showing her bellybutton on TV
- a primetime TV series having the audacity include a man that was gay
- passengers smoking cigarettes on airplanes
- The normalcy of drinking and driving
- Acceptance of spousal physical violence
- The silence of an entire generation of children that were never taught that inappropriate behaviors can also originate from family members and those in their church.
Cut to today when:
- most people have more concern for themselves than the genitals of those that marry
- smoking in any enclosed public area is banned
- drunk driving is criminal
- Resources are allocated to stopping cycles of spousal abuse and we have an understanding how victims are affected and how abuseers are created
- children understand that being touched by an adult, (even when they are members of their church) is wrong and are no longer shamed into silence over it
If in a fraction of a human lifetime we can experience such vast shifts in technology and society, how can anyone believe that any religious book whose learnings are passed primarily over words from a leader down to a congregation, could somehow become bedrock?
If we look at when we start to see structured religions develop we can estimate there have been at least 160 generations of humans being exposed to religion or roughly 160 human lifetimes.
All we have to do is listen to any Christian explain why public school libraries should ban any books that mention the dynamics of sexuality while wholeheartedly recommending a book with murder, rape, incest, liars, genocide, slavery and live executions. Ask them to balance everything Jesus stood for with their own morality that looks down on those that are different and forces their ideology on others instead of co-existing. Inquire of them why they view a black man -- whose love for his wife and family was second to nothing -- why they view him as evil and then exalt the white man that betrayed his oaths to God and his multiple wives, as their true leader. It's only a matter of time before these new Christian principles get incorporated into the Bible.
Religion is therefore proof of evolution. Subtle mutations and retellings eventually morph into the mirror to which they aspire. It is among the few stories to be so consistently told within localized geographies from one generation to the next that minor discrepancies go unnoticed while new elements and societal perspectives are slowly integrated. Prior learnings inconsistent with todays get debated and a new, more “bulletproof” version is slowly written into the next retelling. The Bible and its stories and relevance are constantly mutating with concepts changing ever so slightly to the point where todays version is likely very different from the original. Religious experts – especially those whose multi million dollar incomes depend on the religious – will explain that the Bible is unchanging and omnipotent. To what would they owe that their interpretation of scripture so conveniently embraces their lifestyle and their own beliefs? Does anyone actually seek scripture to guide their life or are they all really just finding scripture to justify their life? In thinking about the passage of time, how does any deity justify micromanaging 1.2 quadrillion humans (the approximate number of humans that have ever lived) down to the level of telling them who they can love and then discourage them from living their one human life being happy, by threatening them with eternal damnation? That's like dictating the behavior of a single grain of sand out of all the sand it would take to cover the state of Texas to a depth of 33 feet.
While your deity is trying to force a behavior and quell any curiosity from a grain of sand, my deity is expanding the void and observing the power of these grains of sand as they do what only his laws of physics have limited. There is no honor in suppressing oneself or denying reality. Nor is there true power in exacting retribution on those that don't bow before you. True power and honor comes from every grain of sand being true to itself and harnessing the collective mass and strength of the group to question more, learn more and become greater than itself. It isn't just ironic when religion denies science; it's debilitatingly sad. It is denying that the deepest scars on this planet and the tallest wonders of the world ultimately owe their existence to both the significance and the insignificance of a grain of sand.