Science versus the Qu'ran,New Testament and Torah

Submitted by Karl Popper (Australia), Oct 24, 2006 at 05:56

Islam, Christianity and Judaism are sophisticated cultural belief systems. We all have some form of cultural belief system, but in the age of nuclaer bombs, we should not confuse cultural beliefs and myths with observable reality. They are not the same. Cultural myths and beliefs are produced by human individuals and societies. There is reasonable doubt that they are of supernatural or Divine origin: rather just the pressing natural demands of securing our materail existence in time and space - a need to believe we will live beyond the grave, a reason to have hope that we are not just like the animals we share our world with but are "special" and "chosen" and that God has a plan for us, a need to see light at the end of the tunnel.

Our religions and beliefs have arisen as part of of the cultural package of human society on its long and bitter struggle from hominid scavenger to dominant world species over the last six million years. We need our cultural myths, but we should not confuse them with reality.

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