Why Don't Religions Talk About Real Threats to Humanity


In Christianity, "sin" is the most important threat to humans. As we all know, sin causes a hypothetical deity to push us toward an eternity in a hypothetical hell. Untold millions of dollars and countless hours are spent warning us of this nonsense.

All the while, there are facts that could be addressed. A new disease could wipe out humans. We could be wiped out by environmental changes. Some of these can be influenced by our behavior. If we could make it a sin to harm the environment or increase risk of human decline religion would make at least serve some purpose.

Evidence shows there have been at least six periods in the earth's history when almost all species were wiped out. If there were another, would humans be among those surviving or would it just be some insects?

Churches could help extend the presence of humans on our globe by starting with the basics. First, they could teach that we have not figured out for certain what caused the universe to come into being. Second, they could teach us there are limited resources on the globe. Limited is the opposite of infinite resources. That means that each person added to the planet subtracts something that could be used by another human. The more each person consumes or owns the less there is for others as well.

Instead of dwelling on these topics of monumental importance, many, perhaps most churches do not take advantage of the opportunity to make life better and longer for humans. They spend time preaching against abortion and same sex marriage. Neither of these topics has any importance at all in the big picture, except that abortion might lower extinction risk by reducing way the number of people the planet must support.

My impression is religion is seen as less important by the general public each year. Leaders in religion could reverse that by focusing on issues important to the future of humans.

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