By Joe Simonetta
A July 2022 religious-related incident that got much publicity occurred in the state of Wisconsin in a Walgreen’s store.
A Walgreens cashier refused to sell a man and his wife condoms and cited his faith as the reason why.
Beyond this being yet another of countless examples of religious overreach, it raises fundamental questions about religion and its claimed authority.
What is it that gives religions authority to make rules for their faithful followers?
In fact, what are the origin of these pervasive belief systems we term “religions” and what gives them the right to any authority at all?
While there is no broad consensus regarding the origin of religion, its beginnings are not that complicated to understand.
We, Homo Sapiens, have existed for about 300,000 years since our origins in south and east Africa.
About 100,000 years ago, we began our migration north into Asia.
From there, we spread west into Europe (35,000-40,000 years ago), east and south to Australia (40,000 year ago), further east in Asia, across the Bering Strait (12,000-15,000 years ago), and reached the Americas about 12,000 years ago.
With survival, knowledge began to accumulate and pyramided upon itself, always growing and accelerating and leading to today’s Age of Information and Communication that allows us to disseminate information almost anywhere instantaneously.
As one can imagine easily, early humans endeavored – as we still do today – to understand the cause, purpose, and nature of life (and the universe/multiverse).
That probing was the beginning of “religion.”
Evidence of religion, art, and recorded events goes back 30,000 to 40,000 years ago into the Stone Age.
However, there was relatively very little knowledge.
There was no science; the Scientific Revolution occurred in the 16th to 18th centuries, just 300 to 500 years ago.
Early Homo Sapiens generated countless forms of religious dogma, i.e., arrogant assertions that one’s ideas and opinions were factual with no supporting evidence.
Dogma originated typically from supernatural sources and something referred to as “divine revelation,” meaning claims to have communicated with gods and other supernatural entities.
Essentially, priests and priestesses, who claimed to have special knowledge derived from “divine revelation,” invented themselves.
Today, one could never get away with such preposterous claims.
But keep in mind that was thousands of years ago when little knowledge existed and long before the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment (also known as the Age of Reason).
So, to explain life with little or no knowledge – and zero science – what were these priests and priestesses to do but to claim divine revelation as their source of inspiration, knowledge, and authority.
It is critical to be clear that their proclaimed source of knowledge and authority was their communication with supernatural sources.
They created gods and goddesses, fabricated creation stories, wrote books, and formed into fiercely tribal religions with rules and theatrical rituals, costumes, and music.
It still goes on today.
And it’s totally fraudulent.
Those who claimed authority have no authority or credibility.
Their claims are based, not on knowledge, but on contrived ideas originating from their uninformed imaginations.
From this absurd backdrop and foundation flowed a stream of “religious” nonsense that institutional inertia has carried forward to our present time.
Many people, who now see religion for what it is, are liberating themselves by abandoning these religions and relegating them to the dustbin of history where they belong.
Nevertheless, a percentage of people still cling to these religions and attempt, in any manner in which they are able, to impose them on as many people as they can.
These religions continue to exist and are responsible for much of the discord and conflict in our world.
Joe Simonetta is a member of The Secular Community’s Board of Directors – https://joesimonetta.com/