Growth is arguably the point of life, the elusive meaning that many struggle to come to terms with; growth in our production, our consumption, our health, our wealth, our knowledge, our independence, our happiness, our lifespan. These are the pursuits and struggles of our lot. It makes sense really. We are complex machines, programmed to grow following our inertia wherever it may lead us. We are following the code written in the instructions of life, DNA. We use science, industry, technology, and medicine as engines. They propel us forward. But this ‘meaning of life’ leaves us feeling empty, lost and alone. We've tried to use religion as our rudder to keep us on the straight and narrow, to perhaps find a new meaning. As we hurdle forward, religion is there to lend a helping hand, to appease our uneasiness. It shows us the errors of our ways, offers forgiveness, promises eternal life, and attempts to provide us with the peace of mind that reconciles our coding with our conscience.

This timeline between the development of the tools of our inertia (science, etc.) and the development of religion makes sense. Man began to diverge from animals approximately 6 million years ago and the first sign of modern homo sapiens occurs roughly 200,000 years ago. As I’ve mentioned earlier on this site, organized agriculture, beginning our dominance over other living things, began roughly 10,000 years ago (~8,000 BC). It's no coincidence that religion came on the scene a brief 5,000 years later. Living, not in concert with, but in dominance over other living things would cause any man to begin to doubt his place in the world and to look for answers from a ‘higher’ source. And there certainly has been competition for believers, as seen in the 90-second history of religion video-map below (mapsofwar.com).

But where has this internal coding of growth, powered by science and technology and guided by religion, led us? Our inertia right now would, most likely, carry us into oblivion. We blatantly pollute the earth and the vast majority of us don’t seem to care. We mistreat our neighbors, friends, enemies, and even our families. We live in a society where the gap between those who have and those who have not widens by the minute. We are becoming increasingly solitary and sedentary. All the while, we make less money then we spend and collect more unnecessary stuff along the way. In regards to religion steering the ship, it may shepherd the flock and reconcile our conscience but it isn’t actually solving any problems.

I certainly don’t mean to imply that science, technology, industry, medicine, or religions are to blame. While they may provide additional inertia, those tenents did not and do not dictate what path we've taken; they did not chart our course. They keep us safely on the tram car we call our day-to-day lives and would do so regardless of our path taken. It was 5,000 years ago that we decided, if in fact it was voluntary, that we needed, as a people, a coping mechanism, and that the mechanism was religion. This was the solution to the hopeless dichotomy between our code and our conscience, destructive progress versus constructive concern. We could continue our advancement through the development of industry, technology, science, and medicine but we needed a way to reconcile the conscience; either that or consciously decide to live in disharmony with the code of growth and, in turn, create a more stable overall ecosystem. But it was religion that provided the easier solution. It was created to pacify our inner concerns and to allow us to continue living in accord with our internal coding. It's not shocking which path humans turned down. Natural selection is one of the most fundamental laws of life. It is ingrained in us on a micro level. To think that we could have created a macro level society that would have consciously functioned, at times, in opposition to our micro level coding is rather unimaginable.

So where do we go from here? What force is going to act upon our lives to change our current direction of inertia? Is it the conscience? Will conscience one day become more of a basic law of life then growth? Will the scales finally tip toward constructive concern and away from destructive progress or will growth continue to overcome? If the scales tip toward conscience, will we use religion to placate our internal growth desires much like we use it to placate our conscience now or will it become our engine driving us down this new path? Is there some other, as of now unimagined tenent of life that will lead to this path? Is there even a path that flows from conscious awareness to conscience awareness? Is ignorance bliss, or is progress bliss, or will we have a new bliss, a greater humanity? Can man's will to live in harmony with life only be forged through a greater plane of understanding? Are we there yet? Sigh.