Blah, Blam, Blah... BLAH! (the sequel)

It is now late evening as opposed to late morning and most of this day is behind me. I spent my afternoon at the theatre, ushering and having a rather engaging conversation with the box office manager during the show. I didn't watch the show twice. I enjoyed it but, not that much to see it twice in twenty four hours. The topic of discussion was based off of this blog and the things and views I've expressed here. The main one of particular interest was the question of morality and religion. Who invented who? I contend that morality is what influenced the creation of religion (among other things) and that religion is simply a manifestation of groups of people and their sense of what is good, bad, right or wrong (hence, my understanding of why there are hundreds of variations of religious belief). It was said that today, in these times, religion effects a person's sense of morality. Religion influences of one's sense of right and wrong (i.e. morality)... giving it a guide by which to follow when in different situations. I feel that yes, religion does provide a sense (delusional) of comfort and ease. It fails to answer the larger questions of how all of this came to be. How life itself had started. How could one entity or force such as a 'god' truly have the power to create all that we know to be. I don't feel that it's possible that something that intelligent could have existed and, if it did why did it create such flawed renditions of itself? I can absolutely believe in the life sciences to know that every living create is derived from a single-celled organism. That all species have either evolved over the countless millions of years based upon their abilty to adapt to the changes that occurred around them or else they simplty died off. Our creation followed the very same progression of evolution. It cannot be explained with complete knowledge that such and such occurred at such and such time but, at least I'm not saying that 'only 'god' knows that answer'. Scientists continue to make new discoveries to answer these unknowns. For myself, that comes across as being a naive copout simply to conceal that we do not have enough of the answers provided through science and it's research to say, 'we know this happen at that time for this reason'. At least owning up to not knowing the answer makes for more sense to me than to say that a 'god knows the truth'. We are an intelligent species, yes but, we are still a flawed and a reckless species none the less. We are the one species that has brought about more destruction to the earth's ecosystems and climate than any other inhabitant. We have killed more out of the belief (and disagreements) of the differing morality based upon one's religious views, than for any other reasons, combined. I do agree that morality has been influenced by religion in more recent of human history (within the last 10,000 years) but, in my opinion, morality is a genetic based characteristic of not only the human race but of every species on the globe. We have learned by trial and error and as a result, we are where we are today in light of both the failures and successes that every living creature must go through in the natural evolution of life. This conversation will continue through the ages... just as it's doing now. Welcome to the machine.