10 Top Religion and Politics Stories

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote "God is Dead" in "The Gay Science" in 1882. However, it is only now in 2010 that scholars are able to explain how and why people can come to believe in religion. Dell Hymes shows how we can understand conversation analysis by using the research tool and the mnemonic device "S-P-E-A-K-I-N-G." He shows how difficult it really is to write down with accuracy, how someone can record utterances other people make, let alone record something that someone said 150 years before they were born.

John L. Austin explains how people "Do" things with words, in order to get what they want in an economic cost/benefit reaction. Pierre Bourdieu explains with his practice theory how people's worldviews are shaped and molded by close associations with those around them, i.e. how thoe with whom we surround ourselves on a daily basis define our identies and shape our perpetual habitus, which make up our worldviews.

Erving Goffman uses performance theory to explain how behavior patterns are structured in social situations based on his notion of dramaturgy, and that given certain contingent factors, humans and human behavior is able to be patterned and understood.

Given these integral theories developed in the recent past, there is scientific evidence to conclude that humans are social animals, social animals that need to socialize in order to survive, define themselves within social structures and establish identities, identities that define them as humans that have a sense of belonging.

Religion is a place for people to belong. People need reinforcement in a place to belong. Religion is a tautology. It begins with a premise or the notion that God exists, and much like conspiracy theories, they utilize anything and everything within their realm of possibilities as evidence for the perpetual conclusion that a God must exist, without ever stopping to test whether or not a God exists, never once being skeptical, or questioning the possibility that they might be wrong. Scientists are humbled before factual evidence rooted in observations, observations of human conversational analysis, conversational analysis that can be employed cross-culturally, ultimately testing the universality of the human condition, and need for searching for their own identities.

Religion, and ultimately God, is dead.

Daniel of AZ 1:59PM August 08, 2010