the fundamental difference in the attitude of science and that of art - if i might attempt to make a distinction, is that the mind of science lets go of the present to take hold of the eternal, knowing that the present is in the eternal, while art, is letting go of the eternal to take hold of the present, knowing that the eternal is in the present.

if life is about the experience - then hey, there's nothing to lose!

dignity is invented by humans for the living. decay is the shizentai of nature.

i think religion is an idea on which we weigh all our sensory perceptions in order to transform them into a congruous system of experiences, in order to derive a method of thinking about things, a system of thinking that can be made to stay constant in a world of chaos.

based on this definition, let me speculate:

1. this method of thinking is what human beings have chosen through natural selection, to deal with the ever-changing world. perhaps, in the past, there was some kind of evolutionary pressure for human beings to come to rely on this systematic method of thinking, and subsequently develop a huge brain. or is it the discovery of the bone marrow that gave human beings a big brain, and that propelled them to use the big brain to their advantage?

2. yes, this systematic method of thinking has taken many names - logic, reason, religion, science, hope, faith, philosophy, superstition, maths.... but let me propose that it is all the same thing. it is not the only way for a
species to survive, but it is what our species has chosen.

3. maybe, just maybe, religion in its most primitive incarnation, was what made the human species different from all the other species on earth today. we define "success" in our own terms and think that we're the most successful species on the planet.

4. but for all our progress and technology, perhaps we're not really any "better" than all the other species. just "different". until we are able to simulate all evolution and work ahead to wipe out species that don't work well for us, the same rules of the game still apply to us.

5. The environment can also change drastically - it has happened before. Environment change, perhaps, is not so much about the health of the earth, as much it is about how incapable human beings are, to live in a climate that is dramatically different.