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No, that's not what I meant. It's not about the mistakes at all, it's about the noticeable effects of modern medicine, it actually works, where as for example prayers or whatever 'effective' aspect of religion, you just can't say íf it works at all. Why pray or believe when the effect is unknown? It's what totally makes the entire belief in religion irrelevant.




I donīt know, but most people believe, that human beings, both individuals and groups are heavily influenced not only by medicine and the laws of gravity, but also by ideas, ideologies, belief-systems, role-models, idols, propaganda, communication, what they learn in school, what is considered to be "normal" ...

It is like this: if one very complex system (the human mind) is confronted with another complex system (for example a movie, a book, a theory, an ideology, a faith system) one canīt make exact predictions: different human beings will always react in a different way.

Well, it is obvious, that religion has inspired billions of people in many different and noticeable ways.

For me it is more or less a miracle, that so many people say: we believe in an undefined, invisible being (?), we follow the teachings of someone (Jesus, Mohammed, Moses ...), who lived thousands of years ago, we build churches, we pray, we try to be nice, we follow rituals ...

Religions inspire and influence the human minds. And the human minds usually direct our actions, makes us speak etc ...

In this sense religion - like ideas, opinions, books, theories, ideologies - will produce visible effects, but these effects are of course less predictable then in mathematics or programming for example.

Thatīs because mathematics is so very simple, it usually follows well defined rules.

Now religion on the other hand is a very large and complex subject and the human mind is very complex too.

We are not like simple minded dead robots, which react in a pre-programmed and predictable way.

We are alive, we can make choices!

And if you say, religion is "irrelevant", just because the effects are less predictable, you could say the same about music, literature, movies, almost everything, that is more complex, than program code ...

You donīt want to transform the human species into robots, do you ?!

Are you aware of the complexity of the human mind?

Itīs fine, that you accept medicine and worldly sciences, so letīs start with the possibilities and the structure of the human brain:

In an old magazine (german edition of "Scientific American") a brain researcher once made an interesting analogy:

There are "just" ca. 10^82 elementary particles in the known universe.

There are - at least - ca. 10^3000 possible functional states of the human brain .

10^12 neurons, each one can theoretically pass or receive information from 10.000 other neurons, forming the very complex neural network.

This 10^3000 btw. is just the minimum, more recent research suggests, that also the so called glia-cells (white matter) play a "computational" role, then there is neurogenesis (new neurons can grow and become part of the existing neuronal network) ...

Our brain is very, very, very complex.

The actual "strength" of the human brain and mind is not simple causal operations - like in programming - but we are able to do far more complex stuff: the development of ideas, assumptions, emotions, understanding, awareness ...

And the quality of effects of religion will depend on the amount of reason that we apply to this subject, the depth of understanding, the desire, the individual ability of imagination, the seriousness of the efforts, the depth of emotions ...

So I wouldnīt say, that you can sell or buy this in a supermarket.