Thread: Evolution of Christianity

Old churches that were once centres of communities now lie derelict in England. In their place fundamentalist denominations have sprung up, desperately attempting to keep the faith alive. Is this just part of evolution comparable to how species survive by natural selection by having to modify themselves in order to survive the time in which they live?
I could speculate that Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism and Hinduism have a common ancestor. Like man and the chimpanzee, it is difficult to pinpoint just what that common ancestor was. Godfrey Higgins had a stab at it in his book Anacalypsis and defined the ancient religion as 'Pandeism', a sort of lost belief in the power of the sun, moon and stars. What we would define as paganism.
It means that those religions are indeed like cousins or second cousins to each other. What cemented Christianity to Buddhism and Zoroastianism for example is a missing link, which was the sect of the Essenes. These Jewish ascetics lived in monasteries and absorbed the ideas of the wandering Therapeuts.
They championed the idea of the Angel-Messiah (ref. Bunsen in The Angel-Messiah of Buddhists, Essenes and Christians), or incarnate avatar which was the basis of the never ending cycle of Buddhas. This would make Jesus Christ the last Buddha as avatars are born roughly every 600 years! Gautama-Buddha at 600 BCE was the preceding one. The prophet Isaiah also forecast the birth of a saviour at this time (about 670 BCE). In this religious Tree of Life Christianity has occupied the top spot, but just like the metaphorical tree it branched into new denominations. On the way there were also found extinctions some of which were ruthlessly removed. Essenism itself became extinct shortly after the death of Christ.
If religion could be described as a memeplex which is blindly programming towards its own destruction, then it is comparable to the genepool for a species which also blindly programs towards its own destruction. Therefore Christianity (and every other religion) is doomed, but when this will happen we do not know.

By the same reasoning, can we say that Einstein's science is evolved from Newtonian science, which in turn evolve from Aristotle's science?

interesting thoughts completely devoid of historical method

Originally Posted by ox

If religion could be described as a memeplex which is blindly programming towards its own destruction, then it is comparable to the genepool for a species which also blindly programs towards its own destruction. Therefore Christianity (and every other religion) is doomed, but when this will happen we do not know.

Do you have any statistics on this? Because it looks to me like Islam is spreading quite nicely to fill the gaps where Christianity is declining. And, the adherents of atheism don't seem to have much of a capacity for reproduction, so in that way it may be programmed for self destruction. See, I can speculate too.

Interesting that my Malaysian girlfriend once said to me 'You become Muslim and we get married'. Needless to say I declined so we remain single. That's one such way the religious memeplex spreads. The Christian memeplex spread through violent conquest and evangelism. It still attempts this, but it runs into too many barriers these days. One such barrier is credibility. Jesus had to descend into hell to rescue all sinners before his time, as they could be excused sin if they had never heard of him. Quite what the position was in England though, which was not converted until the sixth century, and only after the pun of the century was unleashed by Pope Gregory who after spotting some fair haired young men in Rome was moved to ask who they were. 'They are Angles', he was told. 'No they are not', he replied, 'They are Angels, so go and convert them'.
So England became a Catholic country for about a thousand years until the branching of Christianity to Protestantism in the Reformation. From here it further branched into Wesleyanism and so on. Now I ask you, why should God decide to have his own church in one small country - the Church of England? That's what Anglicans believe, incredibly.
However the intermarrying among religious tribes is bound to keep weakening the human genepool. There is a tendency for Hindus and certain Muslims to marry their cousins. Catholics are supposed to marry catholics. Muslims can only marry muslims.
There is not one true faith. They are all flawed. In the light of this you have to ask why they still prosper. The nearest to the truth is science because only the truth is safe, and nothing else. This is the main reason why all religions will decline and eventually die. The growth of Christian and Muslim fundamentalism proves that the last throw of the dice is near. This generation could be the last to embrace religion, but it depends on how much real science is taught in schools and colleges.