disclaimer: this node is an opinion based on my observations. if you feel strongly defensive of your religion and would be offended by a different interpretation, please do not read this or be mean because you dissagree.

in the beginning... people spent most of their time just barely hunting or gathering enough food to sustain themselves as the roamed from place to place. during this time, resources were scarce and the religion of anamisim was common. i believe that this is primarily because it helped them to survive. if they believed that every bit of substance was sentient, wasting it would be more difficult.

looking at christianity and buddhism in the present day, we see many common threads. both provide guidelines for living which will not upset the community and hopefully lead to personal happiness (the 10 commandments and the 8 fold path,) both dictate what happens when you die (you go to hell or heaven, or you are re-incarnated,) and both provide incentive to follow the guidelines that they set forth (if you dont follow, you go to hell, or if you do follow, you will be released from suffering.) these are very common aspects of nearly all major religions today. finally, they both provide a role model who illustrates that it is possible to attain true happiness by following the teachings of the religion.

from the earliest primative wisdom to what is common today, nearly all successful religions benefit human progress*. i have no doubt that religions evolve, as civilizations with more beneficial religoins flourish while those whith less productive ones die off.

thus, i put forth the idea that religion is a tool of civilization, often protecting us from primative human nature and that it changes as we do. imagine a religion of the future, perhaps when computers are completely ubiquitous and our dependance on them is total. might it not then be a sin or bring you bad karma to hack?

* i am very aware that religion causes a torrent of intercultural problems, however, on an evolutionary scale, this is beneficial.