Report on the Religious Life of Planet Earth
Somewhere in the flotsam of celestial material that makes up the arms of the Milky Way is a little planet called Earth. Home to roughly seven billion people, Earth plays host to a race that is both incredibly sadistic and unspeakably noble. One facet of this dichotomy stems from a concept known as religion. Religion is a set of spiritual beliefs shared by a group of people. What does religion look like? It looks like religion. A central characteristic of religion is the belief in supernatural beings. Giant flying spaghetti monsters are generally forgone in favor of vaguely humanoid figures. These deities often hand down a moral code that practitioners must adhere to in order to avoid standing in timeout for eternity while everyone else enjoys the post-life after party. These directives are often delivered in the form of scriptures, or religious texts. Scriptures feature predominantly in the top three human religions - Christianity, Islam and Hinduism. The majority of these texts are filled with fables wherein lie lessons to living well. Contained somewhere within is a set of guidelines to follow that will not only contribute to a pious existence, but also serve the function of making sure that everyone gets along. There exists some commonality among these rules: humans shouldn't kill, steal, commit adultery, lie, or believe in other gods. On paper it all looks pretty good. Messages of love and magnamity actually foster communities and encourage the proliferation of a greater society. Traditional-secular societies don't work on their own, but religious beliefs tend to translate to social beliefs that encourage a sense of fair play. That's all fine. But the downside of superstitious and insular, parochial societies is that they may not play nice with one another. And that's the type of crap that gets humanity into