A couple items on religion today.
As I’ve said, there is someone who signs themselves AMV posting in a FB newgroup I’m following who has been tackling religious talking points with great clarity and insight. Here’s one from this morning, accompanied by the above graphic.
FB, Atheists Against Pseudoscientific Nonsense, 3 Jan 2026
Evolution is not harshly attacked by many Christians because of pride or misunderstanding alone, but because of what it logically entails. If evolution is true, and the evidence is overwhelming, then humanity did not begin with two individuals, but with a population. No first man and woman means no literal Adam and Eve. No Adam and Eve means no Garden of Eden, no magical tree, no talking serpent, no forbidden fruit, and no fall from grace.
And without original sin, the entire theological scaffolding collapses. If humans were never “fallen,” then there is nothing to redeem, no cosmic debt to pay, and no necessity for Jesus as a sacrificial solution. Christianity, as traditionally taught, stops being a story of salvation and becomes a story built on a myth that no longer holds.
That is why evolution is existentially threatening to the doctrine. Accepting it requires either radically reinterpreting scripture or admitting that foundational claims were symbolic at best and wrong at worst. This is not merely an emotional issue for believers; it is an institutional one. If the core narrative fails, so does the authority built on it. For pastors and religious institutions, this is not abstract philosophy, it is the risk of losing legitimacy, influence, and income; the grift is over.
So the rejection of evolution is not really about “humans coming from monkeys,” a strawman no biologist supports, and hurt egos. It is about preserving a story that cannot survive contact with population genetics, fossil records, and basic biology. When a belief system depends on denying reality to remain intact, the problem is not the science.
Again, these are not new insights, but they’re rarely expressed so crisply. To keep believing in the literal truth of the Bible means denying the overwhelming evidence of reality, about the universe, about evolution, all the things the religious folk flatly deny (“There is no evidence for evolution!” declares another post, revealing their ignorance and insularity). They are living in a fantasy world, a sort of religious RPG. They rely on this belief to claim a simplistic morality based on the Ten Commandments, while ignoring everything Jesus said in the New Testament. As I’ve said before, this clinging to Biblical literalism and that simplistic list makes life so much easier for so many people, who need not be bothered with anything complex or counter-intuitive about the real world.
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Here’s Sam Harris on why he thinks religion will eventually go away.
The links is: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1635147837860583, but as always I’m having trouble embedding that into a post.
The gist here is that science is explaining, more and more, the mysteries that religion has traditionally ascribed to the gods, or the demons, or the angels. Like demonic possession vs epilepsy.
This is all true enough. Sam Harris is a very smart guy. What he misses, I think, is the psychological need for people to *belong* to religions, and all that that entails.
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One more post that I’ll explore later:
Jerry Coyne, Why Evolution Is True, 25 Nov 2025: Pinker and Tupy vs. Kingsnorth: do we need a god in these troubled times?
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And about today’s news, re Venezuela: It’s all about the oil.
