In your mind, what kind of differences do you think there are between religions as they were expressed thousands of years ago and religions as they are expressed today?

I don't know much about religion from way back, so I'm going on a hunch here.

I presume that religion in ancient times were not very different from what we have today. The difference between life back then and today, however, is that we know a huge amount about human beings, humanity in general and our surroundings. If religion would have been born to explain the world around, it would become obsolete save for very abstract and metaphysical matters for which philosophy and metaphysics would become proper bases when their development comes to a level.

Today, we have what all generations before XX century never had: insight into how our mind works, which is very important in understanding others and ourselves. Religion was often used to make people feel like they understand why others commit crime: "possessed by an evil spirit" is a common explanation for what we now know to be either a psychological disorder (sociopathy, for one thing) or a moment of foggy mind (unstoppable anger). Hell, we have developed quite a bit of philosophy on the matter - for a long time, too! - to help figure out what the world is, who people are, what life is and what its meaning is. Have you read Albert Camus' or Jean-Paul Sartre's works? It's astonishing how they resonate with the experiences I've had. I'm sure there are plenty those whose thoughts will resonate with others.

Yet, people today seem reluctant to go away from religion and enter the world of scientific, rational explanation of things. I feel like this happens because those who went (or were conducted) early on into religious mindset were taught as if any sort of critical look is not required, that one has to just accept the given statements as universal truths and stop thinking about it (otherwise, many, if not most, of religious ideas crumble easily). So, when they confront something explained reasonably and rationally, their minds go into defensive because their truths are attacked (and "think not hard about anything" is often one of the truth, so maybe many perceive rational argument as an offense - but that's just an uneducated guess), thus refusing to acknowledge when something actually makes sense since it makes them accept the fact that their whole identity is at least somewhat incorrect or even outright wrong (which is a whole another issue I have with religion, for it allows people to hide behind the doctrines when the world "attacks" them, but that's another discussion altogether).

Today, of all times, we have all the necessary knowledge and resources (the Internet is a major one, as it allows instantaneous connection for over a billion people from all over the world) to start building a society that's beneficial to the human-being [not a mistake]. We have psychology, we have philosophies, we have major sciences (both natural and humanities), we have the transnational connection, we have the energy sources and the knowledge of maintaining and developing them, we have the industrial base to produce and distribute massive amounts of cheap food - hell, we have the knowledge to develop "green" cheap food, as well!.. and that's me missing a whole bunch of important things. We can start educating people about themselves, about each other, about the world in ways no previous generation might have envisioned. We can bloody start by stopping telling people they're inferior just because a moneybag somewhere is lacking internal measures of self-esteem and some sort of ideals. We can start by telling them that they matter, no matter their thoughts, tastes or preferances of sexual behavior; that it's their actions that define how others see them, that it's not normal to prejudge or assume oneself to be superior to others. Seeing the France's terror acts (was it the second major one for the year? that's horrendous) makes me think that religion in general is a major obstacle for that. I don't give a shit whether it's Valhalla, the 72 virgins, karma or the omnipotent male God: if it hinders personal and/or group development for some oddjob sense of security which doesn't fucking exist anyway, it's to be disposed of. As far as the human mind is concerned, the world is essentially random, but just because you can't comprehend it you aren't allowed to trap others - let alone yourself - in a cage of mind or treat everyone as if they're innately faulty and sinful as if it's better for someone, especially if it's for a being no one but the indoctrinated can sense in any way.

So that's what I think the difference is. We finally have major potential to make the world - our world, common world - a better place for everyone, and religion of most kinds is a hinderance for that with their fear-ridden doctrines and scaremongering of the masses. You yourself said in response to someone else in the thread that human morality has developed over time for religion to disallow slavery along with the "secular world" (as if they're so separate). Maybe human mind will soon enough develop to understand just how powerful humans are, and how powerful fears can be if we feed them. Right now, we can start by raising the right questions. "How can we reign in the anxiety we all experience from birth?" is a good one, don't you think?