We humans are not broken, we are in process of developing, as persons, as communities, and as a community of communities.
In our course of developing, our emerging abilities to communicate, compare, analyze, generalize, predict and imagine led us about 2500 years ago to wonder how and why things happen as they do. The desire to understand, assuage, and avoid suffering and pain of all kinds drove this intellectual quest.
Some hypothesized, or imagined, an ideal, unchanging, invisible reality from which visible reality had somehow "fallen." They deduced that the remedy was to reconnect somehow with this invisible, unchanging goodness. Plato epitomizes this way of thinking. It led to the development of theistic religions as a means of coping and hoping.
Others observed that everything is always changing, and that this constant change often brought loss and physical and emotional pain, as well as the fear of future loss and pain. Heraclitus typifies this approach. It led to the valuing of observing and critical thinking, then to the eventual emergence of science.
Both approaches are transmitted from generation to generation. The former emphasizes the transmission of its definition of the problem and of its solution, to be embraced obediently and without tampering.
The latter seeks to transmit a curiosity for, and an openness to, new information that may adjust, transform, or overturn conclusions reached by earlier generations.
The former method is based on an original revelation of information from the invisible realm to one or a number of inspired oracles. Its knowledge is accessible to the limited portion of humanity that commit to the revelation by faith. These come to see themselves as special and chosen in some way. There will ultimately be a separating of humans into two groups, those who are included because of their acceptance of the belief system, and those who are excluded because they refuse.
The second approach is based on knowledge available to all humans through observation and critical thinking. There is no division of humans into those who belong and those who do not, for all are in process. Hope for the future is that all humanity will learn to be open and discerning
