In the Bible Belt: The Theory of Evolution of Non Evolution

The acceptance of the Theory of Evolution began in the 1800's. However, even today there are a large number of churches that are opposed to the Theory of Evolution. Just driving through the southern USA, you see churches with strange names on every street corner. There are hundreds of varieties of churches. The members of these churches general believe that God created the animals as they are, and there has never been new species arise from an old one. And interestingly, each church also believes that their own beliefs have always existed in the perfect image of God's beliefs, without any change since the beginning of time. Meanwhile everybody else's beliefs that differ from their own are in error.

The Theory of Evolution of Churches
To deal with the proliferation of churches, I would like to see the scientific method applied to the origin of churches. I don't really have the space for this in a blog because it is what I would call a "Big Idea", and deserves a whole branch of scientific inquiry to develop around it but I just want to give a bit of an introduction.

I believe these churches were not created by God, no matter what their members would like to think. They naturally evolved from more primitive churches. It should be easy to figure out, as we have lots of written history to go by. Any historian could do the research.

The Scientific Categorization of Families Churches
I would like to see how a scientist would study religious evolution if we were lacking the history and only had living churches to study, plus the fossilized remains of some extinct churches. I would think the obvious place to start would be by listing all the existing churches, and classifying them into varieties by religious beliefs and practices.

The Family Tree of the Evolution of Churches
Once you have sorted and classified the churches, actually the same way naturalists sorted and classified species of plants and animals, you could then start looking for common ancestors. These would be churches that may have become extinct, or may still be viable. Each "living" church would have evolved from that older church. This is where, in the world of species, it would be like the appearance of a new species. Some churches are so similar that they are considered the same variety of church, where members are freely accepted back and forth between them. But at some point, a church can turn into an entirely new species of church, and suddenly no members are tolerated from the old church. Eventually I expect we could create a genealogical evolutionary tree of all churches.

A Scientific Inquiry into the Origin of Churches: Missing Links?
A church that breaks away from the fold, could be compared to a new species forming, where suddenly there is no interaction accepted between the original species of church and the new one. For this, we might need a theory that explains the origin of new churches. I would like to call it "the Religious Theory of Evolution", and ideally it would be done by a scientist publishing a book called "On the Origin of New Churches". I would also like an answer as to why there seem to be no "missing links" between churches in the fossil record. It seems almost impossible that one church would suddenly change into another without any transitional forms ever being discovered.

Natural Selection of Churches and the Survival of the Fittest
Another part of the theory would need to explain why some churches go extinct and some thrive. This is where the ideas of "Survival of the Fittest Churches" and "Natural Selection of Churches" come into play. Any church that has beliefs too restrictive, will obviously die out. Any church having beliefs that are too loose will break apart. Any church that discovers a good way of spreading and gaining adherents will have an advantage. Over the years, some of these methods of gaining converts have included using communication such as speech, the printing press, radio or today, even TV. Religions often grow with high birth rates, and indoctrinating children at an early age. Converts have been gained by the sword, and death threats, and promises of salvation and fellowship. Methods of keeping members from drifting away include threats of hell, threats of excommunication (i.e. burning alive), economic sanctions, public shunning, or kidnapping of children. Some churches grow quickly because they have a message that fills a need in society, such as the original Christians who filled a human need for peace and non violence during the times of the Roman Empire, or the Evangelical family of churches in the southern USA that filled a need for guilt-free violence and domination in the slave states of the southern USA.

Carbon Dating Fossilized Churches
You could actually date some churches by their beliefs, for example most southern Christian churches evolved between 1650 and 1860. This was the time when it was well known that the Earth moved around the sun, but it was not known that species evolved. So all these churches, naturally interpret their bible to take Genesis and Adam and Eve as the literal truth, but the part of the bible that says "the earth does not move" is taken poetically. This era could be called the "European Slavery Era" in a similar way to geologists naming the Jurassic Era, while archaeologists find which species evolved during that time.

There were also other eras, such as the Roman Empire, the Egyptian Empire, Cave Man, Neanderthals, Homo Erectus, and even earlier. We don't know much about religion in the older ones, but the first religion we know seems to date back at least 5,000 years.

Biodiversity of Churches, or Preservation of Favoured Churches in the Struggle for Membership
One of the most Biodiverse areas on Earth for religions is known as the "Bible Belt" in the southern USA. This area is the equivalent of the Amazon Rainforest for encouraging new species of churches.

On the naming of new churches. Churches do not seem to name themselves to indicate their origins or their beliefs. We will probably need to come up with a suitable scientific name for each new church, in Latin.

Just to give you an idea of the diversity of Churches, here are only the Churches starting with "F" in Omaha Nebraska.

Faith Christian Church - Saved through God's Grace
Faith Presbyterian Church
FaithWestwood United Methodist Church
Faithful Shepherd Presybyterian Church
First Baptist Church of ....
First Central Congregational Church - "God is Still Speaking"
First Christian Church
First Covenant Church
First Presbyterian Church
First United Methodist Church
Florence Christian Church - May God's Grace be with you
Fort Street Christian Church - At the Crossroads of Life
Fort Street Church of Christ
Freedom Christian Fellowship Church

Here are some websites discussing Church naming practices.


The Origin of Spirituality
And finally (for now) the origin of religion. We can assume that all religion gradually evolved from earlier religions, and we can then assume that this can all be traced back the the earliest religion, some proto-religion that was created out of a primordial soup of random thoughts and knee-jerk reflexes. But so far, researchers have not been able to create a viable religion in a laboratory setting. Yes, they have been able to program computers to simulate religion, by outputting hundreds of religious opinions in mere seconds, while simultaneously blocking all data input to the contrary. But they always had to be programmed to do that. So we will have to assume that one day, a computer spontaneously starts a religion all by itself.