Religion

"Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud" by Peter Watson

It is a real slog to get through, but in the end it is roughly one of his conclusions. We've advanced in many ways over the centuries and created alot of ideas that have grown and matured. The one idea that has remained relatively stagnant over that period is that of spirituality in all its forms. We keep re-inventing concepts over and over, regularly changing names, or merging ideas together in new combinations. But fundamentally each generation just co-opts the aspects they need or want and effectively "start over".

It's actually what leads to alot of people moving away from their various organized religions during their lives. At some point they are having the same discussions over and over, reading the same basic texts, and coming to the same conclusions. It is especially true with parents whose involvement is predominately for the purpose of raising children with some sense of a moral set of guidelines. Once the children are gone, the church has diminished purpose for them, and they often find themselves on the "outside" of the community as a new generation joins to raise their children.

Much of this phenomenon is because an awful lot of religion and spirituality is about the unknowable. Many religions and other spiritual concepts rely heavily upon the concept of faith of the unknowable. The nature of God, the after life (if there is such a thing), and other related concepts are often presented as unknowable or undetectable. Feynman would explain that in science, we don't spend alot of time thinking or working on concepts that can't be known. There's really no point. But people are fascinate by these questions, and have been for at least as long as there has been language. But because the answers are "unknowable", there will be this lack of growth because there is no knowledge upon which to build. Thus the static nature of spirituality over the millennia.