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Dogmatic pseudo-philosophies (right now, primarily the Abrahamic religions) necessarily evolve into a "god of the gaps" as knowledge increases. In such a situation they are like a powerful animal cornered that naturally falls back on its main strength. And that, at this particular moment in human history, seems to be coercion by brute force rather than reasoned argument. In that way and by some standards they can be said to be regressing. By other standards they might be seen as returning to "original" principals. If science and reason keep pushing them into a continually narrowing corner, well then those are the things to attack.
I love to imagine (without much corroborating evidence) that in a few generations our species will look back on our condition as we do that of the European dark ages -- as ruled by bloody tribes obsessed with superstition and bound by ignorance. It could well go the other way if the cornered animal succeeds in striking out in desperation as when Islam effectively turned back on itself and crippled its nascent move toward rationalism.
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Why does religion persist? - a question every atheist must struggle with. Suggested answers: (1) parents get first shot at programming kids; (2) orthodox of all faiths have high birth rates; (3) MUCH more money is behind religion in the US (vast array of religious TV channels); (4) while there can be no official state religion, the US govt. is not prohobited from acting AS IF there were a state religion, which it does. Until there's a critical mass of openly secular politicians, nothing will change.
To one degree or another, religion has styled itself as absolute, the truth complete within itself and neither needing nor desirous of change. Yet, as the others here have observed, it HAS changed, I suspect less because it wanted to than because it HAD to, because the realities which arose out of man's growth, learning, and development made a lie of the supposedly adamantine assertions made by assorted representatives of assorted churches. When one considers that the vast majority of assertions and dogma which religions base themselves on have NO foundation in verifiable fact, that these supposedly immovable objects DO eventually move is not surprising, any more than it's surprising that they fight against the agents which ultimately move them.
When religions no longer represent themselves as absolute, I suspect they will no longer be religions.
Little of that technology and science has penetrated this part of Nebraska. (No button pushing to cook - we turn knobs. Our streets are dirt. We have no cellular service, and our telephones still have dials. We only got emergency 911 calling last year.)
You must live in a first world part of the country. :)
Has religion evolved? That depends on what you mean by evolved. Christianity is certainly not the same critter it was in the II Century, or the Middle Ages, or the Protestant Reformation, or XIX Dominionism. So, if evolution is defined as adaption to a changing environment, then yes it has evolved.
That is not to say it keeps up with science. Or that its morality or dogma is any better than it used to be.
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