Aye, lad, me thinks the world 'ud be a right better place. As to the argument that it would rob us of art and culture, there's plenty more to inspire people in nature and whatnot, plus I think the gains in other fields, such as science, would make up for this.
Poll: Would the world be a better place without religion?
- Thread starter Serious_Stalin
- Start date
Recommended Videos
Without religion, there would be no mockery of religion. There would still be war, famine, plagues, unjust killings, corruption, ignorance and sham charities trying to guilt money out of people. But there would be no religious mockery. I, for one, won't stand for a world in which I cannot incessantly mock my fellow man for his belief in an invisible man in the sky.
As many other posters have said, extremism is the problem, religion is a positive thing. The problem with religion is that it's used in order to promote a personal/political cause. The crusades are a great example. It was a huge political move by religious leaders to try to enlarge their sphere of influence, make them more powerful. They used religion as a poster to recruit soldiers and make war seem righteous.
In my opinion, religion itself is not a problem, the way it is implemented is. I myself am a staunch atheist, but I have no problems with people who are spiritual. It is when people use religion as a tool of manipulation that problems arise. People hide behind religion as a way of excusing the most horrendous acts. Just this week, two men were arrested in Australia were arrested for taking advantage of their position in the Greek Orthodox church, pretending to cure a woman of a curse by sexually assaulting her and charging her over 70k to do it.
I also object to the way the church preaches one thing, then practices another. Christianity is based on the idea of acceptance, yet excludes anyone who they deem to be immoral such as homosexuals. What does a person's sexuality have to do with religion? Why should they be excluded, even if they live a good, moral life? It seems that religion nowadays is more about separating us from them, then the preachings of love and acceptance. It becomes a barrier against the amalgamation of peoples, rather then a way of bringing them together. The battle between the west and the middle east has it's roots in ideology. Ideology that stems from religion.
In America, you can see how religion is used as a political tool to manipulate people. They take advantage of people's innocent religious beliefs and uses it to manipulate and control. In a country that prides itself on being 'leader of the free world' and a secular state, I am seeing little of either.
I do not believe that wars are caused by religion, they are caused by people. But without religion, they are no longer able to hide behind it as an excuse to show that they are on the "right" side, and that it was part of "god's plan" (Sarah Palin's reasoning for Iraq).
Edit: Religion has also been used, and is still used as a way of asserting male superiority over women, something that is blatantly false and unfair.
I also object to the way the church preaches one thing, then practices another. Christianity is based on the idea of acceptance, yet excludes anyone who they deem to be immoral such as homosexuals. What does a person's sexuality have to do with religion? Why should they be excluded, even if they live a good, moral life? It seems that religion nowadays is more about separating us from them, then the preachings of love and acceptance. It becomes a barrier against the amalgamation of peoples, rather then a way of bringing them together. The battle between the west and the middle east has it's roots in ideology. Ideology that stems from religion.
In America, you can see how religion is used as a political tool to manipulate people. They take advantage of people's innocent religious beliefs and uses it to manipulate and control. In a country that prides itself on being 'leader of the free world' and a secular state, I am seeing little of either.
I do not believe that wars are caused by religion, they are caused by people. But without religion, they are no longer able to hide behind it as an excuse to show that they are on the "right" side, and that it was part of "god's plan" (Sarah Palin's reasoning for Iraq).
Edit: Religion has also been used, and is still used as a way of asserting male superiority over women, something that is blatantly false and unfair.
I would say that while humanity would be better off without religion, It's just not possible. Even if you remove deity based belief structures such as christianity or islam, people will just find something else to turn into a religion. Just look at what happened to socialism, or oprah for that matter.
In my eyes, a devoted trekkie and a devout christian are the same type of person. They have both deified an allegorical work of ficton. Both canons have significant inconsistancies, and violate several accepted laws of nature, explaining them away with ("my god can do anything", or "in the far future we can do anything"). But that doesn't stop people from dressing up as klingons or murdering their neighbors as part of a sanctioned mob*.
The main difference, is that at least the people obsessed with buffy or stargate know that their idolized story is fake (at least, most of them). Religions tend to have real historical figures(though exagerated), several centuries of intertia and tradition, not to mention a variety of brainwashing during childhood, to back them up. somewhere between the two are cults and fad beliefs, which tend to have a veneer of history and tend to be the refuge of those people who would be willing to believe in a more mainstream religion but were unable to suspend disbelief for the one they were born into.
I would say that religions stem from two basic human factors. The fear of the unknown, and a form of behavioral inertia. On a very basic level, it is impossible for any one person to understand everything around them, even if all the information were available. Because of this humans make assumptions such as, the sun will rise tomorrow. But if you dont know much about the sun, you might wonder why, or even whether the sun would come up. Thoughts like that scared the hell out of our ancestors, so they filled in the blanks. A higher being must ensure the sunrise they decided, and religion was born. Which worked for a while, untill someone wondered whether that god would continue to ensure the sunrise, so they filled in the blanks again. the god must require nurishment in the form of sacrifice of resources or certain behaviors. So they began sacrificing and praying, etc, etc, etc, present day.
As you might expect from the results, once you get into the habit of explaining away scary unknowns and doubts with religion, it gets pretty hard to break the addiction. And if someone comes up with a contradictory explanation, the only way stop up the leaks it pokes in your dam is to either make your own religion more complex to explain the inconsistency, or to just kill the heretic before he causes irreparable damage (astronomers burning at the stake comes to mind).
A successor to religion is education which replaces the doubt with real knowledge instead of assumption.
Saddly, modern religions have grown so complex and all encompassing in their explanations, that every time a new bit of knowledge is discovered by humanity, it pulls another piece out of their Jenga tower of assumptions, threatening to cause the whole thing to keel over. And that would uncover the REALLY SCARY unknowns, like why are we here, what happens when we die, and what is stopping our neighbors from killing us in our sleep.
The end result of all this being that many religious groups treat knowledge like an enemy. And if we let them win and, stop learning where we are now, its only a matter of time before some cataclysm wipes us from the face of the universe.
If humanity is every going to survive as a species in the long term, religious groups are going to have to come to terms with the fact that their explanations of physical reality aren't needed anymore. because we now understand that the age of the world closer to 4.5 billion years than either eternal or only 6000. They should limit themselves once again to things that are currently beyond understanding, and stop slowing us down
*(several catholic saints as well as the founders of the protestant branch [ie Martin Luther] are documented as having lead pogroms to purge(murder) nonbelievers. Not to mention that strange obsession with witches who not only never existed outside of folklore but also are never mentioned in the original christian holy texts at all [the word that is commonly translated to mean "witch" actually meaning "sorceror" in both hebrew and the later greek texts].)
In my eyes, a devoted trekkie and a devout christian are the same type of person. They have both deified an allegorical work of ficton. Both canons have significant inconsistancies, and violate several accepted laws of nature, explaining them away with ("my god can do anything", or "in the far future we can do anything"). But that doesn't stop people from dressing up as klingons or murdering their neighbors as part of a sanctioned mob*.
The main difference, is that at least the people obsessed with buffy or stargate know that their idolized story is fake (at least, most of them). Religions tend to have real historical figures(though exagerated), several centuries of intertia and tradition, not to mention a variety of brainwashing during childhood, to back them up. somewhere between the two are cults and fad beliefs, which tend to have a veneer of history and tend to be the refuge of those people who would be willing to believe in a more mainstream religion but were unable to suspend disbelief for the one they were born into.
I would say that religions stem from two basic human factors. The fear of the unknown, and a form of behavioral inertia. On a very basic level, it is impossible for any one person to understand everything around them, even if all the information were available. Because of this humans make assumptions such as, the sun will rise tomorrow. But if you dont know much about the sun, you might wonder why, or even whether the sun would come up. Thoughts like that scared the hell out of our ancestors, so they filled in the blanks. A higher being must ensure the sunrise they decided, and religion was born. Which worked for a while, untill someone wondered whether that god would continue to ensure the sunrise, so they filled in the blanks again. the god must require nurishment in the form of sacrifice of resources or certain behaviors. So they began sacrificing and praying, etc, etc, etc, present day.
As you might expect from the results, once you get into the habit of explaining away scary unknowns and doubts with religion, it gets pretty hard to break the addiction. And if someone comes up with a contradictory explanation, the only way stop up the leaks it pokes in your dam is to either make your own religion more complex to explain the inconsistency, or to just kill the heretic before he causes irreparable damage (astronomers burning at the stake comes to mind).
A successor to religion is education which replaces the doubt with real knowledge instead of assumption.
Saddly, modern religions have grown so complex and all encompassing in their explanations, that every time a new bit of knowledge is discovered by humanity, it pulls another piece out of their Jenga tower of assumptions, threatening to cause the whole thing to keel over. And that would uncover the REALLY SCARY unknowns, like why are we here, what happens when we die, and what is stopping our neighbors from killing us in our sleep.
The end result of all this being that many religious groups treat knowledge like an enemy. And if we let them win and, stop learning where we are now, its only a matter of time before some cataclysm wipes us from the face of the universe.
If humanity is every going to survive as a species in the long term, religious groups are going to have to come to terms with the fact that their explanations of physical reality aren't needed anymore. because we now understand that the age of the world closer to 4.5 billion years than either eternal or only 6000. They should limit themselves once again to things that are currently beyond understanding, and stop slowing us down
*(several catholic saints as well as the founders of the protestant branch [ie Martin Luther] are documented as having lead pogroms to purge(murder) nonbelievers. Not to mention that strange obsession with witches who not only never existed outside of folklore but also are never mentioned in the original christian holy texts at all [the word that is commonly translated to mean "witch" actually meaning "sorceror" in both hebrew and the later greek texts].)
Maybe not so much today, but way back when, religion used to keep people in line. Give them a purpose, stop them from committing crimes, help them respect others, etc. etc. etc..
Of course, when you add all the bullshit (whether for your own reasons or not), such as intolerance of other religions, homophobia, restrictions and so on, then it becomes a lot more blurry.
I vote no, for the simple reason of the past.
Of course, when you add all the bullshit (whether for your own reasons or not), such as intolerance of other religions, homophobia, restrictions and so on, then it becomes a lot more blurry.
I vote no, for the simple reason of the past.
I think the world would be a better place without multiple religions, because then, people wouldn't be killing each other over who was right.
Yes people need religion and not in the way you expect. It gives people morals to live by and the concept of hell alone is enough to keep people from 'sinning'. Think how many laws today are based on the ten commandments.
oh and btw, in response to some people's statements about the middle east and resources...
yes those wars are economic in nature, but the economic problems are being caused in large part by religion...
The only reason that the middle east/north africa/northeast africa are currently having all there current economic and agricultural problems. Is because of an institutionalized ignorance supported by an all encompassing religious system run by people who were raised to strictly follow archaic traditions.
If you look at the most developed nations in the area, they are also the most secular like turkey. Then look at the most theocratic, afghanistan(under the taliban), somalia, sudan.
This whole region was once the pride of world civilization, for over 10,000 years they were the most advanced and prosperous peoples on earth. These are the people who invented metal, bricks and the wheel.
then all of a sudden they stopped, and then started moving backwards. In much the same way that end of roman expansion in europe came before the dark ages. The end of the ottoman expansion began a dark age for the middle east.
I would even say that the dark age of the islamic world is going to be much briefer than the christian one. It was 1000 years before the labor shortage from the bubonic plague and military threats from outside ended the medieval period in europe. whereas the middle east is being yanked up (slowly) by their bootstraps by the outside world.
yes those wars are economic in nature, but the economic problems are being caused in large part by religion...
The only reason that the middle east/north africa/northeast africa are currently having all there current economic and agricultural problems. Is because of an institutionalized ignorance supported by an all encompassing religious system run by people who were raised to strictly follow archaic traditions.
If you look at the most developed nations in the area, they are also the most secular like turkey. Then look at the most theocratic, afghanistan(under the taliban), somalia, sudan.
This whole region was once the pride of world civilization, for over 10,000 years they were the most advanced and prosperous peoples on earth. These are the people who invented metal, bricks and the wheel.
then all of a sudden they stopped, and then started moving backwards. In much the same way that end of roman expansion in europe came before the dark ages. The end of the ottoman expansion began a dark age for the middle east.
I would even say that the dark age of the islamic world is going to be much briefer than the christian one. It was 1000 years before the labor shortage from the bubonic plague and military threats from outside ended the medieval period in europe. whereas the middle east is being yanked up (slowly) by their bootstraps by the outside world.
I think its like anything in life if you have to much its a bad thing.Like religion is fine when you dont go overbored and just use it as an excuse for killing.
When I say culture, I mean distinctly artistic cultures. I'm pretty confident that many of the barbarian tribes that helped ruin Rome were athiestic, but still had a culture of their own. But they were considered 'uncivilized' because they didn't value art, literature, or anything of the sort. They were military and agricultural in nature, and that is what they valued.Eggo post=18.71618.731638 said:
The Hindu athiest does provide a good example, I don't see reasoning to show that early Hindu cultural arts (art, literature, etc) was not religious. I'm understanding that there are plenty of culturally active athiests, but my point is being that religion sparked early artistic cultural works (like painting and literature).
I'm not saying athiest people are devoid of creative ability, I'm just saying that artistry is in the most part, an expression of the self, what I would consider the soul. And early cultures based their art (and most of all early literature) on religious subject matters.
I'm very aware of athiests being creative people now-a-days. I'm not a Buddhist artist, in fact, the only things influenced by Buddhism that I partake in are the martial arts and I have some statues in my room. My drawings vary from modern individuals to ancient warriors from Greece and Japan. My music is Hip Hop about rapping and dropping lines. My death metal lyrics are about fury, rage, honor, chaos, and the like (mostly very not-Buddhist stuff). I dance to music about partying, getting drunk, and fuckin'.
I personally don't let religion dictate how I express myself, but I still feel I am expressing my soul through these things.
And my arguement isn't saying that early artwork due to God using people as a medium or something. I'm just saying that religion helped advance what we consider human art and culture to where it is today.
Edit: And to your first statement. That's not the point I'm trying to get across. I'm not saying religion is the reason for the development of human society as a whole. I'm quite sure without it we would be just peachy in technological and survival terms. I'm talking strictly about the early art, literature, dance, music, and stuff like that.
Religion is just a fancy way of trying to teaching people morals and values and make them fall in line with some societal norm. You don't need ten commandments to make a list of shit that you probably shouldn't do. You don't need religion to dictate right and wrong.Soulfein post=18.71618.731043 said:
Religion is well-intentioned in this respect but ultimately does nothing but propagate a total lack of accountability (in most cases). People are taught through religion that everything is in the hands of some mystical entity(ies) and that they are more or less just along for the ride, though they should certainly try to appease said entity(ies) to make themselves seem like more worthy and deserving followers. Good things happen because your god(s) like you and bad things happen because the bad god(s) are just bad and they like to make people miserable.
Getting people to be nice by telling them god will like them more if they are is like giving your dog a treat for not shitting on the rug.
You assume atheists have no sense of self? If anything, the complete opposite is likely true as athiests have nothing but a sense of self. Their outlook is not being filtered through someone elses point of view. Atheists defy the existence of gods and the organization of religions to worship them, not their inner self or even the general notion spirituality.Ares Tyr post=18.71618.731681 said:
Most, not all. I never said Religion was always and completely 100% negative, but it is certainly not something which is beneficial by virtue of its very existence; nor is it necessary to accomplish many of the ends it strives towards in so far as instilling people with a certain set of values.Ares Tyr post=18.71618.731692 said:
I think the main reason for the existence of Religion is simply the human desire to be part of something larger than themselves. People hate to think they're alone, and they hate to consider things which are unknown to them. That is basically how religion was invented, simply as a means of explaining things which people, at the time, had no way of explaining. We've come as far as knowing that the sun or moon is not actually the celestial conveyance of a god, though we still aren't exactly sure what happens when we die.