I’m not so sure - I mean, we nowadays have Science to answer a lot of the questions religions used to. So* without the example of other religions*, why would people start new ones?
I don’t feel bodies of tradition do much restraining of the crazy in any current religions. Quite the opposite, in fact.
To explain the things science can’t.
Sure, why not? What little good they do through charity is dwarfed by the gargantuan amounts of strife and misery they cause. Some French guy, I think, said we’d never be free til the last king is strangled with the guts of the last priest. I expect he was right.
You reminded me—Margaret Atwood’s novel Oryx and Crake is about a mad scientist who genetically engineers a designer version of the human race that runs off of purely animalistic instincts, and he specifically engineers them to eliminate all religion programming. Then he wipes out the entire human race (himself included), accidentally leaving only one survivor of original humanity, who leads the genetically engineered humanoids out of their artificial environment into the wild. Then he goes away on a trip. Comes back a month later only to find the replacement people had built an effigy of him and were praying to it. :smack:
Boy, I donno. Probably. What scares me is the question that the religious ask the rest of us. Basically “What keeps you from doing harm, killing your neighbor, raping and pillaging”? “Umm. Good manners”?
Their fear of God is what keeps them in ‘check’? That scares me. Crazyness.
But, but ,but… the number of people killed in the name of religion is in the tens of millions. It goes on at a personal singular level, and a genocide level. And they say that religion is keeping them ‘good’?
In a perfect world - yes; in this world - what’s the point?
As soon as that void is created, some other whack-job will fill it. Cults of personality would just evolve into religions anyway – like that Oryx and Crake thing. Within a hundred years we’d be well on our way to right back where we started.
What questions would people suddenly start asking, now, absent religion, that Science doesn’t have answers for? Concrete examples, I mean. I’m struggling to think of what sort of thing you mean.
Remembering that there wouldn’t even be the concept of a soul, as that’s religious, what would cause anyone to come up with one out of whole cloth? And without the concept of a soul, what kind of questions are going to be asked, that Science can’t explain (not explain correctly, you understand. Just explain.) Science can explain Love, the origin of the Universe, what happens when we die, all the big stuff. So what, exactly, do you mean.
Absinthe, I know you’re new here and I’m not trying to junior mod, but just as a head’s up… we’re not allowed to throw out accusations of trolling in any forum but the Pit. Just so you know.
I think the big danger would be that a well spoken charismatic leader would come along on a regular basis and be able to convice the masses that his logic and his methods were best for mankind. Most humans who have a strong faith in a higher power have limits to the amount of faith they will put in another human.
Don’t worry about feeling like a junior mod; I appreciate the heads up. 
My apologies to the OP, I’m sure they aren’t intentionally setting troll bait, but IMHO, that question begs people to attack religion and prompts others to defend it.
While I do sometimes enjoy discussing the merits and pitfalls of both theism and atheism, these conversation usually lead nowhere.
It depends on your definition of “religion”. Do I get to eliminate communism and PETA also? If so, I would be strongly tempted. If not, I would probably leave the theists alone.
No. I don’t have the right.
Why are we here? Why am I unhappy? Why did my loved one die? Why is there evil? Is there a meaning or purpose to life? What happens when I die?
There are millions more questions that are beyond the scope of science. You may have your own answers, but they may be unsatisfying to others, who will continue to ask until they come up with the foma that make them brave and kind and healthy and happy.
To rid the world of religion by a simple click of my fingers would be nothing more than magic. If we have to resort to magic, rather than reasoning discourse, then we’re no better than the most mystical of theists.
I said no. Because new religions are being created every day, all crazier than the old ones. Imagine if all the new nuts had no established faiths to compete with.
I’d do it without a seconds hesitation, rid the world of the horrible parasite that is religion? In a heartbeat
Of course I would eliminate religion at once. Because I know what’s best for humanity, and anyone with a shred of intelligence will realize that I am right – so of course anyone who disagrees is too stupid for their opinions to matter!
No, because how exactly would this be any different than Christians (or anyone else) telling you that you are required to believe what they believe and trying to dictate, through force of law or otherwise, your life to you? It’s presumptuous and an exercise in lording power over someone.
There’s a reason why I believe proselytizing is immoral. It doesn’t matter which belief system you’re proselytizing for. No one can possibly know “what’s best” for someone they’ve never even met.
I don’t believe that it would be a matter of good or bad or even morality as much as it would just having faith that things happen for a reason, some decisions are just too big and the consequences to far reaching for man to make. If we deny we have a spirit it is a small step to say all animals and bugs are on the same level. When a group of bugs gets on our nerves how do we handle it? I can easily envision a society where genocide could be considered a management tool.
I took the OP to mean the whole idea of religion itself would be a foreign concept. Therefore, no new religions popping up after said finger clicking. And there would be no memory or history of religion as well because the idea never occurred to us in the first place.
Which is why I voted yes.