Organized religion is just a result of humans trying to add meaning to life by relying on divine intercession. This led to a very large case of mass dillusionment. Here goes: I assume that evil people go to hell. Also that the “inn-keeper” of hell (The Devil) is all evil. Would not The Devil and hell-bound humans enjoy hell. Beings who are pure evil (completely lacking of the good stuff) should enjoy an eternity of torture and no hotdogs. Now, if they do not enjoy it and there is a small nugget of purity, they do not deserve to be in hell. Because in that little white nugget of purity, salvation can be found. In conclusion, if hell exists then by definition of it and it’s occupants it is a good place. If you do not agree with that then that means that you believe that a being’s salvation should be flushed down the toilet because they are not perfect. They did not create themselves. God did; in his image. Therefore hell is not the answer. This is just one of the inconsistencies I find with organized religion. But I know a little about it and am forced to play devil’s advocate and shortly believe some creeds to show others and my self from time to time that the way of the masses is not always right. Questioning and the middle path is the correct path in life. You are your own light.
Man…you’re going to hell…
Just kidding. Hell is a fairy tale.
Uhm… where’s the debate? Other than stirring up the usual “there is no God” boilerplate, I mean.
As an atheist, I agree entirely that organized religion is unnecessary, but I still think the godless crowd should give the theist’s credit when credit is deserved. The credit they merit now? They hold a belief that is cunning, complex, powerful, and sometimes sensible. Personally, I think you’re oversimplifying matters.
Firstly, I think you are making an error by equating ‘evil’ with ‘masochism’ (pleasure obtained from receiving punishment). Just because someone is worthy of a trip to hell doesn’t necessarily mean they are going to enjoy their new home. Besides, I think deities as powerful as god and satan could make the most awful place in the cosmos uncomfortable to even those who revel in pain.
Secondly, religion is ambiguous, I know, but I always thought that you only needed a single sin on your soul to warrant the company of the devil. I’m sure those who are pure evil end up in the underworld, but I think selection is a bit broader than that. If you lived a life denying god and breaking his rules, you’ll be sent to satan.
As for the nugget of purity deal, god gave man free-will, and it’s up to worldly mortals to embrace the ‘truth’ themselves.
Just my thought’s on the matter and, yes, I do feel like a traitor 
Funny you should bring this all up; my organised religion doesn’t concern itself overly with fretting about nuggets of purity and who is saved and who might not be; there’s no time for that and too much useful work to be done.
Organized religion IMO is far outdated in it’s capacity to keep people alive, motivated, educated … and a whole host of others.
Capitolism has taken over organized religion, but even still, you have an annual multi - trillion dollar corperate entity at stake.
There is no capitolist I know of who would use their economic training to bombard organized religion (even if they believed it sucks and is full of hot air). We have other solutions, more advanced indentured systems that have been constrcted - but these get relegated much the same way regenerative energy gets relegated, it puts all the names in a bag and shakes them up in terms of how the new wealth is distibuted. Those who are wealthy, are for the most part, scientists of human determinism, and not likely to be the gambling sort with their lifestyles.
Quite simply, at this stage in the game … attacking organized religion costs instability (aka. money). I do not see it lasting long in an information age. I would just toss out a figure of 300 years for it to have been wholly dissapated within the entire population.
I do not think there will be theists or deists at that point.
-Justhink
First of all, religion will never be dissapated, because everyone believes, on one level or another, in something indestructible in themself. This is an individual thing, and even in the absence of historical religions the idea of a higher power would persist. The funny thing is, the more we learn, the more we know how much we do not know. As society advances, so will our unanswered questions grow, and so will our humility increase. Our collective humility will allow even the most arrogant to accept that there must be something above us, something higher than our still-unexplained existence. Some of us will seek for this higher power and find its presence in their lives. I believe that there will be a great awakening to this power, and the birth of a new global religion. So in a way, current organized religions will be gone, but replaced with a religion that better describes what people will believe about god.
'ere, go easy on the “everyone”. I for one believe when I go, I go. And there are others like me. If everyone was like me, there’d be no “global religion” such as you suggest. So don’t be so quick to assume everyone has this belief in persistence.
Said the skeptic to Gutenberg. 
This does rather seem to assume that the non-existence of god(s) is an inescapable conclusion for humanity.
Interesting conclusion. But two questions:
(a) Are people who do enjoy organized religion still free to participate, or are you intending to issue ukases about what cannot be done?
(b) Are we supposed to ignore the many errors of fact or belief in the premises that lead you to that conclusion?
I, for one, believe no such thing. Perhaps it would have been better to use the word “many”, rather than “everyone”.
**
OK, I’ll buy that one.
**
Why would you assume this? Is a prison warden evil simply because he presides over a place where (presumably) evil people are incarcerated? Why not assume that the “inn-keeper” is an angel - a celestial automoton who does his job. Or even better, why not assume that God is the “inn-keeper?”
**
This is the weakest statement of your argument. Why do you assume evil people love torture. If you took Hitler and put him on the rack, do you think he would have enjoyed it?
Alternatively, (if you don’t wish to equate Hell with physical pain) why not assume that once arriving in the afterlife, the evildoers see the reward that awaits the righteous and are now tormented over the fact that they lost this oppurtunity?
**
If hell = physical pain, your argument is meaningless. Physical pain will affect anyone, whether good or evil
If hell != phyiscal pain, why do you assume that someone is either all evil or all good. Why assume that someone who is 99% evil and 1% good is un-hellworthy? Likewise, why assume that someone who is 99% good and 1% evil is un-heavenworthy?
**
See my comments above.
**
That’s correct. Why do you assume that all orgainzed religion believes that?
Why not evision an afterlife where people are punished for the evil they do in this world and rewarded for the good they do?
Zev Steinhardt
—First of all, religion will never be dissapated, because everyone believes, on one level or another, in something indestructible in themself.—
This sounds like dishonest rhetoric: the “everyone believes this, even if they say they don’t, because I know deep down in their hearts what they REALLY think but are too (arrogant, scared, stupid, etc.) to admit”
—This is an individual thing, and even in the absence of historical religions the idea of a higher power would persist. The funny thing is, the more we learn, the more we know how much we do not know. As society advances, so will our unanswered questions grow, and so will our humility increase.—
And so, this increasing ignorance will make more more and certain your particular grand conclusions? I’ve never seen how this argument follows: greater knowledge of how little we know… equals more and more assurity for a PARTICULAR ideology (which just so happens to be the one you support).
—Our collective humility will allow even the most arrogant to accept that there must be something above us, something higher than our still-unexplained existence.—
This is another standard form the stable of dishonest rhetoric. Call others “arrogant” because they refuse to make the same conclusions as you.
Of course, this is completely out of sync with the very idea of “arrogance” in which it is only those that make CLAIMS that have the potential for arrogance, not vice-versa. How can somone possibly be called arrogant for NOT making extreme claims about the ultimate nature of reality?
But the dishonesty of this charge is even worse than that, because it trades on equivocation of concepts like “higher” and “above” in an attempt to slander people by tangentially accusing them of being so self-centered that they refuse to accept that there could be anything better than them. But of course, plenty of atheists consider many many things to be better than them (usually those things they actually know about and can think about). Plenty are even open to the possibility that there could be beings superior to humans in many or all respects.
No doubt Nighttime knows that, and knows that an honest charge of arrogance cannot be made: hence the rhetoric.
—Some of us will seek for this higher power and find its presence in their lives.—
Notice how the extremely vague nature of a “higher power” makes it more difficult to notice that this is an assumption about a particular SORT of entity that Nighttime believes exists?
—I believe that there will be a great awakening to this power, and the birth of a new global religion. So in a way, current organized religions will be gone, but replaced with a religion that better describes what people will believe about god.—
That’s pretty presumptuous: to assume that the present religions are somehow deficient in their understanding of god.
I personally see no reason for religion to go away, any more than dancing. It is a popular and vital cultural and psychological tradition that people sincerely believe in, pass on to their children, and feel enhances their lives.
Quite simply, at this stage in the game … attacking organized religion costs instability (aka. money). I do not see it lasting long in an information age. I would just toss out a figure of 300 years for it to have been wholly dissapated within the entire population.
I do not think there will be theists or deists at that point.
Does anyone have stats on how organized religion has been doing worldwide in, say, the last hundred years? I’m pretty sure it’s been declining in the West, but what about elsewhere? I thought Islam and to some degree Christianity were growing.
Also, why do some people assume that “information” equals wisdom, and that it will automatically destroy all non-scientific “superstition”? It seems like an ungrounded assumption.
The same can be said for people suffering from paranoia; should we give them credit for “hold[ing] a belief that is cunning, complex, powerful, and sometimes sensible” too?
(Me, I pray for an end to religion. 
)
Amen to that.
Most Christians would agree, rjung, and I think Jews as well. “For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face.” “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Or in short, when Jesus comes back, he’ll put an end to religion.)
Your point has been noted, and I’ll make emends. I think theist’s should be given credit for holding a belief that is… Hell, I can’t find a phrase I like that would put a theist’s faith into a separate category from a paranoid’s delusions. (I think this is because they’re damn near identical, but I felt the need to point out to the thread starter that religious dogma is more impervious to logical assault than one might originally think).
Oh well, that’s what I get for trying to be moderate.
I don’t consider this to be an assumption. I’m convinced that I can convince anybody on earth that God does not exist, or that if God exists, God is either an undesirable or meaningless entity. I am under the impression that people will not deny logic, given the opportunity for exposure to it.
It really depends on the skill of the individual, who can convert who to what idea. I cannot fathom how a deist could win this argument or the loyalty of a subject against myself unless they threaten the family, life of the individual or bribe them with money.
Actually, I consider that to be an issue … I would prefer to understand humanity well enough to convince someone against these aspects of coersion (to some extent, I do understand this as well), though, there is nothing compelling to me logically towards using these techniques to ‘win’.
When peer pressure moves towards logic, (globally) deism will be dissapated IMO. Religion IMO is in a counter-intelligence stage, and is aknowledged by many as being so. While a few generations may still enjoy the pleasures of disinformation; an extension of this will not be viable in an information age, like the one currently under way. All that need occur, is for the camera to be pointed in a different direction… I do not see that happening for quite some time.
I think that it is easier to show that God does not exist, to a deist, than that the earth is an elliptical sphere to a present day flat-earther; simply because the arguments involved are that much closer to the base of a decompiled indentured system.
Conversion is self - explanitory … anyone can be converted to any idea. Even without outside force or restraint, the saying “force yourself to the action and the feeling will follow” holds exceedingly strong for human beings. I am 100% positive that in a decades work, I could be an adherent of any religion you pick out of a hat… that just requires simple memory delete mechanisms being installed. People don’t tend to acknowledge the science of manipulating the entire emotional body and logical structure of a human being… how easily determined conditions can turn you into the person you most despise right now (in the hands of someone knowlwedgable in these processes). The question becomes, which ideas have the strongest resistance to de-conversion?
-Justhink