Would the World be better of if there was no Religion?

Great Debates
1

OK, allow me to set some disclaimers in what will surely could get way out of control and defeat the point of this question. I am an atheist, and can truly say I believe strongly in Evolution and I suspect their is more life out there. IMHO there was no great being who intervened and created us in his image. However I respect other peoples right to live as they see fit, and hope that my children will discover for themselves how they elect to frame their own beliefs later in life…

Now on to the point of my question.

I have served in the Gulf, and in Israel as a member of UN Military operations and as such have witnessed the trials, hostilities and fanatacism that is in my opinion an extension of religous values. I can say that I truly believe that at this day their are several ‘Crusades’ still actively taking place all in the name of some god or another and with his blessing.

Some examples that I feel support this, and or targets for you to attack to tear down my opinion.

Al Qaeda: Not only are they referred to as terrorists, but also in academic and theological circles as Muslim extremeists. If the later is true then I pose this question, ‘What kind of god would so actively seek the death of other non-combatants?’ What kind of god would welcome suicide killers to his bosum with a reward of numerous virgins in the afterlife?

Israel: During my time in Israel it was my opinion, and that of several other tactical officers I spoke with during the course of my tour, that Jerusalem was the heart of all Israeli conflict. I mean do they have a right to bar a Christian and or a Muslim from coming there to worship? Or deciding what landmarks be restored and or left to neglect? They feel they do, and exercise it freely. Additionaly while serving there I must say that the mindset of the Palestinians are animals and can be treated as such was sickening. However I know that I do not live there and their are true tactical problems and no government can idily sit by while murder happens but there must be a better way. Perhaps if there was no Jewish faith then people in that region would look at their neighbors as an equal, not an enemy, allowing non-punitive polices and practices to better control an ugly situation.

** All I was particuarly vague here due to the time I spent there. It is my opinion that the Jewish state is fanatical, but I do appreciate the challenges they face daily which made their reference quite difficult. However I am sure others have opinions about the religous undertones of the Middle East conflicts and will allow them to introduce them as they see fit. **

United States: I understand the rights and freedoms provided to all of us under the Constitution of the United States, so again I will attempt to tow the line here. However I resent the hell out of Religous Lobbyist Groups, and their constant pressuring of my government to support some cause or resist another. As an example, what business is cloning and or stem cell research to the Church? Or even more annoying, I give a rats ass about your views of abortion. You have your temples, and your rights to protest and or meet up with people of like minds but where do you get off telling myself or any other heathen what is right or wrong?

Enough regionalization for now…

I mean does religion teach, and the masses still believe, the notion that they the believers are the blessed children and all the rest are heathens who deserve to die for their ignorance? And if they do, you have the nerve to question my values for not succumbing to this mindset and opening my heart to the almighty?

Until such time as God, or Budha, or Alah, or Zeus for that matter offers me some absolute scientific proof to their existence (Or that of Heaven/Hell/Purgatory) I say enough already.

If their were no god, would there still be morons, and killers, and fanatacists. YEP. But they would have one less banner to rally behind and perhaps they would even become small inconsequential pockets of society that the rest of us laughed at and ignored.

In closing it has been my experience that their is no one God that saves anyone. Just several suspected deities preaching hate and war and threatening humanity in general with eternal suffering and pain unless we succumb to their whims. No thanks

2

Religion has been quite a stepping stone throughout history for almost every field of science. Medicine being the most prominent I believe. I think it is safe to say that everything we have today we owe to religion, or at least it’s existance.

3

Just wanted to add that centres for education were usually financed by the church. Much philosophy had its roots in religion of all types, and It is pretty safe to say that religion had a major part to play in the writing of history and the literacy of the world. I think without religion, of any type, mankind would be nowhere near where we are today. That alone probably prevents more wars, and greater injustices than have been commited in it’s name.

4

No, “religion” doesn’t teach that. Some individual religions, or branches of some religions, may teach that, but “religion” doesn’t.

I find this sort of broad-brush shotgun approach to the existence of religion about as tedious as I suspect you find “If you’re an atheist, you can’t possibly have any moral sense.” It’s caricature at best.

5

Don’t lump all religion with those who would pervert God’s will for evil. Christ said the most important commandment was to love God with all your hear. The second most important is to love your neighbor as yourself.

6

You raise a lot of issues, but this one jumped out at me:

In what way are they different than any other powerful lobby, on the right or the left? The Church (to grossly generalize) believes cloning, stem cell research and abortion to be immoral, and lobbies against it. Environmentalist groups lobby against deforestation and oil drilling, why should you give a rat’s ass about what they think?

As far as the main thrust of your OP, I would say that much of what is committed in the name of “religion” (I’m thinking Islamic terrorists and Christian crusaders here) does not necessarily paint a fair picture of what that religion actually stands for. Crusaders and Inquisitioners were Wrong; that does not mean that Christianity is the root of the problem. Same for the terrorists and Islam. Like you said, there will always be morons, killers, and fanaticists; that some of them attach themselves to religious causes is unfortunate. But equal crimes are committed in the name of, say, patriotism, but that doesn’t mean we chuck the notion of the nation-state.

7

Yeah, look how much the church helped Galileo.:rolleyes:

8

Yeah, where do you suppose Galileo would have been without the existance of the church. Where did he get his education, who preserved much of the scholarly texts of the time. Without the influence the church throughout history, Galileo might have been nothing more than a farmer.
Just because the current heads of the church treated him the way they did, does not mean that religion did not shape the way he thought.

I certainly am not advocating something I think an outdated concept. (religion) Only giving its due on the influence it had on culture, science, history, and the world in general, and saying that without it, it is very unlikely that we would be where we are today.

9

A lot better off. He might possibly have had a profound effect on the Earth-centered thinking of the day, rather than being arrested.

PRESERVED? Huh? They wouldn’t even LET him publish his ideas.

Just because the church controlled those various institutions, does not mean that they would not have existed without the church. In fact, without the church stifling scientific inquiry, advances may very well have been made faster than they were.

And if you think such stifling of science was an isolated incident, I would remind you that even today, many are trying to suppress subjects such as evolution and cosmology.

10

Quite right. Any logically minded person sees that history does not progress this way. If there were no such thing as religion, most likely, some other institution would have cropped up in its place to fill the void in society.

I can easily see the problems of the shotgunning of all religion(s) into one generalization. But, even without a cite it should be clear that throughout history, the religions (or sects thereof) that have had the biggest, most lasting effect on the world are * not * the ones that just sit idly by saying “I belive what I believe and it doesn’t matter what you believe”.

11

Personally, I’m not particularly interested in religion-throughout-history or in biggest, most lasting effects on the world, nor do I consider them relevant to considering “would the world be better off if?” questions.

Most religious people I know find in their faith a source of personal strength and internal balance; many religious people I know find in their faith a positive encouragement towards good works and good action, by standards of “good” that I mostly agree with. A large minority of them find within their faith inspiration to create things of beauty; some of those believe that the best and most correct expression of their faith is, in fact, in the process of creating art.

Would the world be better off without religion? I look at the works of religion I know most intimately, weigh them against the atrocities worked in the name of gods, and say, “No.” I cannot conscienably consider the violent works of some to outweigh the comfort, the balance, the sense of personal place, and the motivation that is my experience of faith, not only personally, but in observing the majority of religious people I know.

One is, for the most part, loud; the other is, for the most part, silent. Just because something makes more noise does not mean that it is a truer expression.

12

My message to the various organized religions is this: Okay, you have a list of rules, fine. There are some things you are free to do about your list of rules, and some things you are not free to do (or should not be). You are free to try to persuade your own church members to voluntarily follow your rules. You are also free to try to persuade other people to voluntarily follow them. And you are free to try to convert other people to your religion (which may, or may not, lead to their voluntarily following your rules). But you have no business demanding that the government back you up. You have no business demanding that everyone be compelled by law to follow your rules. Persuading the members of your religion to follow its rules is your problem. Please don’t demand govt backing. And what people outside your religion do is none of your busines.

13

Does that mean the ears of all atheists will eventually fall off? :slight_smile:

:whistles:

14

Hmmm…I would say the same of most NON-religious people I know, the only difference being that they do not profess faith in God.

Surely you will concede that art can be created without religious inspiration?

But the question is not “Does religion give YOU a sense of personal place, comfort, and balance”, but rather “Would the WORLD be better off?” And it leaves open the question “Could one have such a sense of comfort and balance WITHOUT religion?”, and I don’t necessarily think the answer is no.

15

What?

16

i am inclined to vote YES, that we would be better off without religion though i am a heretic, not an atheist.

if you think of this nonsense as religious power games and religious leaders want to control the minds of their followers who are indoctrinated from childhood then you get a slightly different perspective from the usual.

if GOD created the universe, then god must know physics. god must know chemistry. god must know biology. GOD CANNOT BE STUPID. correct science cannot conflict with god, so if correct science conflicts with religion, then the religion must conflict with god. what if the commandment:

THOU SHALT NOT USE THE NAME OF THE LORD THY GOD IN VAIN.

is a commandment against organized religion.

the heretical, Dal Timgar

17

**Would the World be better off if there was no Religion? **
Not really. People would just find something else to fight about.

18

I would humbly offer that the world would not be better off without religion, but would be better off if more people tried harder to practice the teachings of the Prophet in which they profess belief. In just about every example I can think of where “religion” has caused pain and suffering, said pain and suffering was really caused by fanatics twisting the teachings of the faith to further their own agendas. The 9/11 terrorists, for example, were extremists, and were not practicing the teachings of Mohammed, because Mohammed welcomed Christians and Jews were welcome in Muslim temples, because they followed the same God that He was teaching about. The KKK has done terrible things, but they don’t do what Jesus really taught about. Atheism works for a lot of people, but a lot of other people find religion to be tremendously positive influences in their lives.
If people didn’t have religion, the nut cases would find some other reason to kill each other.

19

So many things that are basic to western science we get from christianity. Even the idea that there is some penultimate truth to be obtained. There is some natural law that God set in motion led us to understand the “tenets” of nature. Moreover, the tension between Science and Religion forced both to change. For instance, Aristotelianism was going down its merry way until the church condemned many of its teachings in 1270 and 1277 forcing many people to rethink Aristotle. Questioning Aristotle was something not readily done earlier.

Moreover, the tension between science and religion necesitated the replacement of an organic universe with a dead universe that God, for the most part, did not interfere with. God set things in motion and he let them go. Working out that philosophy slowly between religion and science inevitably developed the duality.

About Galileo, we can look earlier at Copernicus. The Pope SUPPORTED his findings… It solved many callendrical problems.

20

I can’t see how the world would be better off if a large subsection of its inhabitants are significantly more miserable. Given the postitive aspects to faith which I mentioned, I hold to that position. I am not interested in having the part of my brain destroyed that responds to stimuli in a way I interpret in accordance with my religion – such a part of the brain does, in fact, exist, and has been used by both theists and atheists alike to argue their positions – and that is what it would take to remove religion from my world.

Incidentally, I must note that given that the question suggested that pointing out positive aspects of faith, it was not bloody relevant to point out that those things are available in a different way to those who do not share that trait. If I wanted to suggest that such things weren’t available to other people, I would damn well have said so. I don’t think religious folk are all that different from non-religious folk, but I do think that religious folk are inspired, comforted, and otherwise supported by their religion. There’s no goddamn “conceding” that other people aren’t inspired, comforted, and supported by other things, it’s just not damn well relevant to the point I was making.