Seriously, what would happen to the world if we didn't have any religion at all? Would there be less wars and more hate, or vice versa? What do you think would happen to civilization as we know it?
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I think the fact that we have some sort of religion for certain people helps keep them in control of their thoughts and emotions. I think it's a good idea, just not for everyone.
I agree with both points good for some as a means of control of thoughts and emotion, just not for everyone! Nicely put, I wish I had a better grasp of the English language so I could put things so concise.
I do believe if there were no religion at all there would be less war and hatred, science would be much more further advanced and we would possibly be living in a high tech garden of Eden. People would have banned together for whats right and against whats wrong when the time arose where people would not take it anymore. but you opened with do we need religion and I do think in some ways at some times religion is needed. I do think that there are times when people need something to help them through times of guilt, depression or remorse and religion often fills that need. I feel it can help people cope. and in today's society if religion were to be abolished which will never happen overnight the world would be thrown into utter chaos. I am definitely not saying there would be no war surely there would be but all the holy wars that have been fought and are still being fought today would not exist, further more science would not be held back so much and people would not be hated so much for religious beliefs or sexual preference.
We don't need religion to continuously evolve in this planet. What we need are knowledge, love, respect and understanding to everything that surrounds us.
If there is no religion, earth is surely a more peaceful and loving place to live in.
If religion at all can help people to cope with difficult situations, it renders only a very illusory help. In the modern world religion can do people only harm. At the same time any attempts to eradicate religion by forcible means would also do harm to the humanity. But, no doubt, if religion dies it's own death, this would be a great gain for the people.
I think that religion will die it's own death eventually, though perhaps not as quickly as some of us might like. I can see in the evolution of human society where religion had it's time and place, but I do believe that most of us have grown past that substantially and are ready to be done with it and get about dismantling many of the other oppressive social constructs we've developed over the years.
I also agree that getting rid of it by forcible means isn't a good idea. Not only is it impossible to force growth on those who are not ready for it, it also would be taken the wrong way and do nothing but cement religious convictions further. It's like killing a rhizomatous weed. Since it spreads from the roots, if you cut off the top you're really only pruning it.
In a word, no. We do not "need" religion. I also agree that in order to go on and evolve and simply be in existence as humans and any other thing we would speciate, we need nothing like religion, not even a moral code to live by. However, in order to maintain a (forgive my simple terminology) civil society and working modern population of human beings, we need societal codes to live by. These codes and structures (of any kind) can be put forward by other non-religious means; therefore, we do not require any religion per se.
I wonder how the world will gain improvement in terms of of economy if religion is not a matter of importance and how people will behave without following biblical rules. At one side, religion had taught man the basic of morality and doing good.
In my own opinion, religions that are spreading good deeds, love to others and other morality ideas help make the world a better place to live. It helps people find their "group" who share same beliefs and values to be more organized.
The mentality of "finding the group" is supposedly the evolutionary appeal of religion, as we as life forms are more likely to share resources with those who are most like us, presumably because our primitive brain thinks that we share more DNA commonalities with them.
But from a humanist point of view, that's unnecessarily discriminative.
Can't speculate much but it is worth giving it a try. :)
@ Matty I have given your thread some more thought:
To me religion has it's yin and it has its yang, Religions seem to shine in horrible times and dull in medium to great times. Sometimes yin is in control, sometimes yang. Religion is best when it is balanced, without it I think business and politics would be far more corrupt and the separation of class would much more vast none of us would likely exist because almost all major religions have done work in the past that saved the lives of many. So it's safe to say our parents would have likely meet other peoples parents and we would have never been born, different people would have led to different influence so the world and civilization would surely be different for this reason alone. Better or worse though, that's a toughy!
With so many less people there would likely have been less war but also I think the people who survived would have been likely less intelligent but at the same time more evolved and resilient on and individual basis. these people would fare better if society crumbled then we would today but society would not likely be as advanced. Yes you heard me say it religion had helped to lead to advancement in society. It helps people ban together for communal effort in a way that is sometime difficult to achieve without religion. because more people survive great minds have had a higher chance of survival leading to greater likely-hood that smarter people would be born and grow to shine their brilliant minds. Religion does not prevent a freethinker form being born and the family structure and compassion religion preaches sometimes succeeds at preaching increases the chance brilliant people will be raised. By nature smart or wise people know how to coexist with religion even if they don't prescribe. This is to say we can thank religion inadvertently for a lot of the science we have today even though religion often holds science back kind of like an Aristotle's Poetic.
As far as hate goes though there would be less difference in people to hate people about but there would likely be found other reasons to hate each other, to put it simply some people are simply haters. I think with less advancement in science there would be more hate as understanding tends to lead to less hate. So there would be in my opinion more war a similar amount of hatred less scientific advancement less war and more evolved individual humans with a less evolve society so it would be different, different indeed!
It is true that many great things have been done in the name of religion that would not have been done otherwise. Most of the great art of the Renaissance was done based on religious commission. Even the Crusades, which killed a ridiculous number of people, brought technology and medicine back to Europe during the Dark Ages.
I still think that without the religious motivation, the human race would have found another, perhaps better, way to evolve culturally. But we'll never know :)
Agree that religion has its pros or cons looking or tracking back the history of religions.
It has been used to corrupt others as well as to share goodness to others. Some in history even used it just to gain power or authority.