Jeremiahcp
Well-Known Jerk
Do you think the world would be better off without religion?
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A Question for Atheist.
- Thread starter Jeremiahcp
- Start date
Religion is a good thing, when it is healthy and well cared for.
It just turns out that it is plagued and even corrupted outright by theism, dogma and ignorance that even many believers end up feeling compelled to claim that they are believers, but not adherents to any religion.
It just turns out that it is plagued and even corrupted outright by theism, dogma and ignorance that even many believers end up feeling compelled to claim that they are believers, but not adherents to any religion.
I don't know.
Tis because I don't know how it's lack would affect those who need it.
But if one assumes the premise that there's no religion because no one needs it, then I'd venture "yes".
dust1n
Zindīq
It's just a symptom of a underlying problem with the human psyche. It certainly has other ways of expressing itself though.
Your avatar is a fantastic pictorial representation of "underlying problem".
Jeremiahcp
Well-Known Jerk
Are you saying don't throw the baby out with the bath water? Or do we cut off the infected limb before it spreads?
I guess I am not really sure which way you are going.
dust1n
Zindīq
Some people deal with mortality and meaninglessness by making deities that overcome human death. Others need blades hidden in gloves, butterfly costumes, and a thirst for revenge.
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
There would either have to be no people, or people would have to be fundamentally different, in general, than they are now. In the first case, I expect the rest of the world without people would be substantially better off. In the second case, it's impossible to say: the kind of human population that didn't need religion may make a far better world or a far worse one depending on what other ways they were different.
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
It depends on how religion is viewed.
I suppose there's a way the world benefits through religion in the sense of individual motivation and the way people cope with things. Of course there is that detriment as well by which religion causes undue destruction and human suffering too.
I don't think religion will benefit the world no more or less than anything else people come up with in various situations.
That said, I think the world would be far better off without all the flights of fancy and imagination that rises out of religion, that really does no good in seeing hard reality for what it is without the fabrication and embellishment that puts people on some pretty strange paths.
Regardless of the results, the processes on which religion makes decisions are flawed.
It's heresay, speculation, and especially faith.
Faith is just a strong willed attempt at accepting the unknown or untrue beliefs.
I completely believe the world would be better off without religion.
It's heresay, speculation, and especially faith.
Faith is just a strong willed attempt at accepting the unknown or untrue beliefs.
I completely believe the world would be better off without religion.
Yes, I am. Religion is worth saving. Besides, I am not sure it could be avoided even if it were inherently harmful.
My bad. Sorry.
If it was because religion was wiped out through oppression: no.
If it was replaced with something just as irrational: depends.
If it died out because humanity grew beyond it: yes.
When it's about superstitions, yes.
Thumper
Thank the gods I'm an atheist
In what way do you think "Religion is worth saving?"
It should acknowledge its own core roles as social aggregator, creator of common language and communicator of values, while healing itself of the entirely exagerated roles of scripture and deity that so plague and threaten so much of it currently.
Oh, and it should learn to stop containing its own potential and become the harbinger of a wider society that it could so easily become.
I suspect religion was created to keep the masses in check. Without religion most folks may just run amok. Maybe we'd have to mature beyond the need for religion first.
If religion could grow up, then it is a force like no other to bring about positive change for culture at large. There is no other organized entity which encompasses so many people and cultures in such diverse places in their lives and brings them together. Science cannot do that, as only reaches those flying at the least at the rational level. So if religion made itself up to date and relevant, it could bring growth and unity instead of this childish ethnocentric ingroup and outgroup divisiveness.