Some atheists want to the rid world of religion just on the basis that is founded on falsehood. As far as I know neo-conservative position is that the people must be fed 'noble lies' like religion to maintain social integrity.
While, like the neo-conservatives, I believe that the end justifies the means and it's irrelevant whether there is a god or not, I don't really know whether religion IS beneficial.
What do you think?
P.S. In case someone says that religion is and has been present in all societies and is a fundamental building block etc. let me just say that the USSR was at least officialy atheistic. Yes, yes I know it was full of corruption and it humpty-dumptied but I don't think it was because of that. And I'm not sure about North Korea and Cuba...atheistic?
Religion is like a parasite. It serves no purpose whatsoever. It robs people from their dignity and money; it is evil towards women, homosexuals and people who think differently. Religion is about dogma's, oppression, hate, anger, injustice, stupidity, etc.; not the kind of attributes that are worthwhile for worshipping. I belief that true christians should therefore stay far away from it.
Real democracy can only be obtained in secular states. Shit starts to happen, the very moment religion starts to interfere with politics. You can see that in arabic countries as well as in "christian" countries like Poland and the USA.
Most people in the old USSR were christians. The Soviets' official religious stance was one of "religious freedom or tolerance". This made it a secular state. Religion was never outlawed in the Soviet Union and the Soviet Constitution actually guaranteed religious freedom to all Soviet citizens, any persecutions were usually carried out for political rather than religious reasons.
Does the question suggest a reality in which religion never got a foothold? Or are we talking about a sudden change now? The former would no doubt lead to a better world, the latter would lead to absolute chaos.
While thinking of this subject for a while, I've come to the rather pointless conclusion of no. Because if not for religion, how else could we kill each other without needing sort of any plausible reason? Most are already brainwashed, why not take advantage?
Hi Simone, I don't think people need any religious justification to beat each other brains in. As long as people still think in terms like "It is Us against Them", "We are better than you" and "If you don't join us then you are against us" then there is little hope that things get any better.
Agreed, Tom.
It isn't just religion that is a devisive force, we also have nationalism, tribalism, ethnicities, etc.
We would just find something else to fight about.
I think a world without religion would be better because although religion is "the opiate of the masses" it also allows the masses to believe things which can restrict the advancement of society....for instance, the whole stem cell research debate would not be a debate if there weren't any religious people.
I'm not saying we should figure out a way to throw away religion tomorrow, that would lead to chaos. But if people just slowly started becoming less and less religious I think society would be better off, not perfect, just better.
My argument is that behaving rationally is better than behaving irrationally. Since religions promote and value irrational behavior, then I would have to think we'd be better off without them.
No religion = better world.
No ultimate authority figures who choose certain special races to be their chosen few. No ultimate authority figures to blame for things we don't understand, or to thank for things we don't understand. No ultimate authority figures to hide behind when we take actions or watch as actions are taken. That means we are accountable to whatever authority that we can choose.
This means that we can choose the best or the worst, but that we have to be accountable to ourselves and our choices. We can then learn from those and adjust as we learn and grow as a species. An ultimate authority who gives ultimate, unchangeable truth would prevent that, as we have seen from history.
Now, here is my personal take on religion.
Imagine Ignorance as a broken leg. To be able to operate, on a societal level, there has to be an answer how to operate with this broken leg. Religion is a crutch. Now, while on those crutches, you get out of certain things, you get special attention.
Now imagine that your broken leg is now healed. You can walk, however, you don't get that feeling of being special (People holding doors open for you, getting out of certain tasks because your leg is broken).
Instead of shedding the crutch, you milk it for all it is worth, crutching about, and even all out lying. Now, the people around you all know you are full of shit, and a few have even pointed it out, but you just act offended, and call them insensitive and remain on your crutches. The people who don't know how long ago you were injured sympathize with you, and single out the non-believer.
THAT is what I think...
It's harder to suspend reason when you don't have supernatural taught to you as reality. It's as simple as that. A more reasonable world would be a better world.
My view is that all religions are hypocritical in some way. I don't know enough of the various religions to give examples for each of them, but that's my guess, since they're all related anyway. So if there were no concept of 'god' to make people say they're more moral than me, and then doing bad stuff (e.g. crusades, inquisition, "divine retribution", forced conversions, etc.), there would be less hypocrisy in the world. Also, people would have a harder time justifying bad stuff for themselves, and that in itself would be a deterrant from, say, killing/massacring the Midianites. (That means you, Moses, you sick mofo.)