If you could flip a switch and erase all religion would you?

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Quite. Instead, troubled people would break and commit suicide, harm others, or abuse themselves.
Religion can act as a mental shield which can help people to deal with their problems, and also give others incentives to help... or harm... others. It depends on the religion and its interpretation.
Religious beliefs give people hope in the face of uncertainty, death, and despair. Whether you want to believe in something should be entirely up to you. And if Religions and God were created by humans, could humans not create them again?

I love you people that feel religion serves as some protector of morality. It doesn't, morals and religion aren't related. Many religions might teach you to be a good person and to treat others the way you'd like to be treated which is great, the more people we have like that the better who cares what they believe. The reality however is people who are brought up in a culture that has good morals, religious or not are going to develop decent people. Take Sweden for example, most of that country are Atheists/Agnostics (estimated at around 80%) and they have one of the lowest crime rates. Also the title of the thread was erase all religion, I interpreted that as editing history to have human's lack the idea that nearly impossible answers are possible to explain our existence and instead have people think rationally in that area. If that's the case religion wouldn't come back.

Firstly, I'm agnostic, but I see the virtues of religion for some people.

Religion serves as an ultimate answer to the moral question. Not a perfect system, but not one which can be bent easily. For the atheist, morality can be alot more complicated. Do morals really matter in the long term if there is no ultimate judge of "right" and "wrong"? The answer: no. Many people are weak and do not follow any sort of moral code. Some very undeserving people simply act in their own self-interest as long as they can get away with it. It goes without saying, that the burden of morality upon the atheist is alot more complex. Law is about as concrete as it gets.

The fear of death alone will drive many people to religion.

Morality is not complicated at all, it doesn't come from religion as I said it comes from your culture. And just because you don't believe the boogy man is going to get you after you die doesn't mean you aren't going to be a moral person, the natural social environment we humans live in is enough to drive a person to be moral. If you steal Paul's meat loaf he's going to get pissed and take yours or do something to you, you learn from this not to steal. It's honestly that simple, and of course, religious or not there are people who don't get that message and will try to trick paul or blame it on someone else instead of simply learning from the mistake and not stealing the meat loaf. Morals matter, but not in the way you're putting it, you're making it look like people are going to go nuts if they don't think they're going to get some form of punishment after death, which couldn't be further from the truth.

No. Religion is often the way the darker sides of humanity manifest themselves, but I do not believe it is the source.

In general, I'm really neither pro-religion or anti-religion, I really don't care as long as it's not pushed on me.

Yes, and that's why it would be better to erase all humanity instead of just religion.

If there existed such a switch, and assuming I could flip it, I would not do so. In fact, I'd try to destroy that switch! Aside from infringing on the free will of the human race, such an action would effectively throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Besides, mine is more of a relationship than a religion ...

There'd be no point ( flipping such a switch) .

Unless you eugenically eliminated all AS/Aspergers at the same time, they would carry on asking the kind of questions that AS/Aspies do and which are the origin of religion.

You think it's NTs who were responsible? They don't ask enough questions; they take too much on trust, ( automatically), etc etc to have ever needed to invent religion.

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Last edited by ouinon on 11 Oct 2008, 3:16 am, edited 1 time in total.

I think religion is holding humanity back somewhat at present (mostly in Islamic countries and in the US to a lesser extent)… but I wouldn’t flip the switch. If all the traditional religions were suddenly eradicated I fear that people would come up with far worse ideologies. The greatest atrocities of the 20th century were not religiously inspired.

no. Religion doesnt cause troubles, it is that which people like to blame so they don't have to look further...deeper, to the real issue. Fo it is this whuch can twist and take anyything as an excuse for evil. It's not religian my friends, It uses everything from politics tio what sport team you are on, And as long as we don;t look for it it shall always be.

The institution of religion has always been corrupt to some degree, but what is far purer is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Religion as institution comes from an inexhaustible source, the spiritual impulse that is every human being's birthright.

A personal relationship with Zeus is far more purer, now stop worshipping this false god of yours and give your love for Zeus. I'm trying to help you, I don't want to see you suffer for eternity after death!

That's a healthy sense of humour you've got there.

but without religion there would be an increase in criminals.

When it comes to loaded questions like this, there is no right answer. What if there was a similar switch for blacks or gays or Jews? Come on, really?

That's a poor comparison, there is no genetic disposition that makes you religious.