Would it be better a world without Religion?

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What about his smug little grin?

reminds me of a 2 year old who just wrote all over the walls.

Religion helps give hope to a lot of people who would otherwise feel hopeless. Sure, religion is often used as a blunt object and crammed down other people's throats, but you can't tell me atheists do the same thing. Like this jackass Dan Barker.

Yeah, it's wrong to try and force your beliefs on other people, no argument here, but is it wrong to believe something? Apparently this guy thinks so. Personally I think atheism (spelled Atheism) should be considered a religion in its own right, since it too is full of pushy convert-or-be-ridiculed types like Barker here.

So basically, I think the world would be worse off without religion because so many people rely on it. But I can definitely do without it.

You are a fool (I hate to call people names), relgion is a deteriment to sceintific advancement, just look at the dark ages. If nott for them,. we'd have probably be flying in space ships and the like.

i think John Lennon was the first to ask this question.
obviously i dont know the answer; but i think we would be better off as monkeys swinging from the trees, and since they don't appear to have religion, im going to vote yes.

BS.
Atheism is not a religion.

There's no twisted theology
within my world of wear
just pathetic philosophy
that prayer you hear
is me purging politics
that axiom you fear
is me swearing at science
to hurry the f**k up
and burn this universe down

The dark ages were a crapped out time to begin with whether or not religion existed. However, you also have to recognize that monks during that time were the ones who still carried past knowledge and kept what we knew alive. It wouldn't surprise me that without religion we would have no need for the monks and thus would probably be worse off in scientific advancement as the barbaric warriors who ruled everything else would otherwise have even less reason to bother with these high ideas.

Human development wasn't quite at a stand-still and it wasn't completely unstable I think you ignore the existence of the church and of the scholastics in the church that furthered human development, it is just that the people of the Renaissance like to paint it as purely crap rather than the partial crapfulness it deserves. In fact, some of the ideas and philosophies from that era influence modern secular thinking today, notably Ockham's razor which everyone would agree is useful. I don't think that their beliefs undermined stability but rather supported it, as the religion was a unifying factor between all groups in that region.
I think that you seek to blame religion where blame isn't due. After all, we also have impoverished regions where communist ideology impacted the area deeply, which reduced the religious influence but didn't help the economic development. The reason why people aren't bettering themselves is because of unstable rule of law, stupid codes of that law, the unwillingness to take risk and the communal mindset. The major tie in I see with religion is the latter. And what must not be ignored either is the positive impact that Christian groups also try to have on such people as religion is used to promote various charities.

He talks more religion than he really is. For a while the log cabin republicans thought that he would be a white house ally until the religious right came to be of any importance. Now it is true that the religious right is a religious group that has a negative impact, however, still groups with negative impacts don't have to be religious. Marxism is an example that was anti-religion, declared itself science, and where the ideological impact has done lots of harm.
Let's see..... yeah he is. He is a politician, he uses rhetoric to promote his aims. Bush is just as fanatical as Osama???? I don't know what you are smoking there, if that statement were true then he would have pushed for a war economy and used various nuclear weapons and things of that nature. Obviously his dedication is less than that if that is true. Bush really just talks religion and walks big business which is why you can't just look at the rhetoric.
I would bet that is more rhetoric unless it is arrogance. Still doesn't say a whole bunch.

That is true but I would imagine that a lot of it is clannish thinking.
The answers that religions provide really cannot be given through any other method. Life already has irrational, emotion-based thoughts and actions. In fact, without them we cease to function! The very fact that you went on this long diatribe on religion already shows that you have emotions affecting your decisions. Pure logic provides no ends and has no aims and because of that it fails human desires in some fundamental ways. As well, you cannot argue that religion makes people more similar to animals because the truth is that animals don't have religion.

I think that some of this is genuine. I know that my Christian friends still do talk to their non-religious friends and help them out. It is true that some actions are done in that manner of recruiting but given that one of the tenets of the religion is that groups outside of it will suffer forever, there is a sense that it is their duty to try and save everyone that they can from this damnation. I think that for one religion to be right the other ones have to be wrong by definition anyway, so that last part is simply used as part of their imperative of getting people to their religion and simply a sound application of logic.
They do advertise a lot, however, that isn't to deny that they do help even at some personal cost. I am not going to argue that Benny Hinn is a saint, he is even attacked by other religious people for what he does, but rather, I know that some Christian groups do go out and try to do better things.


Humans do have this capacity, it is all part of our ability to have emotion triumph over logic. As I stated earlier logic has no aims or ends. The fact that we have aims and ends is because we have something other than logic. If the attackers of religion are irrational in their beliefs though, then why is religious irrationality inexcusable? As after all, if pure logic cannot reach conclusions on morality, which it cannot due to the lack of anything to derive its foundations from, what sets your aims its competitors of ethical egoism, nationalism/tribalism, nihilism, or malevolence.

No it isn't, but it is an assertion that a few people can get rather emotional about. Not only that but the hard atheist assertion that spirits do not exist cannot be justified. It is true that there is no evidence to prove the existence but the non-existence cannot be assumed. The furthest rationality could get is agnosticism and perhaps some skepticism on existing religious beliefs. I think that the point brought up was that too many take the non-existence of spiritual things as a faith and something that proselytes just as Christianity or any other religion does.

Last edited by Awesomelyglorious on 27 May 2007, 2:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

well you can think what you like,
aethism is not a religion

Your comment is what 666 was referring to. So he is obviously not a fool. Your calling him a fool actually showed he was wise about the dogmatism on both sides.

(Do you stand by that view religiously?)

Proof positive that Christianity causes ego-centrism! roflcopters

Skafather, how do you know that Christianity doesn't cause paper cuts? Lots of Christians get paper cuts! You can talk to Sopho about ego-centrism:


OMG, a non-Christian selfish person!
Guess that disproves your theory...

What theory?

I thought John Lennon died for our sins!