Religion is a good thing.

af_thefragile

Its something i've been pondering over for a while.
I've lately become sick of people blaming religion for all the troubles in the world. People saying "if it wasn't for religion diving people, the world would be a much better place" and "religion is the root cause of all the conflicts and wars in the past and the present".
I think all this has also been reiterated by the recent atheistical movement of "religion being devised out of human imagination as a tool to control people with".

Now i fail to see things this way. I don't see how religion is evil and how without it the world would be a better place. I also fail to see how without religion there would be any less conflicts in the world, infact from my point of view there would be a lot more conflicts if there wasn't a rule book around to differentiate between good and evil in such a black and white manner.

So here's my first topic of discussion:
Religion is a good thing.

I believe religion has done a lot more good to humanity than it has done any evil. Leaving aside all the aspects of god, heaven and hell for the moment and just focusing on morals religion has given something for people to align by. If one considers all holy books such as the Bible, Quran, Torah etc. to be more like books of clear morals, one would start to see where i'm coming from. Religion has integrated more people than it has divided. Religion gives people a sense of community and something they can relate to. Religion keeps people from doing harm to the society by stating harmful acts as immoral, evil and punishable. Religion gives people something to align to. Religion teaches people to take control of their desires, greed and need. Religion tells people to spread love and help the needy. Most importantly religion gives people positivity. It gives people hope and the power of faith. The light at the end of the tunnel. Faith, hope and general positivity are essential for us humans to grow and take those leaps of faith that we wouldn't usually take with the amount of uncertainty in the world around us. This is a very empowering feeling and can distinguish between the people who achieve something significant from the ones who don't.


Now for the second aspect of my discussion:
Religion needs to be black and white.

I believe religion needs to be the rigid, black and white form it is in. There can't be loop holes or soft edges in religion which people could exploit. Religion theoretically is the absolutely authority over life and that needs to be rigid cuz we humans are bound to lose path and break some rules of the rule book. By being rigid, people are less likely to break the rules than they would if religion had soft manipulable edges. Like for instance stealing is a sin. Thats a rigid rule with no room for getting around. It states it clear that stealing is prohibited under all circumstances and so people are less likely to do it.
If it instead stated "stealing under most circumstances is a sin", then people would start to manipulate the circumstances stealing would be a sin for and would look to get away a lot more by doing it. Probably by hiring good lawyer (like in the courts of today!).



Now i don't wanna go too deep here with getting into discussions of god and the afterlife and its implications to the world. But away from the talk of logic and reason, i see those entities to give humans a feeling of faith, hope and positivity which helps them with their life. Even if such a thing exists or not. If it helps and affects millions the lives of people around the world in a positive way, then what's wrong with it?

Now we could also speak about all the absurdities in religion and all but if we could look past those absurdities and pick out at least all the good things that make sense to us, then couldn't religion be a good thing after all??
Instead of looking to work up new morals of ethics and conduct, why couldn't we just update or reinterpret what we've already got to better suit todays world instead of pushing it aside stating it to be outdated and absurd?

I'ld like to know what your opinion would be on this topic.
Is religion a good thing or will the world be better off without it?

Thanks.

nyarlothothep

I would not use the bible as a moral compass. The god in it is a monster, especially if you read the old testament.

The thing is there are predominantly atheistic societies were most people follow the law and have a strong sense of right and wrong. Which society is more moralistic, one without religion where people try to do the right thing due to their understanding of justice or one where people only do the right thing out of fear of being punished by a wrathful god? Religion does not enhance a persons ethics. In fact religion has been used to justify barbarous acts, do you think the Spanish Inquisition or witch burnings were ethical. What about human sacrifice? Or cutting off a persons hand for stealing a loaf of bread? Our morals precede religion through evolution, if anything religions just incorporate the predominant cultural norms of the day.

Also I find that religious ceremonies are a bit circumspect. There is something akin to brainwashing in the respect that people chant in unison and perform rituals repeatedly.

The faith argument is to be blunt, a cop out. When challenged with reason a religious person will say you have to have faith in whatever they believe in, but then I could turn around and say to you that a religion about aliens coming to earth is the one true way and if you challenged me on this with facts and evidence which prove that its a fabrication I could just say, well you've got to have faith.

The one positive thing I can say about religion is that it alleviates fear of death, but I think as a species we should eliminate this imposition through science. I have no problem with religion as long people keep it to themselves and don't force their values on others, the problem is this never happens.

Joe1919

nyarlothothep wrote: »

The one positive thing I can say about religion is that it alleviates fear of death.......

Im not sure if this has always been the case. If you read the history books, especially before the reformation, most people feared that they would burn in hell when they died.
Indeed, the clergy made their living out of this fear and managed to get a lot of money and property in wills and estates from this fear of hell by attending to the dying person's soul (at a price).
One of my favourite naturalist philosophers is Lucretius (a follower of Epicurus)and he argued that it was better to be an athiest as then you had no fear of the Gods and hence no fear of death.
One argument is that you were 'dead' for an infinate length of time before you were born and it caused you no problems so why worry now.
http://www.pitt.edu/~kis23/EPICURUS-LUCRETIUS.pdf

nyarlothothep

Good points, I agree, I was thinking of religion without hell or punishment, just an eternity of utopianism for everyone, but this isn't the case with most religions.

hmmm...the problem I have with the death argument is the fact that there is a schism in the continuity of non existence for an existing person. A person didn't exist for 13.6 billion years, then they existed, now they don't exist for infinity. The experience of existence creates a problem in the respect that it will be taken away, so even though you will return to a state of non existence, the experience of existence will foreshadow it in an ontological sense. Although I do agree with the sentiment that the best we can manage atm is to live a full life, to complete it like a masterpiece painting as it were.

Also the nothing to fear from death idea, hmmm, the problem is its not like death is separate from a person, the person becomes death.

Joe1919

There are a number of further arguments that we should not only fear death but in fact welcome death and our total annihilation.
1. All life is suffering. (dukkha idea in Buddhism, Schopenhauer, Eduard von Hartmann, Camus (absurdity) in philosophy)
2. Consciousness involves strife and a dialogue between what we sense and what we think we know. (Hegel)
3. When we truly desire or know or learn something, we internalise this and become unconscious of this. So, for example, when we begin to learn to drive or speak a foreign language or learn to play a musical instrument, we are very conscious of what we are doing. However, as we become experts, we no longer are conscious, we become proficient and these skills become unconscious movements.
4. Therefore, there is a natural movement from consciousness to unconsciousness.
5. This desire toward unconsciousness is pleasurable, we get some of our greatest pleasure from sleep, drunkenness etc. We only suffer when we wake up.
6. Death is the ultimate sleep .
All the above disagree with the idea of ending ones own life
Please note. No one (afaik)has ever came back from death and verified this and I would certainly welcome arguments to refute the above.

Blue_Wolf

IMO Religion is good for children to set them on the right path. Teach them the difference between right and wrong. What's moral and socially acceptable. All these stories/legends are examples given to show people what to do, how to behave. How to love each other. The commandments are like a guideline to life.

I think it's very important for children. However, I don't see why adults go to church. I think their is a lot of hypocrisy amongst those who sin mon-sat and than go to church and act the angel and ask for forgiveness but everyone for themselves.

bluefinger

Blue_Wolf wrote: »

IMO Religion is good for children to set them on the right path. Teach them the difference between right and wrong. What's moral and socially acceptable.

With respect, can't you teach children the difference between right and wrong without religion? As for teaching children what's socially acceptable isn't this more about learning social skills and the like.

Offalycool

Religions are a social system, most of which pre-date the rise of many other social systems. People identified with religious values and in return religion provided order to society. With the rise of competing social structures, ie. monarchism, stateism, colonialism and the various class struggles that have developed as a result of developments such as industrialisation; religion is just one of many political organisations that exist today. It is useless to speculate if we are better off with or without it, it is part and parcel of the human experience.

Blue_Wolf

bluefinger wrote: »

With respect, can't you teach children the difference between right and wrong without religion? As for teaching children what's socially acceptable isn't this more about learning social skills and the like.

What's the point of religion than?

Blue_Wolf

I'm not a religious person, don't believe in God or any of that. All I'm saying is that there is a place for religion in our society and that is for children.
Children need something to believe in and perhaps something to be scared of (Heaven and Hell theory) so that they treat each other well.
It's easy to say why use religion, why not teach the children ourselves?! How are we going to explain to children ourselves what is right and what is wrong. The Adam and Eve story is the oldest story that tells us that we should not do what we are told not to do.

I don't believe in the stories, as in I don't believe that they were based on true story etc etc. They are stories to show the young ones how society acts, how we should live our lives.

Blue_Wolf

bluefinger wrote: »

social skills and the like.

These are taught by the parents and/or friends and older sibhlings not religion. I never said anything about social skills, that has nothing to do with religion. I said socially acceptable.

bluefinger

Blue_Wolf wrote: »

I'm not a religious person, don't believe in God or any of that. All I'm saying is that there is a place for religion in our society and that is for children.

Children need something to believe in and perhaps something to be scared of (Heaven and Hell theory) so that they treat each other well.
It's easy to say why use religion, why not teach the children ourselves?! How are we going to explain to children ourselves what is right and what is wrong. The Adam and Eve story is the oldest story that tells us that we should not do what we are told not to do.

I don't believe in the stories, as in I don't believe that they were based on true story etc etc. They are stories to show the young ones how society acts, how we should live our lives.

Blue Wolf. I think you have a good point about "the stories". I don't believe in throwing the baby out with the bath water. What you're saying just presents more problems than it solves.

Firsty imo you it's not fair to teach children something you don't believe yourself. This amounts to lying and for me show a bit of disrespect towards young people. Also what stories would you teach? For every 'turn the other cheek' type story there's a corresponding 'eye for an eye story'.

Secondly i think you're not giving yourself enough credit for teaching young people. Biblical tales are not an essential part of raising moral children. The history of philosophy is a rife with too many theories of what the good life is.

Finally i'm not sure the bible necessarily is representative of how present day society works.

I could go on for ages about this but i'm trying to keep it concise.

Blue_Wolf

bluefinger wrote: »

Firsty imo you it's not fair to teach children something you don't believe yourself. This amounts to lying and for me show a bit of disrespect towards young people.

We tell our children that there is Santa, but we don't believe this ourselves.

When children ask how does the baby get in to mummys stomach, we also make up a little story. It's harmless really as the children wouldn't understand.

bluefinger wrote: »

Finally i'm not sure the bible necessarily is representative of how present day society works.
I could go on for ages about this but i'm trying to keep it concise.

I admire your open way of thinking. I do find Religion to be very narrow. Like this is the way it is at thats that. I believe in Evolution myself. Religions arguement is that their story has always been the same whereas Science keeps changing theirs. Science is more open minded and will admit when they are wrong but at least they prove that Black is Black and White is White.
However, I see Religion as something good for younger people only and I'm really only talking about ehhh 4-10 years of age.

You are right to say the bible doesn't really represent how society works today but the Bible stories are Basic, the point it makes is very Basic. We do still have basic things in our society. The 10 commandments. You don't have to believe in God or the stories but you know yourself right ya I shouldn't sleep with the neighbours wife or I shouldn't kill or steal. That's just basic but that's the Basics that Religion has.

You are also right in saying you don't need to send your child to church, you can teach them yourself. Children look up to their parents and will not misbehave when they are around but I suppose the whole God thing is like an eye in the sky. Which I suppose might stimulate some people not too slide.

Thanks for reading

af_thefragile

I think this leads to the discussion of what is more important, the means to an end or the end itself.
One could take the long hard seemingly impossible but scientifically right way of reaching values and morals in the society. Or one could take examples from religion to make people believe and distinguish between right and wrong ignoring the origin of the religious teachings.

I wouldn't say you should base your opinions about the concept of religion on The Bible. Especially a book whose authenticity is not the most reliable and is known to have been manipulated by rulers to control people. I think you should consider other religious teachings too and focus mainly on the message rather than the vagueness or origin of it.
Also rejecting the morals of religion as a standard, one could possibly end up inventing their own standards with endless possibilities which i can't imagine would lead to any peaceful consequence. It only takes one cell to evolve into a full grown beast!

Moving on i feel religion is important cuz basically it gives people idols and role models. One of ye guys above mentioned about teaching our kids ourselves what is right and wrong and how to behave in the world. I don't see that working too well. How many men here can honesty say they are a perfect role model for their kids to look upto? The one thing about biblical stories is that it gives kids (especially) perfect role models to look onto. Guys like Jesus, David, Moses etc. were depicted as the perfect men (and i believe they were good men) so instead of teaching kid vague morals about how to lead their lives, people could just give them examples of how people like Jesus or David fought against all the odds to remain good in a world surrounded by evil and managed to lead a good life. If not anything as Blue Wolf mentioned, its a book full of inspiring stories with loads of good morals! So why not use it instead of teaching kids about Jack and the bean stalk or leaving them off to let them get their morals from their friends or the television! I doubt Hannah Montana is what all the young kids should look upto as their idol.






Then finally what i think is the most important aspect of religion is religion rejects materialism and focuses on spiritualism. I would say spiritual philosophy would die with the death of religion. What would be left would be people focusing on all the mechanical characteristics of this universe rather than its spiritual aspects. Now i don't wanna sound like some sorta hippie on drugs but i'ld say the best way to look at it is to think of religious teachings as a self help book. All the modern self help stuff like "the secret", "positive power", "Neuro Linguistic Programming" and all of that (which quite certainly works for majority of the people) are no new ideas. They have all been taught thousands of years ago in one form or another through religious teachings. "seek and you shall receive", "love thy neighbor as thy self", "Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?" and there are tons of these in Bible alone that one could reflect into and get inspired from. Even if the person doesn't believe in God, he could just use God as some sort of an empowering metaphor.

I believe progress in its truest form needs to be spiritual. Civilizations have managed to make giant scientific, political and architectural leaps in the past only to be turned to dust and this will continue as this is the nature of the universe, its entropy, it destroys what it has built to give rise to another new world from its ashes only to destroy it back again and to continue this eternal cycle. From standing here looking out we are less significant than even the minutest spec of dust in front of the vastness of the universe. But looking in we could contain the whole universe in a nutshell or even a grain of sand. This is the nature of life and as we progress we seem to be giving ourselves lesser time looking in while we keep getting more and more caught up reaching out for what's beyond.

"Fix yourself before setting out to fix the world". How often do we reflect on these words before we set out to make progress. Sure people have caused wars in the past due to their ignorance but really how different is that from the present. We still have wars and people are still dying. Is that still because of religion? You might say so but i don't think so!
Infact its more a case of human greed for materialistic needs that has become the main cause of conflict in this modern world (and this is what i believe has always been the main reason for conflict in the past, religion manipulated and used as a tool to guide people around). And i believe this isn't gonna be the end of conflict. Even if all religion was eradicated from the world people would still be fighting over their materialistic needs. There will be conflict on larger and larger scale until humanity progresses spiritually. Until humanity can evolve out of their mindset of greed and sloth. Until humanity truly realises war and any sort of conflict is never a proper solution to any problem and develops the mental capacity to reach out and solve all sorts of problems in the most humane way. Humanity needs to grow to reach out beyond these ideas and progress into the fields on compassion and sustenance for all bar none. Bigger buildings, faster cars and internet access will get humanity nowhere. One big earthquake or meteor strike or tsunami and its all wiped away. What will remain will be the progress humanity made spiritually with its mental capacity as that is the true form of progress.

nyarlothothep

af_thefragile wrote: »

I think this leads to the discussion of what is more important, the means to an end or the end itself.
One could take the long hard seemingly impossible but scientifically right way of reaching values and morals in the society. Or one could take examples from religion to make people believe and distinguish between right and wrong ignoring the origin of the religious teachings.

I wouldn't say you should base your opinions about the concept of religion on The Bible. Especially a book whose authenticity is not the most reliable and is known to have been manipulated by rulers to control people. I think you should consider other religious teachings too and focus mainly on the message rather than the vagueness or origin of it.
Also rejecting the morals of religion as a standard, one could possibly end up inventing their own standards with endless possibilities which i can't imagine would lead to any peaceful consequence. It only takes one cell to evolve into a full grown beast!

Moving on i feel religion is important cuz basically it gives people idols and role models. One of ye guys above mentioned about teaching our kids ourselves what is right and wrong and how to behave in the world. I don't see that working too well. How many men here can honesty say they are a perfect role model for their kids to look upto? The one thing about biblical stories is that it gives kids (especially) perfect role models to look onto. Guys like Jesus, David, Moses etc. were depicted as the perfect men (and i believe they were good men) so instead of teaching kid vague morals about how to lead their lives, people could just give them examples of how people like Jesus or David fought against all the odds to remain good in a world surrounded by evil and managed to lead a good life. If not anything as Blue Wolf mentioned, its a book full of inspiring stories with loads of good morals! So why not use it instead of teaching kids about Jack and the bean stalk or leaving them off to let them get their morals from their friends or the television! I doubt Hannah Montana is what all the young kids should look upto as their idol.






Then finally what i think is the most important aspect of religion is religion rejects materialism and focuses on spiritualism. I would say spiritual philosophy would die with the death of religion. What would be left would be people focusing on all the mechanical characteristics of this universe rather than its spiritual aspects. Now i don't wanna sound like some sorta hippie on drugs but i'ld say the best way to look at it is to think of religious teachings as a self help book. All the modern self help stuff like "the secret", "positive power", "Neuro Linguistic Programming" and all of that (which quite certainly works for majority of the people) are no new ideas. They have all been taught thousands of years ago in one form or another through religious teachings. "seek and you shall receive", "love thy neighbor as thy self", "Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?" and there are tons of these in Bible alone that one could reflect into and get inspired from. Even if the person doesn't believe in God, he could just use God as some sort of an empowering metaphor.

I believe progress in its truest form needs to be spiritual. Civilizations have managed to make giant scientific, political and architectural leaps in the past only to be turned to dust and this will continue as this is the nature of the universe, its entropy, it destroys what it has built to give rise to another new world from its ashes only to destroy it back again and to continue this eternal cycle. From standing here looking out we are less significant than even the minutest spec of dust in front of the vastness of the universe. But looking in we could contain the whole universe in a nutshell or even a grain of sand. This is the nature of life and as we progress we seem to be giving ourselves lesser time looking in while we keep getting more and more caught up reaching out for what's beyond.

"Fix yourself before setting out to fix the world". How often do we reflect on these words before we set out to make progress. Sure people have caused wars in the past due to their ignorance but really how different is that from the present. We still have wars and people are still dying. Is that still because of religion? You might say so but i don't think so!
Infact its more a case of human greed for materialistic needs that has become the main cause of conflict in this modern world (and this is what i believe has always been the main reason for conflict in the past, religion manipulated and used as a tool to guide people around). And i believe this isn't gonna be the end of conflict. Even if all religion was eradicated from the world people would still be fighting over their materialistic needs. There will be conflict on larger and larger scale until humanity progresses spiritually. Until humanity can evolve out of their mindset of greed and sloth. Until humanity truly realises war and any sort of conflict is never a proper solution to any problem and develops the mental capacity to reach out and solve all sorts of problems in the most humane way. Humanity needs to grow to reach out beyond these ideas and progress into the fields on compassion and sustenance for all bar none. Bigger buildings, faster cars and internet access will get humanity nowhere. One big earthquake or meteor strike or tsunami and its all wiped away. What will remain will be the progress humanity made spiritually with its mental capacity as that is the true form of progress.

I agree with you that humanity needs to evolve beyond greediness and materialism. The materialistic short term thinking culture we have is fundamentally flawed, as evidenced by this recession. And it will get worse until our survival as a species is seriously threatened because unless we focus on sustainability rather than infinite natures going to give us a crisis far worse than this current behavioural one which essentially is the product of human minds and has no inherent reality in the physical world.

Which is the potential tragedy of our history on this earth. We have people who realize this, those who are unwilling, those who are complacent and those who are aware but who care only for their own personal profit. The tragedy resides in the fact that we aren't uniformly blind to the situation yet not enough is being done to avert it. We need to grow up and this may be the century in which it happens.

However I believe scientific progress is just as important and at some stage will cross over into spirituality. We need to technologically progress because we are with respect to our intelligence too big the limitations imposed on us. One day perhaps we will evolve beyond the confines of the universe. Humanity has the seed of potential to possibly achieve this.

joe freethinker

af_thefragile wrote: »

Its something i've been pondering over for a while.
I've lately become sick of people blaming religion for all the troubles in the world. People saying "if it wasn't for religion diving people, the world would be a much better place" and "religion is the root cause of all the conflicts and wars in the past and the present".
I think all this has also been reiterated by the recent atheistical movement of "religion being devised out of human imagination as a tool to control people with".

Now i fail to see things this way. I don't see how religion is evil and how without it the world would be a better place. I also fail to see how without religion there would be any less conflicts in the world, infact from my point of view there would be a lot more conflicts if there wasn't a rule book around to differentiate between good and evil in such a black and white manner.

So here's my first topic of discussion:
Religion is a good thing.

I believe religion has done a lot more good to humanity than it has done any evil. Leaving aside all the aspects of god, heaven and hell for the moment and just focusing on morals religion has given something for people to align by. If one considers all holy books such as the Bible, Quran, Torah etc. to be more like books of clear morals, one would start to see where i'm coming from. Religion has integrated more people than it has divided. Religion gives people a sense of community and something they can relate to. Religion keeps people from doing harm to the society by stating harmful acts as immoral, evil and punishable. Religion gives people something to align to. Religion teaches people to take control of their desires, greed and need. Religion tells people to spread love and help the needy. Most importantly religion gives people positivity. It gives people hope and the power of faith. The light at the end of the tunnel. Faith, hope and general positivity are essential for us humans to grow and take those leaps of faith that we wouldn't usually take with the amount of uncertainty in the world around us. This is a very empowering feeling and can distinguish between the people who achieve something significant from the ones who don't.


Now for the second aspect of my discussion:
Religion needs to be black and white.

I believe religion needs to be the rigid, black and white form it is in. There can't be loop holes or soft edges in religion which people could exploit. Religion theoretically is the absolutely authority over life and that needs to be rigid cuz we humans are bound to lose path and break some rules of the rule book. By being rigid, people are less likely to break the rules than they would if religion had soft manipulable edges. Like for instance stealing is a sin. Thats a rigid rule with no room for getting around. It states it clear that stealing is prohibited under all circumstances and so people are less likely to do it.
If it instead stated "stealing under most circumstances is a sin", then people would start to manipulate the circumstances stealing would be a sin for and would look to get away a lot more by doing it. Probably by hiring good lawyer (like in the courts of today!).



Now i don't wanna go too deep here with getting into discussions of god and the afterlife and its implications to the world. But away from the talk of logic and reason, i see those entities to give humans a feeling of faith, hope and positivity which helps them with their life. Even if such a thing exists or not. If it helps and affects millions the lives of people around the world in a positive way, then what's wrong with it?

Now we could also speak about all the absurdities in religion and all but if we could look past those absurdities and pick out at least all the good things that make sense to us, then couldn't religion be a good thing after all??
Instead of looking to work up new morals of ethics and conduct, why couldn't we just update or reinterpret what we've already got to better suit todays world instead of pushing it aside stating it to be outdated and absurd?

I'ld like to know what your opinion would be on this topic.
Is religion a good thing or will the world be better off without it?

Thanks.

What a negitive view you have of the human race.
so we need a rule book to tell us right from wrong.nothing good can come about if natural human logic and reason is replaced by a book written by any sort of an ape
5000+ years ago.religion can cause a lot of suffering but some of the most inspirational people I know worked in the name of

Hookey

af_thefragile wrote: »

I think this leads to the discussion of what is more important, the means to an end or the end itself.
One could take the long hard seemingly impossible but scientifically right way of reaching values and morals in the society. Or one could take examples from religion to make people believe and distinguish between right and wrong ignoring the origin of the religious teachings.

I wouldn't say you should base your opinions about the concept of religion on The Bible. Especially a book whose authenticity is not the most reliable and is known to have been manipulated by rulers to control people. I think you should consider other religious teachings too and focus mainly on the message rather than the vagueness or origin of it.
Also rejecting the morals of religion as a standard, one could possibly end up inventing their own standards with endless possibilities which i can't imagine would lead to any peaceful consequence. It only takes one cell to evolve into a full grown beast!

Moving on i feel religion is important cuz basically it gives people idols and role models. One of ye guys above mentioned about teaching our kids ourselves what is right and wrong and how to behave in the world. I don't see that working too well. How many men here can honesty say they are a perfect role model for their kids to look upto? The one thing about biblical stories is that it gives kids (especially) perfect role models to look onto. Guys like Jesus, David, Moses etc. were depicted as the perfect men (and i believe they were good men) so instead of teaching kid vague morals about how to lead their lives, people could just give them examples of how people like Jesus or David fought against all the odds to remain good in a world surrounded by evil and managed to lead a good life. If not anything as Blue Wolf mentioned, its a book full of inspiring stories with loads of good morals! So why not use it instead of teaching kids about Jack and the bean stalk or leaving them off to let them get their morals from their friends or the television! I doubt Hannah Montana is what all the young kids should look upto as their idol.

Er, have you actually read the Bible? You seem to on the one hand criticise its authenticity, and then talk about biblical characters as "perfect role models", which leads me to think you haven't studied the bible too closely; none of the Old Testament characters could ever be described as perfect. Frankly Optimus Prime or Superman would make a better role model than most biblical characters.

af_thefragile wrote: »

Then finally what i think is the most important aspect of religion is religion rejects materialism and focuses on spiritualism. I would say spiritual philosophy would die with the death of religion. What would be left would be people focusing on all the mechanical characteristics of this universe rather than its spiritual aspects. Now i don't wanna sound like some sorta hippie on drugs but i'ld say the best way to look at it is to think of religious teachings as a self help book. All the modern self help stuff like "the secret", "positive power", "Neuro Linguistic Programming" and all of that (which quite certainly works for majority of the people) are no new ideas. They have all been taught thousands of years ago in one form or another through religious teachings. "seek and you shall receive", "love thy neighbor as thy self", "Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?" and there are tons of these in Bible alone that one could reflect into and get inspired from. Even if the person doesn't believe in God, he could just use God as some sort of an empowering metaphor.

I'm afraid you're simply applying a particular "new age" spin on biblical teachings that simply happens to chime with a post-modern worldview. A hundred years ago those same texts were used to impose a totally different, and rather more materialistic (and by that I don't mean consumerist) worldview. People now tend to talk about spiritualism because most people who aren't actually fundamentalist nutcases have a problem reconciling religion with the scientific evidence. Most people choose wishy-washy ideas like spiritualism because its easier to live with than the harsh light of atheism.

af_thefragile wrote: »

I believe progress in its truest form needs to be spiritual. Civilizations have managed to make giant scientific, political and architectural leaps in the past only to be turned to dust and this will continue as this is the nature of the universe, its entropy, it destroys what it has built to give rise to another new world from its ashes only to destroy it back again and to continue this eternal cycle. From standing here looking out we are less significant than even the minutest spec of dust in front of the vastness of the universe. But looking in we could contain the whole universe in a nutshell or even a grain of sand. This is the nature of life and as we progress we seem to be giving ourselves lesser time looking in while we keep getting more and more caught up reaching out for what's beyond.

Believing in something doesn't make it so. You also fail to see the contradiction in your own thinking; entropy doesn't mean cycles of creation and destruction; its a one way street. You also seem to struggle with the idea of our insignificance in the universe and think that spiritualism and "looking inward" is the answer; personally I think looking inward like that goes against our essential humanity; we're an expansive outward-looking species, always trying to see what's over the next hill; leave the naval-gazing to the monkeys who stayed behind in the forest.

af_thefragile wrote: »

"Fix yourself before setting out to fix the world". How often do we reflect on these words before we set out to make progress. Sure people have caused wars in the past due to their ignorance but really how different is that from the present. We still have wars and people are still dying. Is that still because of religion? You might say so but i don't think so!

See above, religion is just a tool to be interpreted and used according to circumstance; religion has been used in the service of unscrupulous people for violent ends, but its the people silly enough to believe the religious message unthinkingly who've actually fought those wars.

af_thefragile wrote: »

Infact its more a case of human greed for materialistic needs that has become the main cause of conflict in this modern world (and this is what i believe has always been the main reason for conflict in the past, religion manipulated and used as a tool to guide people around). And i believe this isn't gonna be the end of conflict. Even if all religion was eradicated from the world people would still be fighting over their materialistic needs. There will be conflict on larger and larger scale until humanity progresses spiritually. Until humanity can evolve out of their mindset of greed and sloth. Until humanity truly realises war and any sort of conflict is never a proper solution to any problem and develops the mental capacity to reach out and solve all sorts of problems in the most humane way. Humanity needs to grow to reach out beyond these ideas and progress into the fields on compassion and sustenance for all bar none. Bigger buildings, faster cars and internet access will get humanity nowhere. One big earthquake or meteor strike or tsunami and its all wiped away. What will remain will be the progress humanity made spiritually with its mental capacity as that is the true form of progress.

Wars aren't about greed, or sloth, or materialism, they're about resources. Always have been, always will be. And I don't care how "spiritual" we get, we're always going to need to eat, so we'll always have wars. Unless of course, we get smart enough to deliver all the resources anyone will ever need, and new age hippy crap isn't going to deliver that utopia, quite the reverse.

Nevyn

Religion nope, sorry can't agree.
Spirituality then yes totally.

Húrin

nyarlothothep wrote: »

I would not use the bible as a moral compass. The god in it is a monster, especially if you read the old testament.

The thing is there are predominantly atheistic societies were most people follow the law and have a strong sense of right and wrong. Which society is more moralistic, one without religion where people try to do the right thing due to their understanding of justice or one where people only do the right thing out of fear of being punished by a wrathful god?

Careful, your bias is showing. There is nothing more to indicate that the people of atheist cultures don't follow morality for fear of state punishment than there is to indicate that all religious people follow it for fear of divine punishment (in the case of Protestant Christianity this is not even relevant).

Religion does not enhance a persons ethics. In fact religion has been used to justify barbarous acts, do you think the Spanish Inquisition or witch burnings were ethical. What about human sacrifice? Or cutting off a persons hand for stealing a loaf of bread? Our morals precede religion through evolution, if anything religions just incorporate the predominant cultural norms of the day.

I suspect that the OP meant that religion gives morality a prescriptive power. Otherwise morality does not objectively exist and is merely a historical description of biology.

Also I find that religious ceremonies are a bit circumspect. There is something akin to brainwashing in the respect that people chant in unison and perform rituals repeatedly.

Like sport, music or patriotism.

The one positive thing I can say about religion is that it alleviates fear of death, but I think as a species we should eliminate this imposition through science.

Eliminating aspects of human nature through science is at best faith-based thinking and at worst, totalitarian thinking.

Blue_Wolf wrote: »

IMO Religion is good for children to set them on the right path. Teach them the difference between right and wrong. What's moral and socially acceptable. All these stories/legends are examples given to show people what to do, how to behave. How to love each other. The commandments are like a guideline to life.

I think it's very important for children. However, I don't see why adults go to church. I think their is a lot of hypocrisy amongst those who sin mon-sat and than go to church and act the angel and ask for forgiveness but everyone for themselves.

You can teach people good behaviour without religion. Adult Christians make no pretence to be without sin, but they should indeed ask for forgiveness if they are remotely serious about their supposed worldview.

Blue_Wolf wrote: »

What's the point of religion than?

Most of them state the aim as being some sort of ultimate communion with God.

nyarlothothep wrote: »

Which is the potential tragedy of our history on this earth. We have people who realize this, those who are unwilling, those who are complacent and those who are aware but who care only for their own personal profit. The tragedy resides in the fact that we aren't uniformly blind to the situation yet not enough is being done to avert it. We need to grow up and this may be the century in which it happens.

However I believe scientific progress is just as important and at some stage will cross over into spirituality. We need to technologically progress because we are with respect to our intelligence too big the limitations imposed on us. One day perhaps we will evolve beyond the confines of the universe. Humanity has the seed of potential to possibly achieve this.

This kind of faith based modernist thinking has littered the earth with failed utopias. You are looking to science to deliver a utopia someday - this is just a materialistic version of religion. Progress exists but faith in it is misplaced. New technology is used for both good and evil purposes, and this is because of moral problems in human nature, which cannot be solved by scientific progress. Evolution cannot be forced by will.

Húrin

af_thefragile wrote: »

I wouldn't say you should base your opinions about the concept of religion on The Bible. Especially a book whose authenticity is not the most reliable and is known to have been manipulated by rulers to control people.

Actually this is not true. Copies of the Bible from throughout the ages are all very similar in content.

Thaedydal wrote: »

Religion nope, sorry can't agree.
Spirituality then yes totally.

Spirituality is just religion with capitalism replacing church.

Hillel

nyarlothothep wrote: »

The one positive thing I can say about religion is that it alleviates fear of death, but I think as a species we should eliminate this imposition through science.

The version of religion I was taught made me fear death, greatly. As an adolescent, I was absolutely terrified that I would die and go to hell.
I believe that religion has no place in any modern society and that teaching same should be outlawed in schools.

nyarlothothep

Húrin wrote: »

Careful, your bias is showing. There is nothing more to indicate that the people of atheist cultures don't follow morality for fear of state punishment than there is to indicate that all religious people follow it for fear of divine punishment (in the case of Protestant Christianity this is not even relevant).


I suspect that the OP meant that religion gives morality a prescriptive power. Otherwise morality does not objectively exist and is merely a historical description of biology.


Like sport, music or patriotism.


Eliminating aspects of human nature through science is at best faith-based thinking and at worst, totalitarian thinking.



You can teach people good behaviour without religion. Adult Christians make no pretence to be without sin, but they should indeed ask for forgiveness if they are remotely serious about their supposed worldview.



Most of them state the aim as being some sort of ultimate communion with God.



This kind of faith based modernist thinking has littered the earth with failed utopias. You are looking to science to deliver a utopia someday - this is just a materialistic version of religion. Progress exists but faith in it is misplaced. New technology is used for both good and evil purposes, and this is because of moral problems in human nature, which cannot be solved by scientific progress. Evolution cannot be forced by will.

That may be. Though I would say religion can distort ethics based on an appeal to divine prescription, which is unprovable. Example, a religion states gay marriage is bad because God stated this is so. Well, does God exist and who does gay marriage actually harm? Ergo how is it wrong for all instances? In addition religion tends to mystify ethics through this divine appeal system. In an ideal humanist society people would live in a culture of ethics and would be encouraged to critically evaluate their own sense of morality.

The evolutionary precedent doesn't lessen our own ethics. There is a tendency to think that because something isn't objective it no longer counts. But if someone say steals your bike, yes your outrage is subjective but its no less significant than a tangible effect. I also think there are moral patterns which though subjective generally hold throughout culture, eg murder is considered wrong in almost all human societies though killing is not necessarily.

I agree with politics very strongly. Dogmatic thinking should be eradicated, ideal vision yes but imo its best to strive towards an ideal because eventually the hardest obstacles will be chipped away, even if it takes millenia. In relation to music, the ideologies while dumb are harmless, (ideological threads in music have rarely if ever developed into sustainable movements, the radicalism of the 60s would be a prime example) and I think the same would probably apply to sport disregarding the violent outbursts of fans from time to time.

Human nature is entirely malleable. There is no reason we cannot alter ourselves. This is the next step, our potential has been leading us up to this. However it does depend on how we use the technology, for example I'm not down with the idea of parents superficially selecting traits for their children as I can imagine it being disasterous. You could end up with too many politician and business leader personality types/aptitudes and not enough artists/scientists.

Finally I didn't say that science should be our only recourse to higher evolution. Of course not, a mechanistic approach would be blind. But I do believe that as a branch of our identity it will be constitute a significant role in our evolution. Progress should occur in all areas of human endevour.

@ Hillel, yeah I never thought about hell. Then again you'd still exist plus if you ended up in Limbo you could hang out with the greek philosphers in that area of hell which isn't so bad.:P

Joycey

Húrin wrote: »

Spirituality is just religion with capitalism replacing church.

How so?

My own beliefs start from the presupposition that there has never been any kind of contact between any kind of divine power (which I have no basis to belief or disbelieve the reality of) and us material beings here on earth.

Following from this, any notion of the divine, the holy, the sacred etc, all these notions of some kind of perfection or heavenly good, have emerged from our engagement with the natural world.

As a result, instead of allowing these abstractions from the worth which was already perceived by humans in nature to persist through teaching the existence of some transcendent world, we should recognise that every conception of "heaven" that anybody has is simply some extension of the magnificence present in the world we see around us.

When you go out into your garden, or walk around the city, are you not overcome with marvelling at the amazing things you see around you?

Can you not appreciate that the life that you are living right now is all your going to get, and wonder at every second that your existence persists, rather then calling the tiny glimpse of existence you are allowed access to "imperfect", "sinful", or seeing it as simply some kind of preface to something better which follows from your death?

I challenge any one of you to describe your conception of this eternal, perfect state in which you will exist without reference to something which you have simply abstracted from this, imperfect, transient one.

I would describe my beliefs as spiritual, and I would hope to be able to say with complete honesty that I am about as much opposed to capitalism as is possible

ChocolateSauce

Well I find it, at worst, sickening. The opposite of religion, atheism, I find at worst, can give people a superiority complex.

deereidy

I think, like most things, it has it's upsides and it's downsides. For the full list of downsides, read Dawkin's The God Delusion, it segragates people etc etc.
Obviously it's upsides are that it gives people hope and comfort and a drive they may not otherwise have. Some people need their religion, some don't, and the two groups should respect each other.

dreamlogic

af_thefragile wrote: »

Like for instance stealing is a sin. Thats a rigid rule with no room for getting around. It states it clear that stealing is prohibited under all circumstances and so people are less likely to do it. If it instead stated "stealing under most circumstances is a sin", then people would start to manipulate the circumstances stealing would be a sin for and would look to get away a lot more by doing it. Probably by hiring good lawyer (like in the courts of today!).

Unfortunately it is not that simple. You have to define exactly is meant by stealing! And when you have done that, you have to ask are there different levels of stealing or should it all be treated the same, 'black and white' as you say.. For example - a starving mother takes a 50c loaf of bread to feed herself and her starving children, is that on the same level as a millionaire businessman evading large sums of tax? Or a government siphoning off tax revenue to be spent on weapons and meanwhile thousands of people need the same money to be spent on urgent medical needs? There are plenty of examples you could think of that may or may not fall into the cateogory of stealing. Whatever the answers I don't think you will find much fine print in religious commandments or scripture. These issues are a matter of individual conscience and in the absense of that there is legislation and as you mentioned, lawyers and courts. Obviously law does not always equate to justice but that's a matter for another discussion..

Blue_Wolf wrote: »

All I'm saying is that there is a place for religion in our society and that is for children. Children need something to believe in and perhaps something to be scared of (Heaven and Hell theory) so that they treat each other well. It's easy to say why use religion, why not teach the children ourselves?! How are we going to explain to children ourselves what is right and what is wrong?

af_thefragile wrote: »

One could take the long hard seemingly impossible but scientifically right way of reaching values and morals in the society.

If you want to know the best way to teach children right and wrong it is quite simple - you lead by example! No amount of story telling and attempts at brainwashing will do any real good if they are being told things like do not steal, do not to use bad language etc but they grow up in an environment where they are observing adults they look up to behaving in exactly this way! Children are not stupid. They are rational little people who learn by example. And they spot hypocrisy a mile off!

af_thefragile wrote: »

Bigger buildings, faster cars and internet access will get humanity nowhere.

A bit ironic then that you are posting on the internet?

lettydon

I would agree with you opening post..

My own thoughts on it are that it's the fundamentalists that cause all the trouble. They are few and far between in the big scheme of things, ie In comparison to the billions of everyday normal religious folk that do "good" in the name of their Religion..offering their time, love, charity and friendship, doing good for others in their community or even in poorer parts of the globe...

Democracy and freedom of speech and most importantly freedom of thought are the "ideal" in my opinion...Freedom to be Religious, Atheist, Ignostic...whatever you choose!

Start telling people what to "think" and that's where the trouble lies depending on how far you are willing to go to impose your world view or moral compass...Examples of this "trouble" can be found throughout history...However, just taking the last century as a trial in some secular rule, if it proves anything to us, it's that imposing a secular world view causes equally as much trouble and as much fundamentalism to boot and can be just as dangerous...Stalin, China etc... Not exactly a good path to go down either imo :eek:

Religion is good for people who believe in God and want to self or soul search what that belief means to them in their lives....That's a good thing imo.

lettydon

I would agree with you opening post..

My own thoughts on it are that it's the fundamentalists that cause all the trouble. They are few and far between in the big scheme of things, ie In comparison to the billions of everyday normal religious folk that do "good" in the name of their Religion..offering their time, love, charity and friendship, doing good for others in their community or even in poorer parts of the globe...

Democracy and freedom of speech and most importantly freedom of thought are the "ideal" in my opinion...Freedom to be Religious, Atheist, Ignostic...whatever you choose!

Start telling people what to "think" and that's where the trouble lies depending on how far you are willing to go to impose your world view or moral compass...Examples of this "trouble" can be found throughout history...However, just taking the last century as a trial in some secular rule, if it proves anything to us, it's that imposing a secular world view causes equally as much trouble and as much fundamentalism to boot and can be just as dangerous...Stalin, China etc... Not exactly a good path to go down either imo :eek:

Religion is good for people who believe in God and want to self or soul search what that belief means to them in their lives....That's a good thing imo.

nobodythere

Firstly, very few people can be without religion, science is a religion itself.

Where the tragedy is IMO is the oppressive of the institutions that were (and still are in many parts) in power, the closed-minded attitude and the fearmongering used to keep the system together. These institutions actively discouraging any kind of questioning because they're afraid of truth.

This occurs as a function of states and institutions, not the religion as it is written. The fact that religion becomes a dogmatic experience used to control and manipulate a group instead of one of personal growth and revelation is where the tragedy is, but this is not divine, it's human.

af_thefragile wrote:

I believe religion needs to be the rigid, black and white form it is in. There can't be loop holes or soft edges in religion which people could exploit. Religion theoretically is the absolutely authority over life and that needs to be rigid cuz we humans are bound to lose path and break some rules of the rule book. By being rigid, people are less likely to break the rules than they would if religion had soft manipulable edges. Like for instance stealing is a sin. Thats a rigid rule with no room for getting around. It states it clear that stealing is prohibited under all circumstances and so people are less likely to do it.

Before the age of science, when the nature of the physical world was much more mysterious, people were more inclined to believe these things. This is what law does today, which is separate from the religion (though it always hasn't been). I don't remember where I heard this, but in Shaman societies (think it was native american...) the Shaman played this role, e.g. if the number of a certain animal was dwindling due to overhunting, the shaman would tell them that the animal was cursed and to stay away from it, to allow it to reproduce.

nyarlothothep

grasshopa wrote: »

Firstly, very few people can be without religion, science is a religion itself.

No, science is a method. It cannot be a religion.

Joycey

nyarlothothep wrote: »

No, science is a method. It cannot be a religion.

According to Adorno, they can both be viewed as totalising worldviews. If someone can explain what he means by that better then this attempt id like to hear it because im pretty sure my understanding is poor.

They are ways of seeing/understanding the world which purports to encompass and explain everything. The purpose of this way of looking at the world is in order to "objectify" it (in the sense of making things universal and repeatable, not of turning the world into objects like tables etc). What follows from this "scientific worldview" or what Adorno calls "Enlightenment thinking", is a reduction of the grandness and fundamentally non-totalisable world to something which is easily compartmentalisable and manipulable for our petty purposes. While he doesnt oppose the employment of technology or science for specific uses, he feels that to sublimate (is that the right word?) all of existence under this purportedly all encompassing worldview takes away from the world and the quality of our lives. He borrows a word from Weber and calls this scientific worldview a "re-enchantment" of the world which gradually fills the void left after the disenchantment which followed from the abandonment of religious "knowledge".