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Do you think the world would have been a better place if there were no religions?

I’m having conflicting thoughts about religion in shaping human history.

As an atheist, it seems obvious to me that if there were no religion from the start, the world would have been a better place than it is now. There would be no religious wars, honor killings, more freedom, no religious leaders abusing their powers, no waste of labor and money on religious things, etc. It may seem that we would be more educated and have better understanding.

My whole conflict arises from the fact that “fear is a better driver than education and reasoning.” As no system is efficient and perfect, the absence of religion would have caused more crimes. Religion promotes fear (the concept of an afterlife, hell) if you do something wrong. If there were no religion, humans may have committed numerous crimes without fearing consequences. You could say that it is due to religions that numerous wars have happened in history. But that is a tiny percentage of the whole population. Most people lived happier with religion as it introduced morals ,ethics and consequences for wrongdoing(big factor). One would think and question before doing something wrong.

You could also say that if we were non-religious from the start, we would have had better education, reasoning, different type ethics and morals etc. But as I said earlier, no system is efficient, and since non-religion doesn’t promote fear if you don’t get caught by others, there would be more crimes without fearing consequences if they don’t get caught by others, which was easy in the old days.

So, I’m thinking if religion did better in the early days.

And I know that nowadays it’s a different story, and non-religion is obviously better.

southsamurai ,
@southsamurai@sh.itjust.works avatar

Eh, looking through the comments (and its so nice to see that folks really giving some good thought to their comments on such a hot button topic), there’s not much I can add.

I fall into the “humans will find excuses” camp. I also think that religion isn’t a bad thing, per se. Even organized religion doesn’t have to be destructive at its extreme. But it’s also inevitable that the section of humanity that craves power and control is going to use whatever avenue for such that they find.

Since all religions are susceptible to zealotry, I don’t think we’ll ever be free of religious zealots, which means there’s always going to be people insisting that other people follow their religion’s rules, or else.

Now, that isn’t exclusive to religion, but it’s the obvious example of that kind of thinking. You can look at pretty much any bloc that’s belief based and find zealots. Politics, whoooo boy! Veganism. Even fandoms of cartoons have zealotry in a way, though it tends to be a much less invasive kind, akin to music genre fanatics; it’s more gatekeeping than proselytizing. But you do run into the kind of obsessive fandom where if you don’t like it, you suck; and you have to watch/listen/read.

Now, it may seem strange to connect religious zealotry to fandoms, but it’s the same underlying way of thinking. People are just prone to wanting to control other people, and will use any excuse to do so.

That proclivity is present even in people that think they don’t think that way, and actively try to weed it out of themselves. Ever catch yourself thinking "the whole world would be better if they all insert personal belief here? That’s the underlying kind of thinking that can snowball into the bigger kind of problem. Doesn’t even matter if it’s true on a factual level, it’s the way it’s thought about and approached that’s the key. If anything, a belief being highly factual and demonstrably true makes it more likely to turn into zealotry.

So, better without religion? Eh, nah, not imo. Just different in detail.

theywilleatthestars ,

As long as there’s an unequal distribution of power there’s going to be humans who are going to abuse it. If they don’t use god as an excuse they’ll use the glory of the nation or numbers on a spreadsheet

Hegar ,
@Hegar@fedia.io avatar

Belief in the divine likely comes from our brains' hyperactive agency detection system: our brains err on the side of seeing agency where there is none in order to keep us alive.

If a branch snaps behind you and you react as if someone did it but it was really nothing, you're fine. But if it was a human or other animal and you react as if it was nothing, you might be food.

Property crime is largely a factor of poverty, but also social inequality. If you lack a need you will try to fulfill that need. If you feel like you're unfairly "less-than", you're much more likely to engage in prohibited behavior to correct that. But also if you have power or wealth, your brain becomes less capable of empathy making it much easier for you to criminally hurt others - the rich do most crimes.

Religion is just using this evolutionarily beneficial flaw in our brains to justify the unjust social hierarchies which drive crime. So in a roundabout way, religion puts upward pressure on crime.

MyTurtleSwimsUpsideDown ,

You don’t need religion to be a moral person, and you don’t have to reject religion to act amorally. But there is no perfect, universal, scientific morality. Cultures, communities, individuals will vary on what they consider a moral act, and morality can change with circumstance. When different moralities interact, there will be conflict. And the amoral (or rather those, who do not subscribe to the same morality as those around them) will always use others’ morality as a tool to manipulate, a curtain to hide behind, a weapon to wield, and a shield to defend with.

Religion helps communities to build a common morality in order to reduce tensions and foster fellowship within the group. But there will always be communities. There will always be disagreements, confusion, frustration, pride, loyalty, forgetfulness, honor, greed, hunger, struggle, disease, countervailing needs and desires, and mercy. The absence of religion would not stop people from seeking safe harbor and kinship in others, whether that is social clubs, fandoms, sports teams, political parties, activist organizations, etc. And when that kinship is endangered or perceived to be endangered, the absence of religion will not stop people from seeking to obstruct, forestall, eliminate, or revenge against whatever or whomever is perceived to be the cause.

ianovic69 ,
@ianovic69@feddit.uk avatar

What I’ve noticed reading the responses here, is a constant use of the terms non-religious and atheist.

While they are accurate and the details are on point, I find it interesting that much of the discussion is actually about secularism but no one is using that term.

Whatever the reasons for this, I think you are all (I’m assuming mostly Americans) missing a trick here. Secularism is woven into the very fabric of American society and is constantly under attack by the religious (mostly) right, especially in recent years.

As a Brit, we have had to overcome a long history of religious domination and to some extent that continues. The National Secular Society and Humanists UK work tirelessly in this regard.

I would like to see greater use of the term secular in discourse between and from Americans. I honestly believe that language has a huge effect on ourselves as individuals, and constant use of words that are our goals and that have positive connotations are extremely beneficial to us, and by extension our societies.

Just my observation, I hope that’s ok.

Hikermick ,

Something i read during the beginning of the Iraq War put things in perspective. During the time of monarchies it was suicidal to challenge them . Religion provided a balance because you can’t kill God. Kings and queens learned to work with religious leaders to help deal with the populace. Democracy made it less necessary. I don’t know if any of this is true but it does make sense

teamevil ,

We’d just find some other pointless form of tribalism to hate each other over.

Check out the Lucifer Principal by Howard Bloom.

ShittyBeatlesFCPres ,

My personal opinion (as a dispassionate atheist) is that religion isn’t the problem with human nature. In the U.S., for instance, we have some Christians who have strayed so far, I don’t get how they’ve even seen a Bible verse. But also, basically every major Civil Rights leader was a Christian preacher or woman of faith. There are similar situations everywhere. There’s Buddhists who are so non-violent they wouldn’t kill a fly and other “Buddhists” who commit genocide, which doesn’t even make fucking sense.

So, my view of religion is that it’s mostly not the thing to focus on. People can be organized for good or evil and there’s plenty of secular things where people define an identity. I suspect if religion never existed, we’d have all the same problems. I mean, we have soccer hooligans and it’s not because people object to 22 people getting some exercise on a lovely afternoon. (Or a miserable, rainy Wednesday night in England.)

themurphy ,

Iran and Turkey would be a better place, that’s for sure. Especially Iran was a free country, women rights and everything. Now priests control the country, and women are getting killed for not wearing their clothing “correct”.

Also, the whole western world entered the “dark ages” which was a big push backwards in terms of living standards and science. That was because of religion, so we might be 100-200 years ahead now, if it wasn’t for that.

BearOfaTime ,

What’s the difference between religion and any other belief systems?

MonkRome ,

Reality?

motor_spirit ,

Lmfao goddamn this is good

BearOfaTime ,

You’d have to cut out the part of our brain that’s responsible for religious thinking. So what does that do to humanity?

Vaggumon ,
@Vaggumon@lemm.ee avatar

Faith and Religion are two different things. Yes, I think the world would be far better without Religion. But faith gives people strength to overcome challenges that otherwise may destroy them. Faith doesn’t require you pay anything, money, time, etc into it. Faith is a personal thing between that one person and whatever they happen to put the faith into. Faith doesn’t require you to kill someone else because they don’t share that faith. Faith doesn’t require you study some fairy tale written by storytellers thousands of years ago. Religion is the opposite of all that, and for it’s survival requires you to spread the virus by any means necessary.

illi ,

You really nailed it. I’ll take it one step further though - religion as a concept is not the problem. Having gods, holidays rites and rituals - that’s all good.

It’s religion as an organization, when it gives people power which they can misuse when we start having problems.

Your way of saying it is way clearer though.

Damage , (edited )

Power-hungry people need to make up rules to control others, religions are a convenient tool for that, but they’re not the only one.

scytale ,

Even without religion exising, I think people will still eventually gravitate towards something similar. It’s a part of human nature that we are still yet to break away from as a species. Sure, atheism and agnosticism are becoming increasingly prevalent now; but it’s still a very small minority globally and it will probably never become the norm.

Kwakigra ,

I think when people are afraid and confused they tend to depend on narcissistic psychopaths to do their thinking for them. That’s the part that’s nature. The reason so many people are afraid and confused is because we are trying to live in a highly unnatural way in a world guided primarily by narcissistic psychopaths whose only concern is to outdo the other narcissistic psychopaths in the world using their people as a resource toward that end. Religion is one of uncountable tools in this dynamic. Removing it would disempower some narcissistic psychopaths and create opportunities for other narcissistic psychopaths. Afraid and confused people want the assurance from the narcissistic psychopaths regardless of whether religion is an option.

balderdash9 ,

There would be no religious wars, honor killings, more freedom, no religious leaders abusing their powers, no waste of labor and money on religious things, etc. It may seem that we would be more educated and have better understanding.

Removing the word religion from this excerpt wouldn’t remove any of these problems. We would still squabble over territory, resources, and ideological differences. To give a non-religious analogy: if a time traveler went back and killed Hitler, Germany would still retain all the problems from WW1 and the Weimar Republic that were ripe for a dictatorship.

BearOfaTime ,

Indeed.

The primal element of Christianity is that we’re all born imperfect. (I like to say we’re thrust, painfully, from perfect security in the womb into a harsh environment where we’re utterly ignorant and dependent upon “others” which we can’t even comprehend).

If we were born perfect, from where would the problems of the world originate?

kitnaht ,

I don’t think Religion created our problems, I think we did. I think Religion is just our brains trying to maintain sanity. We can’t fathom “infinity”, we can’t fathom the times before or after our deaths. I think religion was just created by people who need to attribute something to that, so they can get their minds off of it.

It has been used as a weapon, for sure, but I don’t think there’s any getting rid of it. I think naturally we gravitate towards it due to our need to understand the world around us. When we get to something we can’t wrap our heads around - it’s easy to just explain it away with a story. Others will dive even deeper into understanding it (science and the scientific method)

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