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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.

fsxylo ,

If there were no religions I’d figure that human race is one where tribalism can’t catch on as well, in which case there would probably be a lot less organized violence like wars.

Individual crimes are always going to happen with or without religion. Crimes generally have real tangible punishments and there are still criminals. Imaginary punishments aren’t going to do much to stop them.

A_Very_Big_Fan ,

We’d certainly be better off in the education/intelligence department if we promoted skepticism and criticized faith or any belief without evidence, but to be fair the word “better” is more broad than that…

lordnikon , (edited )

i think if we stayed with the idea of God’s representing natural phenomena and being flawed characters vs single deity that is all seeing all powerful and a singular conduit and thus used by ambitious men and women to control the masses be it a pope or televangelist.

As we learned more about the ways of science I think they would have gracefully faded into the background and turned into the fables they are today.

NigelFrobisher ,

It’s pretty naive to think we wouldn’t have just found a different excuse to burn people alive.

HootinNHollerin ,

Yes

hperrin ,

Yes, but not just because of the lack of religions, but the lack of superstition that would require. Basically if everyone believed things based on physical evidence, rather than feelings, the world would be better. But, also, we as a species might not have survived our earliest days.

11111one11111 ,

Religion is just a tool. A tool is only as good as the person using it.

sdiown ,

Not really, religion makes rules and people follow them. The point is that, yes, we humans can create “rules”, but the question is who is going to create these rules, who are you going to choose as the rule-maker, and how are you going to make sure that everyone follows this rule because everyone has their own ideas or morals about it? Religion must and will exist. Even today, what we create as “rules” certainly come from religion, or at least are closely linked to it. People and their morals come from religion, there must be some power over people to make these rules. Let me give you an example, I am a human being who forbids eating apples, as another human being, if there is no consequence, why should I obey it? Because according to me or according to my morality there is no harm in eating it. And who is right in this situation? No one. Then who are we supposed to listen to? A power superior to us humans. I hope that answers your questions.

weeeeum ,

As an atheist, I think it was necessary for human development.

Fear is an extremely motivating force, and without the threat of a “hell” for disobeying/ hurting society, it wouldn’t motivate people to cooperate. Additionally without the allure of heaven, it wouldn’t motivate people to work harder, together.

Without instruments of science, the world is would be a complete mystery. Religion existed to give it history and meaning, to give people a place and meaning in life. It feels much more comforting to believe you are the beloved child of a greater being, crafting you by hand, instead of an insignificant creature on a wet rock floating endlessly in the void.

Today I think it is obsolete to an extent, as science has taken the latter role (understanding), and one should not need to be threatened with eternal damnation to stop being malicious. Today religion is now more frequently used for means of brainwash and control rather than betterment of society, which is why I decide not to partake in it.

JimmyBigSausage ,

Yes Yes Yes!

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.

PiJiNWiNg ,

I feel the need to disagree with you a bit here. The belief in a god or higher power can drive people to do terrible things, regardless of any form of organization or power structure.

Though I would also argue that the concepts of “religion” and “organization” cannot be separated. To be considered a religion, one would expect an organized set of doctrines, values, etc., likely taught by a spiritual leader or practitioner. The heirarchy of student and teacher is intrinsic to religion. The enlightened, and the lost.

Further, faith/religion based views on the world are, in my view, inherently “unscientific”. If you already feel you have the answers to lifes big questions, what motivation is there to continue research? Or even worse, could they end up wasting resources on religious pursuits.

Anyway, just my 2c.

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.

flamingo_pinyata ,

Depends on what you define as a religion. Violently forcing beliefs onto others - yes we would definitely be better off without that. Hierarchical structures of power - also yes.

Trying to explain the universe around us by anthropomorphizing natural phenomena? I’m not so sure. It could be seen as useful in the sense of philosophical exploration.

As inspiration for art - it was immensely useful.

MajorHavoc ,

Trying to explain the universe around us by anthropomorphizing natural phenomena? I’m not so sure. It could be seen as useful in the sense of philosophical exploration.

Yeah. A lot of religions’ explanations for things are only wrong in the sense that Newton’s Laws are wrong. Later physicists made drastic improvements. Einstein’s equations are strictly more correct, and don’t fail in the situations where Newton’s equations fail (near the speed of light).

But Newton’s work was a way to start understanding, and a set of ideas for Einstein to start from. We don’t despise Newton for those failures, we celebrate the incremental progress.

Lots of religion’s efforts to explain the world act like that, just from before we even had scientic methods.

Edit; And to be clear, I still have no respect for the charred remains of any hard-line Newton fans who attempt space travel without applying newer equations.

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.

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