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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.

sylver_dragon ,

Humans are pretty terrible and we’ll find any excuse to justify our terribleness. One of the parts of the French Revolution was the Dechristianization of France. While this may sound like a good thing, which should lead people to live their lives based on reason, it also led to violence against priests. And the lack of religion did nothing to stop the Reign of Terror. In short, it was less an atheist utopia and more just humans finding different excuses to be terrible to one an other.

Similarly, the Soviet Union was founded on the Marxist principal that “religion is the opiate of the masses”. This meant that the Soviet Union was officially athiest. However, unlike some of the French Revolutionary governments, the USSR largely tolerated religious practices. At the same time, the officially a theist state got up to a lot of horrible stuff.

At the same time, there is an argument to be made that Christianity helped reign in some of the worst excesses of monarchs during the Middle Ages. It’s important to remember that people really believed this stuff. Kings really did think about their immortal soul and what they would be forced to answer for on “judgement day”. Fear is a powerful motivator and it may be that, for all their terrible selfishness, some monarchs may have been led to moderate the worst of it based on that fear.

All that said, I’m not sure how much differently history would have played out, without religion. As I led with, humans are pretty terrible. Many wars may have had a religious veneer, to get the people to go along with them, but they were more often about power, control and ego than religious conviction. Religion provides a convenient excuse to define “the other”. The othering of people creates a permission structure where we will not only tolerate, but often gleefully engage in, truly horrible acts against “the other”. And it doesn’t require religion to do it. Take a look around the Lemmyverse and you’ll find videos of Russian soldiers being blown apart by drone dropped munitions. And the comment sections will be talking about how “they deserve it” or making jokes and light of another human being ripped apart. And these comments will be defended because of the horrible actions of the Russian Government and some Russian soldiers. Russian soldiers have been placed firmly in “the other” and so we can celebrate their horrible deaths, and be cheered on for it in many corners of Lemmy. No religion required.

So ya. I’m not a fan of religion, nor am I religious myself. But, I have no illusions that religion has a lock on people being terrible to each other. It has absolutely been involved in making it happen throughout history. But, I am skeptical of the idea that history without it wouldn’t have been just as filled with humans doing terrible things to each other. Human nature tends towards tribalism and the creation of “in groups” and “out groups”. With those in the former more than willing to do anything and everything to the latter.

kubica ,

What I would want is that some people wouldn't try to bend religion to their will. But anyway what are religions but something that has been shaped over time by people... Sigh, whatever.

OsrsNeedsF2P ,

Even today, I know some people who dedicate themselves to helping their community or open source, in the name of religion. It gives them a zen and feeling of purpose.

I also know people who have no friends or support. They’re locked up in their apartment, letting themselves rot day in and out. If those people were religious, at least they would be going to church.

Atheist btw.

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.

Ziggurat ,

Hasn’t the question been settled by the Beatles? *Imagine no religions, we’d all be in peace ohohoohoho, you may say Iama dreamer. *

But we may still find other reason to fight

Jakdracula ,
@Jakdracula@lemmy.world avatar

Yes, 100%

MagicShel ,

I’m an atheist, and obviously a lot of evil things have been done in the name of religion, but I think there are some incredible things that have resulted from it, too.

People were given solace in times of sorrow. They were given a hope for justice in times of tyranny. The art of the Sistine Chapel, or Buddhist temples, or incredible songs that resonate because of their religious imagery. You wouldn’t have Hallelujah or Spirit in the Sky, and on the other hand you wouldn’t have Imagine - or at least it would hit different. Some addicts rely on it to help them fight addictions.

Some religious traditions helped with sanitation and preventing the spread of disease in a time when we didn’t have other tools to make people understand.

So in the end I think religion has done and continues to do tremendous harm and is mostly an evil force, but there are some incredibly beautiful and important things that came from it that are worth celebrating.

newnton , (edited )

Fun fact, spirit in the sky was made by a Jewish man who just liked the sound of gospel music and didn’t believe any of it. White Christmas is similar, Irving Berlin was also Jewish.

Sometimes creative people just want to make good art and in largely religious societies they can make their art more relatable or consumable by incorporating that religion

Edit to add: Michelangelo never even wanted to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling. He … made it clear from the start that he resented the commission, which had been imposed upon him by the imperious and demanding “warrior pope”, Julius II.

Some absolutely beautiful things have been made in the name of religion, but underneath that I believe you see the beauty and creativity that the human spirit is capable of shine through, and those amazing people deserve credit much more than an invisible sky man or hierarchical power structure for supposedly inspiring it

MagicShel ,

Spirit in the Sky goes so hard with that riff. Definitely one of my favorite songs to roll the windows down and drive too fast to. Thanks for the fun fact!

newnton ,

Oh absolutely, it’s such a good one. You put it perfectly, one of my favorite things was listening to it while driving these twisty country roads near my grandparents house when I was younger ( a little faster than I should :P )

Edit: spelling

roadrunner_ex ,
@roadrunner_ex@lemmy.ca avatar

I want to add to this. I’m not a psychologist, but I have heard a couple times about the term “third place”. It’s this concept that most people have a “place where they live”, a “place where they work”, and then a “place where they socialize”. It has been theorized that the modern working-age population is having trouble with stress and mental health in large part due to the dearth of “third places”.

The “third place” can be, for example, a restaurant or bar that you frequent (think the pub from the TV show Cheers), a book club, a sports club, or, crucially, a church or place of worship.

For Christianity at least, knowing that you were going to see and socialize with the same group of people (who share at least 1 major interest in common with you) every Sunday is apparently quite good for mental health. So, although I am no proponent of certain Western religions in general, I do think their decline has contributed to some of the mental health crises. How much? I cannot say.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place

MagicShel , (edited )

That’s a really good point. Lemmy has sort of become my Third Space and Reddit before that. I moved away from home for 5 years then moved back and then covid hit. I haven’t had anyone to hang out and socialize with other than my wife and kids in a long time.

I used to be active in the kink community and we’d go to munches, which were really just a bunch of people united by a sort of bohemian stance towards sexuality getting together and talking about mostly anything else. Religion or secularism was mostly irrelevant. I really miss the kink community for that reason more than anything, you know, particularly deviant. But also being transgressive was fun, too.

Online just doesn’t hit the same.

Today ,

It’s not possible. Every night people looked at stars, watched the patterns, and made stories about how and why we’re here. It’s completely woven into humanity and every part of culture and art form.

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