More suffering has been caused by religion and religion based "crusades" than any other calamity in history. Religion is "Big Brother" with the sole purpose of controlling people and limiting free thought. If religion were eradicated more people would strive toward true understanding of science and reason.

Come on if we didnt have religion then we wouldnt have wars... what kind of world would be with out wars... im mean come are u serious! :P

NEXT!

Okay, the suffering caused in the past is probably about even when you compare religious and secular sides. Hey... it's all opinions.

This question is worded poorly, because it implies "would the world be a better place if everyone was atheist", when I think the better question to debate would be "would the world be a better place if everyone was the same religion as you". It would spark a better debate (more points of view rather than atheist against everyone else).

I believe it would be, because there would be one less thing to divide people and one less thing to use to form prejudices.

All groups of people want the same basic things in life (health, comfort, most want to raise a family, etc.), but religion is used more often to highlight our differences than our similarities.

The question you have to ask yourself before you make an argument against the statement is not if the world would be better without your religion, but if it would be better without all the other religions. If you ask a Jew if the world would be better if everyone was Jewish and they would probably say yes, but if you ask them if the world would be better without all religion including their own of course they would say no to defend their belief.

You think that without religion there would still be the same amount of "us" against "them" mentality because the other means of division would be used more often. I disagree. Let's use race as an example because many people do divide "us" against "them" using race. If religion couldn't be used, you wouldn't say "they're twice as different as us because they are a different race". You would still only be able to use the race card once. With religion you can say "they're a different race and a different religion" which makes them even more different than you. Without the difference in religion they instantly become more like you.

The number of atrocities commited in the name of some god is innumerable; Blind faith channeled through effective leaders will always allow the strong to control the weak minded masses, because they have been conditioned to do what their "god" or religious leader or political leader tells them to. We should be raised to question, not blindly follow the instructions of those before us; that is a path of destruction. Some agrue that religion does many a good thing for people, but what i want to know is why do we need a religion to tell us what is right? Why should we do things for other humans simply for benifits after our deaths or because of fear of devine retribution? Why can't we help each other simply because people need help; the answer is we do, and it is past time that we allow the religions of today to be removed from the equation to pass into obscurity along with the names zeus and apollo.

"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful."

"Surgeon General's Warning: Quitting Religion Now Greatly Increases the Chances of World Peace."

""""For the world to be without religion, it needs to be without humans, and then "better" has no meaning. """"

I think it would be better without humans.

"In every beLIEf there is a lie"

So what of atheists? are we not human? are we not "cognitive beings"?

You did get one thing right, at the core of religion there are assumptions, we know what assumption does, that turn into beliefs, but these beliefs are thing people are willing to die for. Things they will force on others, because they believe so fanaticaly that they are right. when at their core all they have is an assumption

agreed.

i wonder why a reply has to be a certain number of charaters

That is an interesting thought. In a nutshell I interpret you saying that getting rid of religion decreases the number of potential divisions and therefore the world gets better. It is a seductive idea but my cynicism prevents me from agreeing with this.

As long as there is concentrated power I believe those in control will use whatever means they can to divide people. Categories will be made up to fill the void left by the absence of religion, so I am inclined to believe. We already see divisions based on political correctness in this country and this sort of thing is identical to a division based on religion. It's division based on political thought and in the last century many millions of people were killed based on divisions of political thought.

Perhaps your view belies an optimism that is absent in me. I don't think the world will be necessarily better or worse, just different, without religion. It will be a better place when humans learn to empathize on a much larger and grander scale. And this, I think, is the message of most religions; which is ironic given the topic we are discussing.

While I agree that religion obviously contributes to its fair share of wars in the world, it is not the ONLY reason people go to war with one another. Now, it may have the most wars under its belt, but there are far too many reasons people go to war (land, economy, food, water...) to just lump them all into one anti-religion argument.

"Let him who is without sin cast the first stone."

I'm not arguing that religious people don't do bad things. I am saying that religion instills good values in people and it is up to them to follow them. It is true that many people twist the words in order to feel better about themselves. And find me where the good book tells him to beat her to death, I am actually pretty curious to see where it specifically says that.

Yes because the bible says so.

-j

No one is lumping all the wars that have ever taken place in with religious wars. So i'm not sure i understand your point. the wars that have taken place to take land from another people of a differant religion, or because your god is not my god so i'm going to kill you and make your god my god. is what i was referring to

Religion is a lose easily modifiable set of morals and ethics backed by the mysterious. You have a sacred text, that is so messed up, especially when it comes to knowing what was intended to be taken literally, and what was not. This is where the single text gets so many different believes and different churches and congregations. It's also where you get the disagreement and social instability.

Faith, belief, and the likes should not be taken so seriously and should not be used as a tool to guide a person. As soon as you get one group of people that believe on thing, and someone else believing another, as strong as they believe, because belief and faith are at the center of each person, you get some serious problems.

All that we can tell empirically is that we as humans are here alone. You can fool yourself all you want, that you see the proof of god in everything, but you're only, like I said, fooling yourselves into seeing what you want to see. You have to start from a clean slate. Look at humanity now, look at where we are headed, and decide, what is a human? Your choices and your views and what you do or say, changes the course of humanity.

Reason out Morals, use your "god given" mind to reason all of these ethical principles. What is right and what is wrong? If there be a god, I think he would appreciate you more if you used what s/he's or it's given you to reach his conclusions about right and wrong than just following a flock of idiots to the gates of paradise.

If you feel like you've done good in your life, no matter how bad it may have been, and you know that you've made mistakes (because knowing your mistakes means that you've acknowledged them and know that you shouldn't do them again), and you are still sent to hell... then that means more people like you will be there too, and then maybe hell will not be that bad of a place after all, right?

No, it hasn't. You cannot build a strong pyramid of morals and ethics on a faith, it's baseless! You can make a stronger argument for why you should love your neighbors with reason than with faith. You build your pyramid with reason at the base, and then take that leap of faith at the top, where you wonder if your reasoning was correct.

Use the mind that "god" has given you.

You can do that if you're educated and thoughtful, and able to believe in your own intelligence. I'm not religious, and I'll defend my right to choose what my own moral convictions should be, but there are a lot of people for whom that is not true. A lot of people would rather put their trust in establishments based on thousands of years of philosophy than in their own thoughts, and that's their choice.

Put quite simply, yes. The physical God has gradually been pushed aside by science and a better understanding of the world we live in, so that now there exists a purely metaphysical God. We don't need God to help us understand why the sun moves in the sky, why the crops grow, why the tides rise and fall.

Whilst I feel that, in the past, religion has probably helped us to achieve the moralities that we adhire to today (although I think society as a whole has led religion for a very long time on moral issues, as opposed to visa versa previously), there is unfortunately no place for religion in the world now.

So whilst I agree that, yes, the world would be better if we got rid of religion now, I'm not entirely sure if it would have been had we never had religion. (But then again, I'm sure we would have come up with other ways to build our moral foundations).

The question does not imply atheism. However, I believe atheism is a belief system in that the atheist believes in their perceptions (based on their perceived evidence/facts/truths/etc). Thus, the posed question is appropriate.

Regarding the posed question I believe Existence could not even occur without the concepts of 'faith' and 'belief' (and inherently 'belief systems'). The very acceptance of the concept of Existence requires faith [i.e. to believe that Existence occurs is to inherently have faith in that belief (e.g. I have faith in my belief that Existence occurs)].

Regarding your suggested replacement for the question posed, I do agree that is a good question (not a better one but just another good one). To answer your question, I agree with you that the world might indeed be a better place if everyone supported the same belief system.

The sadness of it is that we are all emotional creatures and ignorance of one thing or another is a constant (too bad we are not the borg with a collective consciousness).

Litchfield - I was referring to Kidem's argument:

"Come on if we didnt have religion then we wouldnt have wars..."

I was disagreeing that religion is the only reason people go to war. And I also disagree with your statement that land wars are only due to people having a different religion.

For example, were the Native American Indians driven off their land and killed only because they had different religious viewpoints than European settlers? Or did the immense riches of the newfound land have something to do with it? I think the amount of potential money to be made had a large role to play.

Religion was a invention of man to explain things in there surroundings, why in fact not sounds like a good idea lets make something up to explain something we cant answer who is to say what is what but religion based on pain,lies,ridicule, slander and hate there wont be such out there. With religion comes conflict.

Religion is ultimately a set of beliefs and it's up to the individual to choose what he or she wants to believe. However, the ultimate problem I have with religion is that while it does give a person hope in desperate times, it at times becomes too much of a hindrance to a person's daily life, and might even prevent a person from thinking rationally or objectively. While the person might not see it in this light due to their strong beliefs, it's what's happening when you look at it from a third person's point of view, which is why so many people would rather remain free thinkers because they realise what life would be like if they had a religion since they do not have one yet.

Difficult argument indeed. The thing about religion is that it supports you through difficult times by helping you to believe there is a higher purpose and such. However, I believe religion is still too 'enforced' in this day and age. (example: arranged marriages, sex before marriage, anti-homosexual, etc.)

I think people can believe in whatever they want, and that religion should never be enforced.

Religion is the reason behind just about every war etc. that has ever happened.

Actually, colonialism, opposing ideologies, ethnic conflict, and financial loss or gain are what fuels wars. Religion used in war has already been perverted by a government in order to impose an agenda on its people and gain support.

Religion promotes as virtue faith; the rejection of reason, rationality, and everything that separates us from the animals. Because evidence, reason, etc. are out of the question, faith can in many cases be immutable, and when two faiths compete, it results in a dogmatic brawl that resists any kind of progress -- look at Israel / Palestine for example.

It also promotes irrationality and revelation over free thought and inquiry. These things are only dentrimental to society and our sovereignty no matter how benign they manifest.

"Civilization will not attain perfection until the last stone from the last church falls on the last priest." — Émile Zola

Key word there, opposing ideologies, those ideologies are religion.

Religion breeds anti-scientific thinking, and thus intellectual stagnation.

You had me until you started talking about Scientology which is a defamation of religion as it is simply a guise for a successful money making scheme.

Real religions, most which are peaceful and good, when taken upon by average and sane citizens overall improves the conditions of man as they dictate standards of moral judgment.

How many wars have been fought "in the name of god"? How many people have been killed because of their religion? How many people have been tortured and executed for heresy?

No, atheism won't lead to world peace, but at least we would have one less thing to kill each other over.

(BTW I'm a catholic (does that make me a hypocrite?))

Charity done by religion is not an excuse to be complaisant with it's existence when it is positively immoral (which I would argue in more detail some other time).

Secular organizations have done a much better and more convincing job at assailing poverty and emancipating women, etc. etc.

One cannot thing of a good deed religion can do that a secular person could not, however you can think of many evil things religion can do that a humanist can't before you blink.

Touche.

Religion and belief system (philosophy) are different. Freud thought that religion was ineradicable and he very well be right. As the west becomes less religious we are still embracing irrational and illogical beliefs under the guise of "spirituality". However, the reason I oppose your post is not because I disagree, but because it wasn't the question. The question is "Would the world be a better place without religions" not "Is it possible to get rid of religion."

That is a pretty fatalistic viewpoint. I was thinking more along the lines of education. You know, those who do not take the time to learn about history are doomed to repeat it.

It is entirely possible to destroy religion, however, it can not b condcted in the realm of philosophy and theory.

A critique of religion is necesaarily a critiqique of the social conditions whose spiritual aroma is religion. When the social/material conditions which necessitate religion are destroyed (alienation) religion will disapear.

Read Marx

Would the world be a better place without religions...I said yes, you oppose by saying that uneducated people who are not thoughtful would rather trust an establishment based on thousands of years of "philosophy" (which, unlike true philosophy, is regarded as TRUTH, rather than KNOWLEDGE). And to end it, it's up to them...

Well for one, who is holding education from them? I know plenty of religious people that are educated, and very thoughtful, in fact one of them is a teacher, and a JW. Secondly, you're assuming that people trust in their faith... when in reality, we are seeing a huge boom right now of people switching faiths, and a lesser amount that are leaving religion all together (In the U.S.).

Would the world be a better place if everyone were educated? Would the world be a better place if everyone had faith in their education?

Would the world be a better place if people would strive to reach their own conclusions or answers or beliefs based on logic and more importantly, reason.

You know, humans excel in reason. I mean, that's just how the mind operates, reasonably. The more we know, the more we have to reason with. Education is key, and also, freedom from RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS.

Spirituality is fine, to me. In all actuality, I would argue that spirituality is great for the mind... having something to believe in and all... On the other hand, when you begin brainwashing people, and start trapping people in micro-cultures, where everyone is tied to everyone, and religion is the bond, then it gets ugly for everyone. The only people that survive church like organizations are people that A) Hide their fallacies or B) Don't question the church. In either scenario the individual involved is basically enslaved by the church, out of sociological fear.

There's no way around it. Religion is NOT a good thing. Hell, even Jesus fought organized religion because IT IS CORRUPT!

And leveraged by governments for their inherent social control abilities.

The question of whether or not the world would be better off without religion is an interesting one though. I am still unsure about where I stand on this but for the sake of this debate I will learn toward the "Yes" side though I will offer both stances.

All Religions (while I believe it to fall under the category of mythos) have offered hope to millions of people. Answering questions like "What happens when I die?" can provide a sense of security that is no doubt meaningful. Many people have a need to have a reason for living, and accepting a life without a greater meaning is deemed "depressing", "unecessary", "worthless". Why do anything, if in the long run it is all meaningless...especially if you are born into poverty, slavery, or any other incredibly difficult situation. Religion can offer security, that someone is there watching over us. Is this bad? Maybe...its the chicken or the egg question...Did religion bring about the need for a greater meaning about life OR did people create religion because of a its need. Nonetheless, religion can effect people in a positive way making it difficult to denouce that aspect of it.

Secondly, the concept of an afterlife is absolutely impossible to prove on either side. So, this brings an important addition to the argument of whether of not the world would be better place without religion. And that is the stifling the creative thought process of human beings. An even more than that creating a forum for free thought. When talking about unexplainable issues, one should be free to theorize any idea until it is proven otherwise. It would be a sad world to think that any one unexplained issue had only one theory. It would say very little about us as a species. Our diversity in thinking is how we survived this long AND the need to allow this free thinking could not be more imperative for forward progress. To assume that any Neo-Darwinist/Atheist would believe that all people were not equally important would be counter to forward progressive movement for the species as ignoring the weak would

As far as the point that religious groups offer much in the form of charities, I find this an unacceptable reason to believe that religion is good for the world. Why? Because of 2 reasons (bear in mind I am not downing any church for its chariable intentions...merely pointing out that it is not a good enough reason to justify its existence):

1) How else are they to justify the millions of dollars that is donated to them by their constituents and church goers? Furthermore, are these donations made by people (unconsciously of course) because of guilt that the religion imposes on them, or the fear that without donations ones place in heaven may not be secured? If so, this is certainly something that can be simulated in a non-religious society...easily.

2) Even the worst dictators and emperors in the past have shown instances of charity in order to gain the people's favor. In other words, do good to right wrong. How else is any church to remain in power and continue to hold its following if it doesn't give anything to its followers (and potential followers)?

All in all, I have no problem with people believing in God or being spiritual. It is a completely understandable stance. But there is a realistic downside. This belief is much more complex than just a personal belief. It is a commentary on moral values not just for an individual, but for a society. And when you are dealing with a diverse society, it (religion) lends itself to horrible consequences.

1) the use of god's name to reliquinish responsibility for actions that lead to unjusticness to others. People(or countries) doing things in the name of god. This goes way back and this is a clear use of religion for power and control. This includes misintepretations of ones religion (sometimes purposefully) to gain power in some form (land, money, people, followers, etc.). This is probably the main argument you get from the non-religious standpoint.

2) Another consequence is the internal conflicts and mental damages that having this sort of "moral" value can inflict on those who fail to reach those standards causing an almost opposite effect of instilling the values in the first place. This is a very different consequence from the physical consequences of religion. And the problem can be equally as devasting. And while most religions have a backdoor for this (confession, repentence, God forgives, etc.), these back doors cannot always prevent some of the results that the seemingly impossible guidelines create. Some examples: People forcing themselves to stay in unhealthy relationships because of their vow to god, Peoples lack of knowledge of sexuality leading to a series of issues when abstincy is failed to be acheived, suicide, etc.

And while these consequences may not be a definition of what ones chosen religion stands for it certainly is a direct result of its existence in those persons lives.

Yes, science and religion have both brought us good things. Science is the only one of the 2 things that continues to give us new good things. You need science for the computer your using right now. You don't need religion to be a charitable, loving person.

Yes, it breeds ignorance and hatred.

I'm glad this question draws a distinction between a world without 'god' and a world without 'religion.' Religions are a social construct and have been used to control and organize populations to serve a minority elite. As such, if you believe that the majority functions best by dictation then religions have served a higher good. If you believe in personal freedom and liberty that religions have served only those privileged enough to be within the ranks of the ruling class. Freedom and liberty are the rights of all people, religions are a burden to free people everywhere and a parasite on the backs of civilizations.

I agree. Around 1/5 of all passages of the New Testament are about helping the poor, turning the other cheek, and being a pacifist [to a certain degree]. The majority of issues have with the Bible are in the Old Testament, and are small passages that only reference the position people were in when the Bible was written [170AD or so].

Obviously humanity has come a long way since then, but why? I think if you talk to the majority of people about there morals, it'd be about "helping people" rather than "helping themselves". People talk about humans as being intrinsically good, but I disagree -- before we had a way or reason to "be good" [Heaven], people didn't think about their action's consequences. Now, whether or not you believe in God or Heaven [I don't believe in either], you must admit to some degree that the stories of these two fantastic literary devices do push people towards "good" actions. "If I kill my teacher for giving me a bad grade, I'll go to hell".

The argument that more suffering has been caused by religion than by anything else is a bit of a stretch. Looking back at history, there are two main reasons why humans have waged wars. One is territory and the other is ideology. Within ideology, of course, lies religion but it is accompanied by such things as racism, elitism and the like.

Nevertheless, I'd still have to say that, in this day and age, we'd be better off without religion. Before, I continue, however, I'd like to point out that it is religion that I deem unnecessary, not spirituality.

Throughout history, religion has served as a general guide in our lives and faith has served as a filler for the things we do not know. It was either Sir Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein, both geniuses as far as physics and astronomy were concerned, who saw god in nature, a subject which they understood but little.

Nowadays, rational thought, philosophy and society itself have come far enough along that religion is more of a crutch than the boon it once was. Belief in something spiritual is still something crucial in man's life as it has a humbling and grounding effect but religion just pigeonholes us into an aged mindset.

Religion has caused more fighting, controversy, death, and suffering than, dare I say it, any other concept in all of history.

Just a few examples: Council of Blood/Troubles, French Wars of Religion, Spanish Inquisition, Defenstration of Prague, St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, etc.

Just imagine if Catherine de Medici had not been blinded by her religion -- as well as Ferdinand and Isabella, Philip II, Henry VIII, Louis XIV, and the list goes on...

Nice opinions, but I don't see any solid argument here. I have seen religious groups who are absolutely intent on reasoning, rationality, balance and so forth. Moreover, I have seen religion support people who lost hope (something cold reason sometimes rips away from them). I have seen religion come about and bring people together to cry out against wars, group together to help those in dire need.

The fact that you choose to see the bad side of religion doesn't make it so. The fact that it has a good and a bad side is a clear sign though that religion is a very human invention. This does not necessarily disprove God's existence of course (an almighty being logically wouldn't need a religion to make him exist after all).

Zola is mistaken - he assumes perfection to be a complete state whereas a complete state is not part of the natural order of our existence. There is never a final product in living (or even dead) entities. Therefore there is never a final state of perfection. Instead perfection is a state of becoming, a way to change.

Religion, in whatever capacity, is apparently a very important factor in how we change,and therefore instrumental in how we achieve perfection. If it wasn't useful it would have disappeared a very long time ago (much like stone implements).

You can't have good science without faith either. Science, just like religion, starts with an irrefutable assumption. For science to have any use at all, it needs this assumption to be true. If we posit that an assumption is true (especially an irrefutable one) then we believe in that assumption.

The irrefutable assumption, or strong assumption, that underlies both science and religion has a very unique character namely that these assumptions cannot be tested.

Religion starts with "there is a higher being that influences our lives". How do we test that? If the being is higher than ourselves, how can we possibly have the ability to test whether it actually exists or not? Without this assumption religion would have no use.

Science starts with the assumption "it is humanly possibly to objectively explain nature through analysis and deduction". It is? How can we test that? We have been trying for as long as science existed as a separate discipline after all, and so far we have only been able to subjectively interpret our findings into (sometimes) useful tools for our survival. But without this assumption science will have difficulty surviving.

Strong assumptions like these elicit interlinked webs of value-saturated concepts that builds towards a belief system, or faith. Thus, everything we know is built on faith.

There is no real need in organized religion, while organized religion does hinder the progress.

Religion wasn't created to explain. Explanation is one of it's functions, but really, it was created to control. Think about it. Governments have no real control over people. You essentially sign a contract saying that you will be a faithful citizen to the state... that's all you have to do. The government cannot make you do anything beyond that. If you do something wrong, that the establishment disagrees with, your punishment and all, is not mandatory if you can make the other citizens agree... or you have the means and will to escape it. Fear of punishment is the only thing keeping large governments in power, over the citizens.

Religion is the same thing, but rather, it's something that you cannot escape. Once you die, you will be punished forever for doing things that are reasonably bad. What I mean by that is, look into every lesson that the bible teaches, the new testament (the old one is a little... over the edge) and you'll find that they are all engineered moral values that really only hold if you are part of a community, family, or any other form of social environment. Religion is a mechanism to control the individual, and government is mechanism that controls the masses. They go hand in hand. Why do you think kings were so close to the church? It's quite obvious that they weren't placed into power by god, as was believed at the time...

The reason religion brings conflict is because religion is placed in the soul, to be personalized, for a person to trust and have faith in... it's very very personal for each individual. Just like Nationalism in NAZI-Germany, it can make people feel like they SHOULD do something when someone disagrees. Nationalism and Religion are both very personal and have the power to make people stand up and do something, all together (which in itself brings about the mob mentality and makes people feel even more righteous and powerful).

Well then, don't give any government that lever unless you want to give government social control.

It's not an opinion when you state it as fact.

Also, simple Opinions are worthless, Educated Opinions however have merit in a real debate... It is my opinion that if you disagree with me, you must be retarded. See, sounds pretty ridiculous.

You assume religion and science are two completely different worlds. While it's true science has shed light on so many mysteries that used to be explained by faith, that fact that religion doesn't consider science and is "baseless" is very ignorant. Especially since the definition of "science" can be fairly safely agreed upon, whereas the definition of "religion" is a something more abstract. I'm not even implying semantics, but the ideology and logic behind each religion. When people fail to consider opposing viewpoints and simply start debating so they can hear themselves "sound smart" or make fun of people, then you lose a very important part about discussion... listening.

If anyone is really interested, here are some articles written by Einstein on the subject.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/einstein/einsci.htm

I believe in God. I also believe the universe is a system, since this isn't the discussion topic I will stop here, but I think you get what I'm saying.

Religion starts with "There is a being higher than us, that has created everything in existence, and perhaps even it's self". There's a lot more to religion than just believing that we've all come about by a being's will.

Religion, actually is not the same as spirituality, or believing. Religion is organized and has definable beliefs which are all basically based on nothing more than scripture, and then verified by the empirical.

Science, on the other hand, believes that the universe is just a universe, assuming nothing more than the obviously empirical data that we all can grasp via our senses. It's not a belief until you get so far into it that there's no way to know for sure, there's no more reliance on the sense. Atoms, sub-atomic particles like quarks and so on, are things that are theory as of now, because there's no way to know for sure what happens on that scale. We don't know what the matter consists of, so they leave it with a name that doesn't justify it's truth, a sort of algebraic name, a variable meaning, like a question mark.

Science relies on the human mind to organize and understand our world. Religion relies on faith first, where they believe in scripture, and then seek to justify it with science. If it cannot be justified, the scripture is not incorrect, and the science is not incorrect, just the interpretation of the scripture.

Science = Strong foundation (empirical facts) before faith.

Religion = Strong faith before foundation (empirical facts).

I think this argument has been destroyed enough already, but since someone actually voted for it, I'll say it again. Von Lauder, add up the totals of what you mentioned, and compare it just to Stalin's atheistic regime. That's just one man. The agrument you make is worthless, and actually hurts your cause.

Asking "would the world be a better place without religions?" is like asking "would the world be a better place if human beings used their wit and intelligence to help each other and move towards the future instead of worshiping fairy tales and thinking that everything that happens is because of some unseen force and killing and oppressing each other for the sake of contrived beliefs?"

Let's see......yes?

Humans are naturally intolerant and will be no matter what ideology they accept. The difference is that religion elicits intolerance and bigotry that otherwise wouldn't exist, and amplifies what already has manifested. Humanism (a few tenets of which are rational inquiry, kindness, and tolerance) expressly stifles those aspects of people.

A world without religion to control us. No religion for government to use to control us...hallelujah there just might be a god

To the best of my knowledge atheist aren't prone to gathering in groups to discuss how awesome being an atheist is. But just because there are no atheist organizations to congregate and contribute to charities and the like doesn't mean that there are no individual atheists out there doing good work.

i never heard nor seen a preacher that from religion x promotes the religion Y,all i heard from each preacher from diffrent religions are that they are the ONE,that they are the true gates to heaven,some of them even heard off crticizing other religion,so who do you think that thought or gives the idea of a "fanatics"its like they teaching us to close our minds to other different views...

can see now that religion is a big business,a great way to multiply there cents...they preventing us to listen to other religions that might invite us to leave the present religion,just imagine how many membrs we could invite to come wid you to the new religion,thats a thousand of donations/contributions already,will just fly away from them...

its like a MLM/networking business,invite and invite then baptist...

people are intelligent enough to know whats good and whats bad,they need freedom not dictators.

peace start with in our selves,peace is like a diseases could spread and be contagious...how well idk...lol...

ill stick to the religion named createdebate...

Scientology is nothing more than a bunch of lawyers waiting to slap 13 lawsuits on you for defamation, and none of them are good cos they are just hoping you will give up in face of all the redtape you have to clear, and its also nothing more than performing abortions with a clothes hanger. It sure as HELL aint religion.

You drive a hard point there. But yeah you are right. The Church during the Jesus era was really corrupt and even used bribery of Jesus' own disciples to get at him. (Judas) Ill have to agree on you on this one. However, organisations are made to manage a large group of people. To manage, you need power. And power tends to corrupt. For now, Ill just pray and hope that our Vatican isn't keeping anything from us.

"However, organisations are made to manage a large group of people"

Why does or why should anyone under one faith feel the need to manage other people? So that evil doesn't spread? Really, where does the need for management come from? Why does believing in a common god require power to certain people?

I think, perhaps, this may be the first corruption, requiring management of other people.

Definitely, it's better to get the religious people of today changed if possible to rely on their brain rather than faith. This is because faith has no basis and it relies just on some magical feeling, but if the religious people who rely on faith use knowledge that is derived from realistic events then they'll make decisions that is probably more beneficial to themselves and the whole of society just through better thought processes

The argument that religion is the driving force behind good deeds seems to me like a lack of faith in mankind. "Yes, I'll give money to charity, but only if there's a unicorn behind that tree".

If religion is the only thing stopping you from becoming an egocentric bastard with no respect for human values you should seek help.

I think you are correct - religion has caused the intorerant idealism that causes suffering. I posted on a topic of what three wishes would you choose if you had a genie. After I posted, I realized that I should have wished for all religions to be more tolerant.

Even though I'm sure that humans will find other things to "worship" they will no longer be tied to the irrational beliefs that religion adheres to.

People will continue to war, but at least no in the name of invisible beings that have the power to create the universe and all it's splendor but seem to be conveniently absent to help us figure out our own little (in comparison) problems.

i dont have no religion so why have it

So you don't think we can use reason to determine morals? Do you need a 2,000 year old book to know that killing or hurting someone is wrong? I think that people are very capable of determining the basic difference between right and wrong without religion.

Okay for one this has absolutely no relativity to our disscussion, and two I am tired of hearing about this global warming comments. Yes there is a whole in the oxone layer we can not do absolutely anything about it now so stop mentioning it and start doing something to prevent another whole to become created, and plus you are probably a hypocrite yourself and have done absolutely nothing at all to help the problem with Global Warming you are just another one of those media hyped, uninformed, hypocritical person who just jumped on the bandwagon on the latest issue and in reality you are doing nothing to prevent it either. Practice what you preach. You ignorant hypocrite

Actually, we did do something about it when we first learned of the hole (not whole). We determined that ChloroFluoroCarbons (CFCs) were responsible. they were being used for a lot of things, but mostly refrigerants. So what did we do? We outlawed them. Guess what happened? The hole in the Ozone began to shrink! So actually we used science to solve the problem.

Also, the hole in the ozone is not the same thing as global warming. Global warming is caused by greenhouse gases (such as CO2) building up in our atmosphere. It's a separate issue.

Okay, so people who lived before modern religion were animals? The greeks for example never heard of the Judeo Christian God and yet somehow they were able to come up with a set of morals.

Also I'm pretty sure you don't understand psychology, otherwise you'd realize that your argument is flawed. There is a part of the brain that helps humans to develop a "moral" sense. When it judges weather we should do something it weighs two factors: "How will this action help me" and "How would I feel if this action was being done to me." So religion isn't necessary, and in fact many of our "instincts" are actually beneficent. The base for our morals is not religion, but instead a basic empathy for others.

Well, who came up with the ideas for the Gods? I mean somebody had to create the religion, so obviously he could figure out morals. The same is true with all religions, and laws. Whoever created them obviously must have had some sense of right and wrong otherwise no religions would have been created in the first place.

If a part of your brain swelled you would die. The frontal lobe does allow us to process rational thoughts, and through those thoughts we can figure out what is moral and what is immoral. Pick any topic, and using reason you can figure out if it's okay to do it.

Religion cannot be questioned and therefore many of the things religion claims are "immoral" have no basis.

I do believe so, more murders have been caused by religion than anything else in the worlds history. I could not imagine us living in a world without religion since I was born into it. If I wasn't born into religion maybe I could see the truth behind my own religion. But since the truth is I do believe in God and that their is a heaven waiting to take my soul in after I die, I cannot truly say with all my heart that the world would be better. To imagine a world without religion ... back in the midieval ages the Pope would not have been totally revered as being the true sender of someone to hell or heaven. He and every Pope before and after him they are all just regular men who should not with any doubt in my mind be looked upon as being any better than me or any reader. All in all if I did not have a religion and nobody else had a religion we might be farther along in technology or who knows the possiblities and the point being we will never know and the world will always have at least 1 religion until it ends or people end.

yeah defiantly because it would save having to learn about thme and respect all of them. so if there was noreligion it would be better

religion gave us Al qaeda, the holocaust, Bosnia troubles.

Put aside our differences and unite under atheism

Religion helped culture out in the early days and helped people see the error in their ways in the past when we were young, but we have reached a point where the crutch is hurting us rather than helping. Ditching old habits is a good idea.

religion is used for comfort, plain and simple. the fact that people on massive scales will believe in something against all evidence from the academic world on a few scant unproven theories, and a horribly inconsistent series of books written centuries ago all for self comfort is astounding.

as a society we frown upon the imaginary friend that so many lonely children imagine, but when someone whispers into the wind to a god , many of us hold said person in high regard. their is no concise difference between the two. why do we continue to allow ourselves to be comforted by the impossibly improbable?

to the arguments based on why nots, religion helps many people, i must say i totally agree with you. religion helps many people, but religion also hurts many people. In the middle east the tali ban blow up schools full of children in the name of Allah. In America Christian extremist bomb abortion clinics. Mayans beheaded 225,000 Mayan men and women, boys, and girls, to make the sun come back up, on a cloudy day. religion is a detriment to all society, and in my conclusion i will address the way in which religion restricts our most basic and primitive want, the want for knowledge.

the Vatican would arrest and murder scientist, who had beliefs that went against those of the mighty bible. present day, many routes of medicine are n OT allowed to be taken b cause it "goes against the will of god". god never wrote anything about genetics, DNA, or even the simple microscope, so how do we know he doesn't want us saving our race from diseases? we dint! it is only the high, most often, rich priest that ascertain such meaning from the bible, to support their hidden agendas.

my argument has nothing to do with whether god exist or not, i personally am a firm agnostic, for i believe theist and atheist are narrow minded to not see both sides. my argument states that religion should be abolished, and no longer practiced

This is a yes and no people should shut the fuck up about which one they think is right because nobody knows except dead people and thats kind of hard cuz they cant hop out their grave and say hey man god is awsome or buda is the funiest guy in heaven you know so lay it to rest and yes the world would be a better place

i happen to take the complete opposite, i believe that religion must be abolished in order for the human race to survive.

religion is an educational retardant, under the influence of religion, humans are able to accept talking snakes, as apposed to abiogenesis.

niether are definitive, the difference is one source is thousands of years old, says we rode dinosaurs, is very contradictory, and suggests that their is an omniscient and omnipotent being, who contradicts himself by being a malevolent, torturer.

the other source has prime data to support it, is beleieved by most scientist, and other academic scholars, and doesn't discredit other widely accepted sciences, like carbon dating.

why? explian yourself?

and is their realy a need for haste, the point of debate is to hear all sides, to become immersed in all arguments, and then make your decision, based on information that you interpret to mean one thing or another.

Religion hinders science and social progress. It leads to death and hate. The worst part is there is no evidence for the basis of any religious belief. It is a pile of necrotic lard around the midriff of the world. Get rid of it so we can advance as a species.

Spirituality is fine, but religions are corrupt institutions in the same way that any powerful institution is corrupt. Some may argue that by nature, religions are exempt from such corruption because of the moral values to which they adhere. Sadly, this is not the case. The people in power in any institution, be it religious or otherwise, are human. And human beings are corruptible and sinful.

Look to the Vatican for your proof. Is it IN ANY WAY the type of church Jesus would approve of? Absolutely not. It is an ornate waste of money.

Religions breed hatred for those that disagree. They also provide an easy scapegoat for problems. History is full of examples, but let's look at present times. After September 11, it became abhorrent to be Muslim. Granted, Islam is a prime example of why religion is dangerous, but the blame is placed on all Muslims, rather than to those who act on hate.

Historically speaking, we have gotten nowhere fast in terms of religious tolerance. Religions by nature believe that they alone are correct on the big questions. And that is the inherent flaw.

The question about evil existing outside of religion is moot.

Of course evil exists outside of religion. The point is that religion breeds evil through its corrupt institutions and intolerance.

Exactly! I don't see how this has disputed my point. You're absolutely right. Again, the question of evil existing outside of reilgion has no place here. The question at hand is whether or not the world would be better without religions.

And since you admit that anything applied radically can breed evil, and since it is known that religious fanatics are extreme, then we can conclude that religions are dangerous and the world would be better without them.

Religion is an unnecessary evil.

To say that religion is unnecessary reflects a misunderstanding of what "necessary" means. Also of what religion is. But we are not discussing "religion" we are discussing religions which perhaps we can come to terms and agree that we really mean "religious organizations" when we say "religions."

To claim that (all) organizations of this nature are evil is an (albeit somewhat justified) over generalization.

Compared to criticizing the specific principles behind particular religious sects, condemning religion as a whole is a cop out.

Religion has also taught people to aspire to be charitable, to love thy neighbour, and to give to the poor. While it can be a force for evil and it can be abused, so can governments, and so can science. Ideas like eugenics and trying to cure sexual deviance with electroshock therapy came from scientists, so enlightenment isn't limited to either science or religion.

How do you begin to quantify that first sentence? Do you have any sources to back up that claim?

People do bad things, especially when power is concentrated in too few people. Those in power often times use any means to justify their evil deeds and many times the method of justification is religion. It is a convenient way of painting the world into the 'with us' and 'against us' camps. This red herring has been quite effective in getting people to do evil things.

However, religion is not the only means of breaking the world into the 'with us' and 'against us' camps. Communism has been used as well as culture, ethnicity, and race. Maybe religion is the most effective means of doing this, I don't know. However, I believe that in the absence of religion then the other listed means will be used more often.

I do not believe humans have reached a general state of knowledge and awareness to avoid falling for the red herring of the 'us vs. them' mentality. Maybe in the future humans will no longer fall for this trick.

Religion is a system of beliefs and values, often (but not always) linked to a deity of sorts. It includes rituals, specific knowledge (captured in the writings of its founders) and a general agreement between its adherents as to what constitutes the core belief.

To believe (which is, to accept something as true with or without the necessary supporting evidence) is an innate human feature. We need it in order to exist as cognitive beings.

It works like this: we start with an assumption (as a hypothesis taken for granted, or a hypothesis that cannot be proven or disproved), either learned from our peers or deduced from our interpretation of our environment. On that conviction we build a new set of convictions. As time goes by, those very core assumptions are no longer questioned and we have a set of beliefs and values, around which we create rituals and social symbols.

On a broad level, science holds true to this phenomenon. It starts with the assumption that we are capable of understanding nature completely through the use of reason and logical languages (such as mathematics). It then builds on that assumption a set of rules as to how to do this, and a number of rituals. It then proceeds to provide a set of values (the value of questioning, the value of proof etc.) Without this very basic assumption science has no meaning, yet it is rarely openly questioned.

So, would the world be a better place without religion? For the world to be without religion, it needs to be without humans, and then "better" has no meaning. We only use that word if it applies to us.

I like science, so my answer, based on my argument, would be a simple "no".

No matter what you do, religion will always be formed. You can not rid the world of a belief system.

If you look at religion as a mere social construct, it is apparent that it is a necessary system of control. For the most part, the beliefs and values taught in each respective religion are important to keep people in a some what "moral" state of mind. Religion is most needed for ingraining these important morals in people in a way in which they completely believe them.

Where you get into trouble is when radical religious zealous take it upon themselves to hate other religions for no apparent reason other than they are different in some way. However, if you actually take the time to study these religions or perhaps read their holy books, you will see many parallels in beliefs. Many of which, that actually contradict the hateful actions that many people take.

Throughout time it seems as though religion evolves along with the knowledge of society. Our technological and scientific revolutions have brought about this new one, Scientology, which takes the relevant knowledge we know about the world along with previous viewings of religious quarrels and creates its own twisted reality for people to believe in. Even though there is much opposition to this new belief system, I don't think there will be any Jihads any time soon over it.

The way it stands, I believe that religion is a necessary evil for the time being in the way of controlling the vast majority of immoral and unintelligent people; it just needs to be refined, which will happen over time.

You must have never heard of the social contract.

These "radicals" you speak of are not making the things they do up. They are simply doing what their religious text's tell them too; let's not forget the bible and the koran are two of the most violent books ever written.

Religion is an unnecessary evil. The religious have been in control for thousands of years and jail populations are at an all time high; It's time for a change.

The Bible and Koran are only the most violent books when one does not fully understand them and they are completely taken out of context.

So stoning people to death, and honour killings are ok?

Was a story on digg not to long ago about a girl who fell in love with an israeli soldier, when her father found out he promptly beat her to death. The man was held two hours then released without any charges filed. He was simply doing what the good book told him to.

Do atheist not believe all of sudden? Of course atheist believe something! By the very nature of their name their beliefs simply exclude the possibility of a deity (a-theist). Atheists therefore also believe from a basic assumption namely that God does not exist. They cannot prove or disprove God's existence.

And you are right, I have seen many people die for their beliefs, including atheists whom, at their core, also only have assumption.

Science, venturing into stating its position on God, has come into the realm of religion. The atheist-scientific movement is vying for power in the highest ranks, touting their ability to be rational beings that base all they trust on what they can prove (which in itself is curious, because they cannot prove their own rationality).

At the hands of science art will die, because how do you prove beauty? At the hands of science love will die, because as every good scientist knows, love is merely hormones designed for procreation. It is as if scientists in general forget that the true value of something is often lost in the analyses of its parts.

Value is what rules society, the moment a scientist veers into defining values, he or she defines beliefs. The moment they do that they are creating a religious system because those beliefs will dictate the actions of the society they control.

So should atheists and scientists get control of government, how would that be any different from religions (which, I might add have most certainly only feature by name in the White House and not by function)?

As for violent books, go read something on the history of America and tell me there is no violence. Mankind is violent by nature, religion cannot be blamed for our lack of self control.

Religion in today's world is a complex thought that entwines social values, ethics, and personal spirituality. Taking away these things would do no good to society. Humans are hardwired for religion and need the comfort of an organized, predictable world. However, there are ethics, values, and spiritualities outside of 'religion.' So one can be ethical, have high morals and values, and deeply spiritual without being a religious nut. So it's not the beliefs, its the actions and leaders who instigate (or fail to prevent) harmful behavior that are wrong.

The statement that scienctist's cannot understand beauty, because they connot prove it, they cannot love because they understand cause and effect is absurd. It's like your trying to say scientists are not human. What of atheists? are all atheists scientists? of course not.

Lets stop and think what organization has destroyed the most art, burned the most books, and killed the most people for not thinking the way they should.

I for one would like to think the people are who rule society, and the people should have a choice where their values come from. When you are raised in a religious home there is no choice, only brainwashing, and the illusion of choice

Just as you cannot prove or disprove God's existence.

But our body's give us all the proof we need, we have organs we don't need, teeth, male nipples, and on and on. If we were created seems like shotty work. surly not by an all powerful being.

I for one have never seen an atheist walk into a church strapped with explosives.

I disagree. Atheism isn't a belief; it's a lack of belief, and twisting ti to try and make it sound like something it isn't to support your argument is a tad sneaky.

I don't draw empty assumptions from the world around me and adhere to them simply because I always have and always will. I'm not assuming God doesn't exist, I simply have no single shred of evidence to make a choice about whether to believe or not. It's just not even an issue (If I'm making myself clear?)

What also annoys me is this assumption that God can niether be proved nor disproved. Of course he can: the moment you define him. And to not define him makes him a nothing and an everything. It's pointless wishy washy nonsense. It's back to this whole thing about how God has been pushed out from a physical God to a metaphysical God, existing in whatever state it is convenient for him to exist him. A thousand years ago he was "actual" God. Science came along and displaced the idea of a God with observable evidence; we didn't need a God to explain why the sun moved in the sky and why the tides rise and fall anymore, science has the answers. So, God got pushed out further and further until there was nothing left of him but a wishy-washy nothingness that can't be defined and therefore can't ever be disproved. If you can't see how silly and obvious this is that there isn't a God, doesn't need to be a God, then no evidence, debate, etc, will ever sway you. You'll believe because you want to believe.

"The people"? They are the ones who want democracy. Democracy being a system that fools "the people" into giving up their power to change their nations by giving it up to a bunch of power-hungry, rotten-to-the-core politicians intent on destroying the very society that put them there. These are the same people who choose religion as a means to find hope where a godless government is giving them war, xenophobia and the lie that they are in constant danger.

Please read what I wrote. I did not propose that scientists are incapable of experiencing beauty or love. I proposed that the "religious" system of science does just that (and no, not Scientology for those who want to misread me here).

Not all atheists are scientists no, but not all Christians are priests either.

So, the organization that destroyed the most art? The Roman government (which gave the Roman Catholic Church and subsequent movements their political savvy) destroyed empires along with all their treasures. That organization is in part what we use today to make laws, which dictate how we govern. See the resemblance?

Art gets destroyed by those in power, not to destroy art per se, but to replace the social symbolism it represents. It is always replaced by the art of the new ruler. Except, what art does the scientific method have in its rigidity? I'd much rather be ruled by a lunatic than someone that calls themselves rational. At least the lunatic is honest about what they are.

I agree, there is no place for religion in the world today. But would you say that there is place for faith?

I find that atheists often (not always) lack the ability to trust, making it difficult to have faith, even if it is just to have faith in the human capacity to redeem itself once is a while.

It depends on what kind of faith you are talking about. Do you mean "having faith" in actual things? If so, then most definately. Although the world can sometimes be a cruel and horrible place, it can also be a fantastic one, and seeing that (as I'm an Athiest) gives me some kind of "faith" in the human capacity, society, etc (where as a religious person may well have the same reaction for their faith in God).

The world would be better without stupid people. The Muslim religion doesn't create Jihadists. Stupid Muslim clerics do. Oh what; is there a fatwa out on me now?

Firstly, I'm not religious. I'm actually atheist. But I don't think a world without religion would be any better. Yes, religion has caused a lot of strife and violence in the world. But honestly, what makes anyone think it's the only cause? Even if you take away religion, people will always find a reason to hate other people. And for a lot people, religion provides guidance and hope, and helps them live a better life. Trying to pin societies' problems on one factor doesn't make any sense.

I was going to argue for the other side, but while I was typing my argument I realized that taking religion out of the equation wouldn't actually change anything. People would just find another excuse not to think. If it isn't religion that works people into a mindless mob, it will be politics. Or maybe economics. Take the whole communist "scare" for example. The problem isn't with religion itself, it's with humanity. Religion doesn't kill people, people kill people.

But you can cure the world of the belief in nonsense.

I don't think religion is the problem. I think stupid people are the problem. Please read about stupid people and their effect on global warming here:

http://www.createdebate.com/debate/show/ Trying_to_combat_global_warming_is_useless

The above link also discusses what we should do with said stupid people. And I don't need some one writing in and saying, "Whose going to be responsible for deciding who is stupid." But if you must ask, what we could do is work it on an honor principle. I mean if you're stupid just fess up. You know who you are so just accept responsibility for your stupidity so that the rest of us can get on with our lives.

No. Without religion, the world would still have war and conflict as a result of colonialism, opposing ideologies, and ethnic conflicts, to name a few things. Although religion is often used as an excuse for war and conflict (usually an angle fed to a populace by its government in order to gain support for a particular initiative), the truth is that colonialism, ethnic conflict and financial gain are what's truly at the heart of these struggles.

Religion, in it's truest form, is simply a collection of guidelines for leading what should be a good and morally sound lifestyle. The fact that people use religion as a mask does not change the fact that an absence of religion would not get rid of the true cause of struggle: humanity.

Yes, sometimes those ideologies are religions. However, they are not always religious. Getting rid of religion altogether wouldn't get rid of any of the other sources of conflict either.

But there are actually places where religion does some good. Not always, mind you, but enough to where having religion in the world does have it's benefits in terms of helping the poor, sick, creating a sense of community, or providing support for addicts. Getting rid of religion altogether would greatly take away from this, and although not everyone needs religion to accomplish these things, there is still a large part of the population that does. Excluding their needs would not only exhibit a sense of moral superiority, but acting on a "This is What's Best for You Attitude" is still a conflict of ideologies, so nothing is really solved there.

For the record, I am not religious. However, I understand that blaming the world's problems on religion is a dangerous way to absolve our personal (human) responsibility for a variety of conflicts.

I think you hit on an interesting note in your last sentence. Do you think there is any way to absolve human responsibility?

You know, I really don't think there's any way to absolve human responsibility. Blaming the world's conflicts on things like religion, video games, or any other third party entity is just a way of deflecting blame from ourselves as a species, thus ensuring that we repeat our mistakes on a massive scale.

Your views are biased against science in many ways. Atheists may have been more vocal lately spurred by technological innovation which filters the religious talk out of most mediums due to a blatant delusional realization when written in black and white. This does not mean they will be any different than the current religiously biased majority in power.

In a speech by Obama, he discussed how religion (argument also can be applied to science) can say anything it wants but we must place it in a logical and socially applicable context before we apply the rules to society. As with this ideology, scientific beliefs also must be properly re-worded before it can affect society. I oppose you because you seem to forget that science is based entirely on provable facts and is much more reliable than abstract words written in thousand-year old unverifiable books.

Everyone has "religion". Even atheists.

You need to define the word before you can have this argument. Religion means more than God, gods, or dog.

Religion is the belief of "EVERYTHING that exists, and everything that doesn't, and how it all fits together".

Based on that, you then plan the smartest, and the best way to live your lifetime.

Everyone needs a game plan, or you won't last in the game very long.

Next step, define "lifetime". The beginning and the ending of the "existence" of a "lifetime".

Oh this post...FTW !!

You're confusing Religion with Philosophy. Religion, when you cut away the mythology and fanaticism, is basically philosophy gone horribly astray.

No, I don't think so. This has nothing to do with what we are discussing.

It's not fatalistic. Education would be a benefit, but wouldn't absolve us of anything. I'm not saying we are doomed to repeat history no matter what. But as long as long we, as a society, continue to deflect the blame of conflict to any third party entity, we are attempting to absolve ourselves of responsibility and therefore doomed to repeat mistakes.

The world would be pretty much the same if all of the religions were to vanish tomorrow because all of us would still be here. Greedy people would still be greedy and unreasonable people would still be unreasonable. People who now commit murder for religious reasons would still murder; they just wouldn't have a religious excuse.

The less you know about the world, the more you need guidance. The best guide is that which is unquestionable. Unfortunately there is nothing in existence with that characteristic, nor has there ever been. Therefore, religion/god was necessary early on (VERY early on) to get people to work together and also to comfort the lack of understanding of the world. Religon turned what could have been fear into optimism.

Still, at some point, the training wheels have to come off to maximize potential. So, if this question is specifically referring to religion as it exists today and not religion throughout history, I would say yes.

However, because of the importance of religion from the beginning of time, I have to disagree.

I spot a couple of contestable claims within your argument.

1) Science wants to determine what things such as beauty and love are.

Prove it. Why would science want to determine what beauty and love are? To manipulate people? What do you think religion does? The farthest science could go is to see WHY and HOW we determine beauty and love. Science never imposes beliefs; it finds out how things work.

2) Religion is the only thing that determines values.

Wrong. Religion is probably the main way that people determine values, but it is far from the only thing that does. What about philosophy? How about culture?

3)"So should atheists and scientists get control of government, how would that be any different from religions (which, I might add have most certainly only feature by name in the White House and not by function)?"

They would be different because the claims presented by science can always be contested, provided there is evidence to back up those assertions. Religious governments are based on assertions that cannot be proven and are fiercely protected, which means change usually only occurs with revolution.

4) "religion cannot be blamed for our lack of self control."

While this is true, religion can be blamed for sanctioning our lack of self control. The Inquisition? Sanctioned by religion. Stoning women who are raped? Sanctioned by religion. Sati (Where wives are burnt to death on their husbands funeral pyres)? Sanctioned by religion.

Religion has too much power, because you can't argue against it. If you cant argue against it, then the people who claim to know the most about the religion can hijack it for their own ends. I would rather see religions abolished and replaced with philosophical schools of thought. At least those can be debated without fear of violence.

no, man is naturally evil. the worst genocidal dictator(stalin) was actually an athiest, proving that no matter what you believe in, you just as much potential to be evil.

Hmm, seems like you made up a couple of contestable claims as well.

I never said science wants to determine what things such as beauty and love are. It is quite simply not a tool that can do so. So in that sense we agree. And yes, science does not impose beliefs, but scientists do because the moment they observe something, they interpret what they find within their mind's framework, which is always subjective to their value base.

I also did not say that religion is the only thing that determines value. What I did say was that the moment you start systematizing values, you get religion. Religion is by definition as system of values and its implied activities. So if one asks the question whether the world would be a better place without it, then I answer that our world will never be without it.

As for point 3): any statement can be contested, whether you use pure logic or the scientific method. Science is key to good governance, but it makes for a very poor government basis. If the scientific method is consistently applied then things like genocide could actually be proven effective is managing economies. You said it yourself: what about philosophy and culture?

On the last point, religion is a man made system. If we blame religion, we blame ourselves. More importantly, science created the atomic bomb (if you want I can point you to horrid human experiments during the Nazi regime as well, and even more in the good old US of A), so be balanced when you want to villanize a system.

People (not systems) have power because we give them power. It is very simple to say "it is their fault" and not take responsibility for our own willingness to submit to whatever we are being fed. Science and scientists have their place, and they have their demons. Science is by no means a stable, pure or precise thing (you just need to read scientific journals to see how much influence politics have on what e regard as "fact").

As for your idea on philosophical schools of thought - science won't stand for that, because philosophy can not be empirically tested. This is so because empirical tests themselves are based on philosophical reasoning that is fallible.

More importantly, and this may come as a shock to a thinker like yourself, people don't want to think much. They want to be told what to do because that way if anything goes wrong they can point a finger to the government, or scientists, or religion.

What we need is a practical way to abolish the concept of liberal freedom sans personal responsibility and social accountability.

Religion is a belief system, its expressed knowledge (books and stuff) as well a ritual expression thereof. Beliefs systems is the group of concepts of which religion would be a part element.

Philosophy on the other hand is the collection and process of discourse concerning how, what and why we believe. It is a meta-science of belief systems if you may.

Also, the west isn't really becoming less religious. The non-religious people are just more vocal due to the ability to freely express the opinions without too much social risk (teh interwebs is cool).

The truth is that if there was no religious books, there would be no misunderstanding of it.

False Premise: Religion betters a sane human.

Sane people, which I trust means "Reasonable" people, can figure out why things should and should not be done. Religion is like a cheat sheet for ethics and morals, and it's outdated. Now people sign up and proclaim that the rest of the world is evil.

Why do you think this is? Because the world of intelligent and non-religious people know about religion. We are all waiting for religious reign to end, and people to start thinking on their own. If religion changes again, without an obvious reason, to better fit our age, it will collapse. It's like santa clause. You can lie about his existence until the child reaches a certain age, but it'll require more and more and more to keep him believing... Dressing up like santa, flying animals pulling a slay on the roof, and so on... until there's no fooling him, and then what? He finds out the truth and stops believing and wonders why in the hell he believed such a crazy thing for so long, etc.

I think religion is necessary for the human race. What causes conflict are fanatics that do not accept different views.

I think the perfect solution will be to have one single religion in the whole world. That way people will have some direction of what is good or bad, but there won't be disagreements, and there will be peace on earth.

But obviously this is unrealistic... but also thinking of a world where people do not come up with their own religions is also unrealistic.

I don't know but...

all that I'm saying is, give a religion free world a chance.

What could be done to prevent politicians from appealing to religious mindsets? Collusion between candidates and religious figures is common and well-known.

Wake up people!!! Find something to believe in!!!

Whether the world would be a better place without religion would depend upon what took its place.

The "godless communism" of the last century was supposedly atheistic and also murdered and enslaved people -- making the world worse, not better.

People should just create their own religion. In my religion you get 72 virgins when you die regardless of whether you blow yourself up or not. Wanna join?

where are you going to go after you die if there wernt any religions we would just be another animal but we arnt

There is seemingly an endless list of atrocities committed in the name of God, but it is important to recognize that these acts are not committed in the spirit of religion. By and large religions are a moral handbook, a "Life for Dummies" that gives many people a moral path to walk. So while a men may kill in the name of a god, in most cases this would not be considered an action sanctioned by said god.

To put the blame square at religion's feet seems unfair. Intolerance is probably where most of the blame should go.

I don't see how you can argue a humanist is less capable to evil compared to a religious person. There's simply no basis for that. A humanist can be just as intolerant of Christianity as a Christian can be intolerant of a humanism, for example.

Nearly every religion that has ever existed boils down to a moral code. Every major world religion includes the Golden Rule in its doctrine in some way. While many realize that following the Golden Rule results in good for all parties involved, many more would not follow the Golden Rule if they did not believe that they were bound to do so by some higher power. I believe that the world would be a better place if people stopped caring so much about religious divisions and moved away from religious extremism, but without religion I think that less and less people would still look out for their fellowman.

Maybe if man simply had not created religion he would be better off, but at this late date I feel it would be disaster. The simple fact is that many people would assume that if God is dead; everything is permitted. Many people's only reason for remaining law-abiding is the fear of God.

To me, your statement exemplifies all that is wrong with religion. It is this type of thought that is the premise for this entire discussion. Every religion MUST believe that all others are false and then proceed to making it a mission to show the world why. All of this is usually done while ignoring the similarities inherent in there own beliefs that they are so adamantly against. While I'm no religious scholar I do think that the bible has a CLEAR message that all followers are obligated to give 10% of there wealth to the church. Where is the distinction that makes your religion any different from Scientology. Is this not a reason in support of the absence of religion? Hypocrisy is a dangerous game. Just about every "Christian" based denomination I can think of is a "successful money making scheme".

Well, I am not opposed to religion, I cannot tell if it's right or wrong, but at the same time, I could say that about anything. Do I know if there really is a tea pot orbiting earth? No, I can't tell you there isn't, I don't have the means to find out if there is or not, and I don't think anyone else does either... but still, I don't believe in the teapot, I don't believe in the flying spaghetti monster, and I don't believe what religious people tell me concerning god.

God, by the way is a completely different subject that I don't know if anyone can rightfully disagree with unless they are fooling themselves. I like to believe that if there is a god, that I am god. We are all god and god is in everything because he created us in his imagination. If he is omnipotent, then he could surely create the reality that we all live in, in his imagination, which would explain his omnipotence in the first place. I too can be all powerful in my imagination if I had to capacity to imagine as much as it (god).

I don't know, that makes more sense to me, and seems to cure every misunderstanding between people of faith and people who challenge the people of faith. For instance, how could god be so good, all good, but create evil, if he too is not evil? Well, he is evil, you see, but he battles the evil in him via calling the evil satan. The god that he wants us to look up to is the better side of him. We all know how that feels, deciding whether or not to be good or bad, we all want to be good, right? Just slap a label on what he does that is bad, and imagine the universe and see how many factions of his own imagination agree with good or bad... Maybe even, that is why god is no longer present and the world is going to shit, he is testing his self to see, what if there was no god to look up to, would I still be good?

Well, I don't look up to god, I don't seek him, and I sometimes speak out against organizations or people in them, who believe in him... but still, I am true to the meaning of good in the bible. I am not a bad person. So maybe I am proving to god, or if I am just god's imagination, that I am really good, without the need of a figure to look up to. I make my decisions carefully, and most of the time I take the road with the most resistance for the sake of doing the right thing (yes, I know the saying, "good guys finish last", but life isn't a race to me so what do I care?).

My point is that I understand where you're coming from, when you say that you believe the universe is systematic, but you still believe in god. Like I said, if everything is god, you believe both, but combined it's all the same.

Science though, from my standpoint, of what I personally can say is real or not, produces more evidence than any religious sect. That is why I trust it more. Hell, if god shot down from the heavens right now, I would then believe in him too, but god is not. I have nothing else to be a truly good person than what I was given.

I think being a good person of faith would be cheaper in gods eyes than being a good person out of necessity, don't you? If you die and you're judged, and he saw in you TRUE good that you yourself has learned, not from the teaching of other people, but by your own will to know and do what is right... I don't know how a god that I should bow to could disagree. If you earn your right to stand by him, alone, without being a sheep in one of "his" corrupt churches... don't you think that he would know that you've paid the price to be there???

Again, I don't know. All i know is what I have, what I was given in life, and my choices and what I've learned from them. If there is a god, and I don't believe before I see for myself, how can that one thing out of all be the part that damns my soul if he's a good god?

I'm still pondering the same thoughts... eugh, I hate when this happens. I'm just saying, there are good people and bad, with or without religion, that's just how people are. I think that religion should be replaced with philosophy and science because philosophy deals with every realm of humanity, even that of what is right or wrong. If god made us of his image, and we use what we were given, we will do what is right eventually. Look at the medieval times and compare that to now. It's a lot better for a lot of people now, though there is still mass corruption, but we are still doing better... because of what? Because religion, once it gets power can fuck things up just as much as the liberals that think that morality is imaginary and nothing is good or bad, and run around the streets naked and stoned and humping everything is sight because the most good that they know is the good that comes from their senses.

Without religion, it would free a lot of minds that could contribute real reasons for why we should be good or bad.

Look at all the good atheists have done in the world. Look at the hospitals they've built, the ivy-league universities they've founded, the charities they run, the missions they send overseas to feed, clothe and provide medical assistance for the impoverished. What would this world be without atheists?

No, because even if there were no religions, people would still find something to fight about. And, at least in the Christian religions, a lot of people are afraid of hell so they stay away from "evil and sins" which might doom them to an eternity in hell. And in Islam, believers have those 5 pillars that they follow in order to make their lives better and achieve sanctuary in the after life or w/e they believe in. And then Judaism they believe that if you live your life with kindness and to the fullest extent through prayer and what-not then you will be rewarded in the after life and pretty much most religions are formed on that basis which makes the world all around better for the most part.

And I think we have learned from Russia what a world without religion would amount to. [;

If you are referring to the Crusades, it was not in "the name of God" actually. It was only a rallying call. However, it was more likely because the Catholic Church at the time was a body of immense power, and they felt threatened by the Middle Eastern Muslims.

It is rather hypocritical of you, but at least you know what to ask your Priest and know whats shaking your faith. Your opinion of yourself is not limited by others, only your own judgement.

"Things they will force on others, because they believe so fanatically they are right"

Woah, hey there, Force is a pretty powerful term to use. Perhaps you've met too many over zealous Christians and have a bad experience with them. If you've been with the not-so-cultist-like people with a religion you would notice instantly that they are human like you, they are no different from you. They just have a different way of life. So why bother shutting religion away just because you have been through several rough encounters? I think its rather overly cynical.

True, people have been over zealous and killed in the name of a God before. But what makes you think all are like that?

Take me for an instance, I'm a Catholic, a member of a religious group, but am I forcing my beliefs on you? I think not. Im just asking you to see both sides of the coin.

True. Blame it on the media portraying the situation in the Middle East as a "jihad" or holy war. In case some of you dont know, the jihad is a holy struggle. Its not about fighting evil in the name of a God, its about fighting the INNER evils within you. Its a very big misconception people have. Not all Muslims are Fundamentalists like you see on TV or perhaps in your games (for those of you who have played too much Call Of Duty 4)

Anyway, back on topic. Hobbes argued that "The state of nature is a state of war" Humans will always tend to band together for personal gain to protect themselves from what they percieve as threats. Humans will always do terrible things, with or without religion. So certainly, religion should not be blamed for all of your problems today. Religion doesn't kill people, people do. People who have been misguided and deviated so much from the original purpose of religion as a way of improving oneself.

Fairy tales? I cant say much about that.

Unseen force? Cant say anything about that.

Killing and oppressing each other for the sake of contrived beliefs? Now thats something I dont agree with. The world is not Iraq, or Medieval Europe. Wake up already. Im not saying those wars SUPPOSEDLY in the name of God did not happen. They did. But what makes you so firmly sure that all people with religion are like that? People with religion have lives like you. They have weaknesses like you. They all are just trying to make sense of it all just like you. They are - - - LIKE you. Don't label all the religious of the world an Islamic terrorist with AK47 in hand, or the overzealous christian who asked you why you didnt go to their church, or the medieval knights who slaughtered innocent people just because its all you think it to be. Go out there and find out from your friends who is religious and study them. Do they look like the kind of people who will hold a pistol behind your back and force you at gunpoint to convert? I dont think so. The world will always have dictators and Presidents to control the people. They are clever. Even if religion is eradicated, can you even be 1% sure they wont use other means to control you?

Agreed. When they say "Should your eye cause you to sin, tear it out" They do not literally mean tear it out. They mean get rid of things that cause you to sin to stop yourselves from sinning.

And to all of you who think so ignorantly that Fundamentalist Muslims are the same as their normal Brethren, stop listening to news broadcasts and do your own research. The Muslims were not the first wage a war in the name of God. There were the Crusades. And the Crusades were not waged "in the name of God" It was because at the time the Catholic Church was politically very active, and they felt threatened by their Muslim neighbours. The Church has not denied that the Crusades happened, but they have changed. Perhaps you all should research on your subject matter before posting what you saw on TV and believe to be the truth.

But were they truly FOR God? They were only rallying cries. True religion is about living in harmony with one another and to do good deeds, in the simplest form I can put it. Perhaps some people need guidance when it comes to doing good deeds and bettering themselves. Remember that not everyone may be as capable as you and may need guidance to do "the right thing" And dont use what's happening in the Middle East as an example to show that religion turns people into AK47 wielding, scarf wearing, bomb planting terrorists. They dont practice religion. If you think that jihad means Holy War as in a real war, you are sadly mistaken. Jihad is a Holy Struggle against the evils INSIDE us aka our bad character. Not the war against the "infidels" like the media puts it nowadays. True, a jihad can also be taken in that context, but Muslims consider it a smaller jihad. The main purpose of jihad is to strengthen your own faith, not kill people.

You may be right in the sense religion controlled by governments to control can create a dystopia where dictators are praised to the skies in the face of all the atrocities they commit, but religion in its proper context ultimately betters people. Perhaps it doesn't work for you, but that dont mean it dont work for other people.

You hit it right on the nail. That's exactly the misconception that people who don't research more about something before going on hate campaigns have.

So you are trying to say Fascism and Democracy are religion now?

Well, you are right in the sense that we can all be good people without religion, but having a religion can help us with that. Thats if we practice proper religion anyway. No use following a preacher who goes like "GASP You didnt come to church last sunday? YOU ARE GOING TO HELL MY FRIEND!" Theyre probably not very smart people anyway, so following them will get you no where. But there are people who have stuck to religion's true purpose, that is bettering us as people.

Einstein supported religion. Thus your postulate that all scientists succeed because they dont believe in a God is baseless. True, while some people may be reduced to religious nut jobs who go around terrorizing people to get them to come to their church, but its not the only reason for intellectual stagnation. I think what breeds intellectual stagnation is failure to research something before taking up a view or ideology.

The Man has spoken! Well said. We humans are a weak species. We ALWAYS tend to feel sorry for ourselves when we have failed in one way or another, INSTEAD of looking up ways to remedy the problem. Instead we play the blame game.

Four questions.

1) Is there a God?

2) Can you oppose religion without opposing God?

3) If the world "had no religion", what would it have? We would either languish in ambiguity with regards to the question of where the universe came from (assuming that it had a start point somewhere in the past a.k.a. Big bang) or we would just have an anti-religion religion.

4) Is it possible to debate this question based on what little we know of the religions being raised?

Here's some food for thought. Many of the opposition's arguments are founded on objective morals. The very fact that we all agree that things like honour killing etc. are inhumane and cruel. Yet, that we all abide by this similar innate conscience to deem the actions of others as ethical or unethical, to me, is indicative of the existence of a moral God, hence the existence of morally aware creation.

The real question is, can religion be seperated from God? If a religion comes about by divine revelation, the world cannot be a better place without religions if God cannot reach out to humans. All we'll see is increased depravity and immorality.

Why not do a case study on modern day Christianity (which should include both Catholics and Protestants) and see then if your argument still holds up?

You are forgetting Capitalism vs Communism, which is STILL on going today. Just look at what happened to Georgia this year.

Do we need to understand science and reason, in the first place than to use the rationality to find and our purpose of birth? Science is studies and discoveries of divine wonders, it cannot become divine itself. Who provides us with intelligence? Religions tell us Who. And, as for the sufferings and crusades love causes peace and war. However, compare the wrath and devastations of cold-blooded logical modern day wars. there are no differences b/w religions from the point of view of God, its created by ignorants and those who go against His will.

Give me that person's address and I will send him lists of countless rare men who wrote masterpieces of religiously inspired literature, even many who wrote hundreds of years ago, and are still read today; who did wonderful things, not even including thousand of Prophets whom character are enough ample a proof of their truth. Take Rumi for instance, eastern mystic peot for example, whose readers are increasing day-by-day in USA. Only such intelligent beings have been able to give expositions on the religion, scientifically and from traditional perspectives. But, I will get sad if these two quotions are to be removed ever, for I will lose a precious source of continual laughter.

There has been no physical god of yours in perennial sources of wisdom. Wisdom, as understood in its ancient meaning i.e, love of wisdom, not hate of it, has played the function and continues to in religious worlds, of directing men to their end and purpose. "Man is not man becuase he has two hands, with which he can manipulate and make planes fly or perform complex mathematical operations.... but for other profound reasons."

What are they? Enduring Religions, like Islam answer, answer by inviting us to observe the phenomena around us and to deduce signs of The Almighty Creator. Ok. Let's observe. Don't you, I invite you to see, don't you find this universe a law governed place? It is so. Whole universe submit to a regulated system Created by God. This is the demand of religion from man that we should submit our will to the Creator, accept Him as the Absolute King. Because, only this is natural. Only this is the necessity we are here to fulfill using our rationality. It even clearly says that the 'choice' is upto us whether we accept it or reject it. Do you not find it a miracle that a man can reject his Creator, who gives him this choice?

If there was no guns in the world people would just commit murders and other crimes with other weapons.

The world still had wars, murders, theft, rapes and other crimes before guns so its no as if gun introduced all the crime and war to the world.

With or without guns, people will commit crime!

No absolutely not. Religion is the base of individual morals. Without morals the world would be more corrupt than it is now, which isnt that drastic of a change to be honest, but that is a differnt debate. Religion debatable or not is needed to keep morals intanct and differnt individuals raised correctly. Severely debatable or not Religion is needed in the world and it would change nothing for the better.

Yes I believe we are prefectly capable of that now after the influence of religion even not directly just hearing about it,but to at first put the message into our mind is religion or influence of religiouts people. If you are a child you do not learn what is right and wrong until someone tells you if your parents never had religion or no other individual ever had religion the base of morals would be completely erased. And honestly without religion people would let there instincts take over to not bleieve in a god or gods would make us nothing but animals.Religion is needed for basic regulations for an individual. My opinion is we need religion in th eworld now more than ever.

Ah quite sorry misinformed information wrong point made. It still has no relativity to what this discussion is about. We can not do absolutely anythign about it now. What are they going to do stick a piece of plexi glass up there? Drop it already everyone knows about it by by now.

I said a god or gods. So the greeks still had religion of some sort. Actually I know quite a lot about Psychology. For example there is a frontal lobe that functions as sush but there is also a lobe of the human brain that holds in that inate ability for survival that sifts through all the information given and something that poses a threat that makes an individual angry it swells to a larger size than the frontal lobe and reacts quicker than such, so the moral lobe is not always succesful and without influence of religion or regards to a more importnat figure than human begins the morals would be eradicted and would just rely on that not always succesful moral lobe, so in reality without religion corruption would erupts to an even more higher level than it is now. So therefore lack of religion would not not make the world a better place.

I am doing something about it. I haven't farted in months!!! Which is probably more than you'll ever do. :P

Some religions should be abolished but some should stay.

Religions are a system to guide us to be morally perfect.

Without them it's hard to have a stable community and safe world.

Codes of conducts cannot exists with itself but needs to exist with religions.

Religions explain the inportance of moral codes of conducts etc.

Without them the world is in havoc.

atheist are just as narrow minded, if maybe a bit more rational, as theist.

the true level ground is agnostic, being an athiest simply says that my belief is better than yours. their is no way that you can prove that a man wont come in the future and walk on water, turn the seas to boiling wine, and talk to us through burning bushes.

their is no need for profanity, debates are supposed to be civil, calm down.

why do you feel the need to stop possitive argument that is related to the subject? if you dont want to debate a subject dont look, this is a choice, no one is forcing you to use this site.

that being said i do agree with your point of view

Anything if applied radically can breed evil.

- - --- _ - -_ _ _ -_ _ -_ _ -_ _ -- _

This will only work if we eliminate all belief.

So. Tell me how to eliminate belief in general and why it is good to eliminate belief. After all, we all know that people who believe in something can become extreme.

That only works if you take away the ability to believe in ANYTHING completely. And that's impossible... unless you set up a regime described in 1984.

The only way the world would be better is if fanatics themselves are all destroyed. Because if it ain't one thing, it's another. If religion is destroyed, they'll focus more of their time on Communism or Militant Atheism.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but you are all morons.

If you really want a foot in reality here is something to digest.

“…it becomes apparent that those who make the claim ‘religion has been the cause of more wars than any other factor in history’ may speak from ignorance or have ulterior motives for the assertion. Further, this type of assertion seems rooted in anti-religion posturing…Men and nations have a history of warfare and the root of conflict is power and gain…Occasionally war is fought over religion, as is perhaps the case during the reformation period in Europe. More often than not however, the cause of war can't be laid at the door of religion.”

-Maj. John P. Conway

Under War's Bloody Banner

By Carl Teichrib

http://www.forcingchange.org/under_war's_bloody_banner

“…it becomes apparent that those who make the claim ‘religion has been the cause of more wars than any other factor in history’ may speak from ignorance or have ulterior motives for the assertion. Further, this type of assertion seems rooted in anti-religion posturing…Men and nations have a history of warfare and the root of conflict is power and gain…Occasionally war is fought over religion, as is perhaps the case during the reformation period in Europe. More often than not however, the cause of war can't be laid at the door of religion.”

-Maj. John P. Conway

Under War's Bloody Banner

By Carl Teichrib

http://www.forcingchange.org/under_war's_bloody_banner

Modern ideological wars, genocides, and atrocities kills hundreds of millions. So called religious wars which were really largely campaigns of loot or power struggles were just given a religious tone to justify them. These only killed hundreds of thousands, not hundreds of millions. These are the approximate comparisons. Religion doesn't kill people. People kill people.

Let me see if I understand? People should not group up based on values and beliefs?

The world would be a better place if people stopped doing that?

I can't help but think that people who make these anti-religion statements just really don't get what religion is.

All these people bagging on religion instead of trying to improve it's practice. They say "let's get rid of religion" as if that was possible. If you have a better example to set regarding religion, set it. That is unless you wish to remain a card carrying member of the church of foundational complainism.

I am not convinced that there is much difference at all between philosophy and religion. I suppose the distinction I would make is that religion deals with elements of philosophy that we accept and wish to propagate.

I agree. However you could also say that every war etc. was caused by people making decisions. Therefore people shouldn't make decisions? That is about as realistic as saying we would be better off without religion.

History has an answer. The Sumerians had religion, but no form of afterlife, one of the most important aspects of a religion. They feared death, and were sad and depressed because of how grim that is. However, the Egyptians began to envision a colorful afterlife, and they celebrated death. So they built great tombs and temples and decorated them colorfully. And they were generally happier people. So which were better off?