wouldnt the world be better without religon

[KirtViza]

I personally believe so and yes I believe in a higher power, but say no one believed..

[Zannon]

I say maybe because I don't think that faith and religion are bad things, but organized religion can pervert faith into something horrible and deadly.

That's my stand anyway.

[warsloth]

Maybe you should have re-stated the question.
My religion isn't about an "organized" religion, its about a relationship. Everything else revolves around that.

[Dwilah]

/tar Zannon
/agree

[Keer]

Congratulations on having the guts to post this one. I believe it's a valid question that I've had on my mind for years. Hopefully we can keep this one mature and give it the due it deserves.

Personally, I couldn't say for certain, but these are the things that I weigh as Pros and Cons.

Pro: Many religions promote goodwill to all mankind.
Con: Strict (and not so strict) interpretation has led to religious persecution and war.

Pro: Religion can be a good catharsis for the flaws of imperfect beings.
Con: Religious "absolution" can be abused to excuse any behavior as long as you atone for it later.

Pro: Various religious missions around the world and throughout history have advanced education, medicine, and support for the weak and needy.

Con: Various religious missions throughout the world and history have advanced oppression and genocide in the name of it's deities. Sometimes simultaneously with the "Pro" statement.

One glaring fact for me has been that most of the current "hot" wars are based on differences of religion. Jews, Muslims, and Christians, are killing each other over lands that all claim were "divinely deeded" to them. Catholic Irish and Protestant Irish kill each other over their beefs.

Hindu vs Muslim in Kashmir, African tribal wars (mixed with ethnic issues). etc., etc.

Regardlss of these facts, let's break it down even more. Without religion would mankind find something else to fight about? No one can say for sure, but there is strong evidence to suggest it.

In my view, more importantly than any belief category, human beings have demonstrated a problem when it comes to abstract ideas. Love, Honor, Trust, Loyalty are all perfect ideas...in their abstract form. These also include many of the tenents of some religions. It's when we try to realize them that we make them imperfect. For me this has begged the extended question:

What does it say about a creature that can imagine perfection, but not practice it?

Is this some inherent "dangling carrot" in our DNA that makes us strive despite maybe never being able to reach it? A strong survival instinct, hard-wired to keep us striving no matter what?

Or even further, is it perhaps the first step in the next stage of existence? Our more capable imagining minds waiting for our base instincts to catch up? Will we be able to realize abstracts one day?

As with religion, not sure. It would be interesting to see.

[Rye]

yeah agree with zannon i dont like when people try to force beliefs on you..

[Jabe Adaks]

Star Wars religion? Or real life?

Jabe

[xyryn]

Keer's discussion covers the main points...about religion. I think the question was prompted by the use of religion as an excuse for wars.

Wars have a specific purpose in the scheme of human life...stirring the gene pool. So, if we didn't have religion as one of the excuses, that wouldn't stop the wars...we have plenty of other excuses.

the majority of humans wouldn't leave familiar territory if they could help it. Survival of the individual depended on working with a group thru'out most of our history, and the easiest group to form is family-clan. Therefore, to prevent massive inbreeding, there has to be an opposing force.

Today, we have easy transportation, the need to relocate for jobs, travel for pleasure, and the internet. But still, a large proportion of the population will not relocate. The reason...too far away from family. But enuff do relocate to keep the gene pool healthy.

Not true in the past. Large population movements were caused by pressure "back home"...famine, invasion by another large population, disease, and over-breeding for the local resouces...and room to move to.

Then when all of a local area is saturated with insular pockets of family-clans, you get wars. Wars result in mixing the little gene-pools, thru rape, marriage, and slavery, into a much larger, healthier one. Therefore, until such time as we can culturally overcome the need for war, any excuse to wage one will prevail.

Religion is only one of many excuses for war.

(the only groups in human history that didn't practice slavery were the ones too small and isolated to make it out of the stone age.)

[Jerrel]

The problem isn't religion it's the followers. I'm reminded of a quote from Kevin Smith's movie Dogma in which Chriss Rocks character says that things got screwy when humanity took religious ideas and made them into beliefs. We're whilling to accept other's idea's, not beliefs. I'm a Christian but I don't accept dammnation of good people simply because they do not accept Jesus as the son of God. A good soul, in my opinion, will be accepted into heaven. Jesus is about good will towards my fellow man and if you try to show the same compassion throughout your life...well that is what is truly imortant. But again this is how I feel.

When people get wrapped up with the "us vs them" things go south. We can see this happening today in politics here in America. Our political leaders tells us it's dem vs rep, rich vs poor, liberal vs conservative when all it is about is keeping the masses ingorant of the issues. They hide behind political dogma and refuse to tell us what "they" belive in. Fortunatly we see that there is still a portion of of population who see this and votes against those who do this but how much longer. Will we see a day where our nation takes up arms against their neighbore because he or she has diffrent politial views?