While I agree that religion is pretty terrible on the whole but to focus solely on the destruction and blaming of religion misses the point of the actually evil that is the driving factor behind such a force - the human being.

To say religion is the problem, lets get rid of it, is to me such an odd statement. I agree get rid of it if you must but you are still left with the problem of evil in the world.

Human beings are the fundamental reason why the world is going to hell (I don't mean hell in any biblical sense). We have become lazy in our lifestyles, where TV/facebook are more real to us than anything actually happening in the real world. Bread in the store no longer tastes like bread but a beautifully packaged imitation. The pursuit of money poisons almost everything. Most people's ultimate goal is to earn money so what they do is set up mass production of the item they want to sell, endless amount of trash done as quickly and as cheaply as possible because the end goal is how much money can I make and thus the quality of the product diminishes. This is a bad motivation, and the inevitability of corruption spreads.

If and when religion becomes a thing of myth what then will become of evil? In what form will evil take? I see it already in government in fact in almost all types of organised human beings.

It is only a distractoin that we focus on destroying, ridiculing and eradicating religion. The real problem, when you get to it, is the human being, its YOU!

I agree. Remove religion, and you still have suffering. Some people would argue that you have less suffering if you remove religion, but I dont see how thats at all calculable.

Your argument is limited in that the 'evil' (I don't really like that word) caused in the name of religion is not the only negative aspect of religion, you're neglecting other negative aspects. Far more damaging IMO than simply giving people one more reason to kill each other and generally act despicably, and which we would no doubt do with or without religion, is the negative impact that religion has on our ability to progress our knowledge and understanding of the universe we live in.

Theists (most of them anyway I'd imagine, I know some don't) love science, as long as it doesn't contradict 'Goddidit'. Many scientific advances have been made within the paradigm of Goddidit, but it took breaking away from that paradigm and asking 'Whatelseexplainsit?' (or, at the very least, simply not blindly accepting the Divine explanations offered by the religions) before we started making the huge leaps forward in our understanding that we've made in the last 200 years or so.

I agree that religion has hampered the progress of science, but even there, behind the marching forces of science, the guys that set out to conquer space and during the arms race the undertone is that of aggressiveness. As if nature was something to be conquered and straightened out.

I'm not sure why you are hung up on the understanding of the universe when we can barely understand the nature of man, how he behaves and his unconscious mind.

Quarks are the "building blocks" of all matter, but I wouldn't be surprised if we discovered yet an even smaller particle somewhere in the future. What are Quarks made off? They must be made of something. I suppose you could answer something unknown that we know, point is you can indulge in this line of questioning. But to me its like a child armed with atomic bomb he may be able to create it but his he going to be responsible? Science and technology will advance and I'm sure we will be able to create marvelous machines but is our mindset ready on how to use them? Again the whole point is that mankind, the individual is evil so what are we going to do about? Research and build bigger bombs?

Any aggregate of human actions can be reduced to individual phenomena, but look at it this way:

One man running into you is a painful nuisance. 1 million people running into you will kill you.

It's my catch-all word for, well, everything that exists. Religions don't want to understand everything that exists if it conflicts with, or contradicts their divine theories. People have died for doing that, and are still dying now.

So, more damaging than war or misery IMO is the amount of time over history that religions held us back. I sometimes wonder where we would be now if that hadn't happened, if non-goddidit science hadn't been suppressed to the extent that it was.

Maybe but that won't be because of religion necessarily, there are lots of reasons for conflicts including religion, territorial disputes, resource scarcity (watch for that one becoming more of a problem in our lifetimes) and just plain old megalomania.

Take religion away, we'll still kill each other, but then no one is blaming religion for all the suffering in the world.

The problem could be people or human beings without the Ruach HaKodesh ( ~"Spirit of Truth") which then points to the main source of the problem: the Adversary.

If we just killed all the humans, the problem would go away.

That's your answer to everything.

yes, if you remove religion evil would still exist. but at least people wouldnt be cutting babies penises off anymore.

uhh haha no. a spoon doesnt claim to be god and speak to you at all hours of the day telling you youre evil if you dont eat the rest of that ice cream in the freezer. false analogy is false.

I tried to find the family guy screen of the alternate universe where they show America in present time where everything was very advanced bc Christianity never existed. This gave science over a thousand years of time to move forward at a much faster rate, than what it surely did with the christian church. If anyone can find it that would be great. Now this scene or idea cannot be proven to be accurate but it brings up a great point. You are right that human beings are going to be human beings whether there is or is not religion, but the scale is very different. First lets look at religious fundamentalist. You know there is something wrong with a religion when the people who follow the "word of god" (muslim or christian according to their varies texts) at its fundamental levels are the ones that are causing the most problems. This clearly says something negative about that text. Like someone already stated religion takes a bad person from hating 5 -10 people they know to every follower of another religion. Obv not in every case, but you get the point that I am making about religion. That person goes from wanting to kill a few people to something as extreme as 9/11.

Also look at atheist, and I will beat people to it before they try to bring up Stalin and Hitler. These are obviously two of the most extreme cases. First off Hitler was raised with religion, so you cant really use the excuse he was an atheist. I am not saying that he was a bad person bc of religion, I am just saying that he was just a terrible person all around. Religion did give him an excuse to kill millions of people bc he blamed them for all Germanys problems. Who knows how many would or would not have died with out religion in the world. As for Stalin he was an atheist, but he did not slaughter millions of people because he was an atheist he did it bc he was just a terrible person. He is a good example of how terrible people can kill millions of people even without religion. He is one of the few that I know of. Please inform me of others, I know there are, but just cant think of them at the moment.

Now my real point with atheist or humanist, look at atheist that are considered "extremist" Richard Dawkins is one that comes to mind. He travels around giving speechs trying to spread facts, logic and reason. He fights for all humans and tries to help people gain equal rights regardless of religion, race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. Yea, a real terror. Yes, I understand that he is just one example, but he is one of the figure heads for atheist. Someone who fights for good in this world. And now look at "religious extremist" we all know that sad side of the story.

People are going to be people, you are right, but to say that we dont need to get rid of religion is wrong. Religion separates people and the Earth needs people fighting for humanity and our future, not for their god(s).

I never said not to get rid of religion. I said get rid of it if you must.

I'm sure science would have progessed to greater heights if not for religious dogma, is that a good thing? To that I answer may be.


Science has advanced in the last 200 years but I fear our mental attitude has not. To use an analogy it is like science is the right leg and our metal attitude towards each other is our left leg. Our right leg keeps taking steps forward but the left leg hasn't moved, eventually we will fall over unless we can adjust. Maybe we all need to take a spiritual path that is neither science or religion.

I feel like we have disconnected ourselves from reality. When was the last time you made conversation with a total stranger on the street? When was the last time you looked at the trees, sun or water and stood in marvel at it but more than that but to feel connected to and being it? Looking at something without thought or words.

I fear that this is the path we are headed on, and from the logical point of view maybe the correct one to take - to commit mass suicide.

I'm a total atheist and I love science. My fear is what ideology will our society most likely get when it abandons religion?

The problem is not religion. The problem is ideology. Even if you are atheist you will still have some sort of ideology. Ideologies are the operating systems of societies, not religions per se. Religions is like clay from which an ideology is formed. And what people call "science" can also easily take this function.

It's problematic to make sweeping statements about religion. Usually religions are based on huge books that have many internal contradictions and are thus not at all consistent overall, and then it's up to the theologists to offer a contemporary interpretation, and the interpretations change as time goes along. From almost every religious tradition it's possible to create an interpretation that is compatible with contemporary society, and most traditions offer potential to create an interpretation that is much healthier than what we have today.

It's extremely problematic when people try to form an ideology based on "science". For example look at things like "christian science". The problem there is that they precisely don't talk about faith and belief anymore, instead they try to sell their ideology as scentific fact ("the world is 6k y/o etc"). Similarly with science, it's just a conglomerate of facts, and these facts are neutral, similar to how the religious books are inconsistent, i.e. it's possible to create numerous ideologies based on the same set of information.

Well, the same kind of argument has been posed on pretty much any societal change on political, religious, ethical or philosophical issues: "It is probably the right to do, but what will the black people do if we suddenly let them have rights?" "We know it is silly to say that one man is chosen, but what anarchy will result if we remove guiding star of our monarch?"

Ad nauseum.

But I digress, let us instead follow the hypohesis of "people are the problem, not religion": If people do what they do regardless of religion, then it doesn't make a lick of difference if remove it or not.

So then we can just remove it.

I'm not sure the bolded follows. "People are the problem, not religion" is consistent with a statement like "Religion is part of the solution" whereas the bolded claim is much stronger and is not consistent with that claim.

Therefore, your conclusion doesn't really follow from OP's premise.

Then I have no idea what OP you have been reading.

Also, maybe if you start quoting posts fully you won't miss out on context.

A friendly suggestion.

You said:

Following the hypothesis AS STATED, the part after the colon simply does not follow. If you're using more than just that hypothesis, then you've used it implicitly and it would help for you to elaborate on that.

(When I said "OP's premise" I was not referring to OP's entire OP. I was just using it as an identifier for the quoted statement.)

Thanks, but the context doesn't really affect my analysis in this case. You were making "What if" statements concerning the consequences of various positions. That's irrelevant to what I said.

To add to that, you even called such questions a "digression" which is a pretty explicit offering for it to be ignored as not being a relevant context for what is to follow.

Sure it does. OP uses example of evil without religion to argue that religion is not cause of evil, then it implicitly follow that showing example of good without religion means religion is not cause of good.

We just follow the logic to its natural conclusion, instead of stopping halfway because we are comfortable with the result.

Tada.

Apparently, you can't read.

I never claimed that religion is *THE* cause of good. (Are you going to claim that religion is not *A* cause of good at all?)

[And just to be clear, I'm not saying that your conclusion is either right or wrong. I'm saying that the logic is faulty.]

You seem to have huge problems following a conversation based on your own premises. I haven't said anything about what you have or have not claimed.

An old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically. “May be,” the farmer replied. The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed. “May be,” replied the old man. The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune. “May be,” answered the farmer. The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. “May be,” said the farmer.