Lets say all religious texts, all memory, and knowledge of every religion disappeared. What do you think the world would be like if it had no religion?

At 7/27/12 10:21 AM, Jmayer20 wrote: Lets say all religious texts, all memory, and knowledge of every religion disappeared. What do you think the world would be like if it had no religion?

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I really don't know for sure...but at least we wouldn't be killing each other over differences in who's all powerful , omniputent ,invisible entity is the right one ! ! !

How do you get to this new planet....I've got thousands of dollars i could use to purchase a ticket !

Ever seen the movie Book of Eli?

At 7/27/12 11:38 AM, EmmaVolt wrote: Ever seen the movie Book of Eli?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure lack of knowledge of the bible had nothing to do with the world being a post-apocalyptic wasteland. So, I don't see your point.

"It's not a book! It's a weapon!"

At 7/27/12 12:38 PM, Korriken wrote: World without religion? that's easy, just look at the inner city of any massive city like New York and spread it worldwide.

i guess i should tell you now that sweden, finland, and a buttfuckload of other countries in europe happen to have higher standards of living than religious societies(norway has the highest standard of living in the world and epitomizes atheistic society). more secular societies have lower crime rates, pregnancy rates, generally healthier, etc. and happen to have massive atheist populations

also, i love how you implied that those who don't believe in religious bullshit tend to be poor people when it's been shown over and over again that the poor are the most religious in most societies

At 7/27/12 11:38 AM, EmmaVolt wrote: Ever seen the movie Book of Eli?

so you're telling me that the world's population will be decimated if we turn away from religion

lol please substantiate this horse shit

Very little would change. Much of what we consider religion is really just humanity and human nature.

The stories and ethos are defnitely the religion, but the morality, the comradery, the ceremony, the tradition, the divisions, the rules, and so on. All of these traits arethat of humanity, not religion. Religon has always been a nice and convenient place to find all of these, but without religion, we'd find them elsewhere.

At 7/27/12 01:36 PM, Camarohusky wrote:
Religon has always been a nice and convenient place to find all of these, but without religion, we'd find them elsewhere.

would we derive dogma from other sources then

At 7/27/12 01:47 PM, Korriken wrote:

At 7/27/12 01:08 PM, psychopathy wrote:

i guess i should tell you now that sweden, finland, and a buttfuckload of other countries in europe happen to have higher standards of living than religious societies(norway has the highest standard of living in the world and epitomizes atheistic society). more secular societies have lower crime rates, pregnancy rates, generally healthier, etc. and happen to have massive atheist populations

"massive atheist populations" huh? Ok then... prove it. Show me the statistics on these "massive atheist populations" I did some research on my own. you're full of shit and have little idea what you're talking about. if you count people who don't attend church on a regular basis as atheist, then maybe you have a point. However, a lot of non atheists don't go to church.

i should probably correct myself, as "atheist" is simply too exclusive. being nonreligious is just as valid in the context of this thread. but yeah, there are quite a few nonreligious/atheist people in the societies that i speak of

since norway seems to epitomize the countries i'm talking about, i'll provide statistics for that country. if you want more from other countries or something, i'll be happy to oblige

only 20% of all norwegians say religion is important to them

only 32% of all norwegians believe in god

depending on the study, 31~72% of all norwegians do not believe in a personal god

i would love to see which sources you consulted which led you to the conclusion that my claim is erroneous

also, i love how you implied that those who don't believe in religious bullshit tend to be poor people when it's been shown over and over again that the poor are the most religious in most societies

I never implied anything of the sort.

you indirectly stated that a lack of religion in the world would make all of human society resemble harlem, new york and other inner city areas

how the hell else was i supposed to interpret that

you're just reading too much into it because that what you want to believe.

It's ok little guy, I don't blame you *pats on head* it's what you're programmed to think.

how am i programmed to think this stuff? please tell me.

i independently came to the conclusions i expressed earlier. try not to assume so much about people you don't know. i didn't assume so much about you; i didn't say "korriken you must be blinded by religion to believe what you believe, but it's ok herp derp it's what you're programmed to think"

At 7/27/12 01:47 PM, Korriken wrote:
I never implied anything of the sort. you're just reading too much into it because that what you want to believe. It's ok little guy, I don't blame you *pats on head* it's what you're programmed to think.

if i didn't know any better, i'd say that you were personally offended by my first post in this topic. this condescending part of your post wasn't provoked by me to my knowledge

why else did you patronize me? please correct me if i'm wrong, though

It wouldn't be much different than it is now since people would've found something else to take its place.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLsdJlfA23E

At 7/27/12 10:21 AM, Jmayer20 wrote: Lets say all religious texts, all memory, and knowledge of every religion disappeared. What do you think the world would be like if it had no religion?

It would be the best possible world. Most wars are fought over religion.

At 7/27/12 10:21 AM, Jmayer20 wrote: Lets say all religious texts, all memory, and knowledge of every religion disappeared. What do you think the world would be like if it had no religion?

I don't know because we've never seen a modern society that is completely void of all religions. It would be hunches at best.

You're imagining a world where by pure chance there was no religion despite the huge sociological and psychological pressures for religion to appear, so religion would re-appear in a matter of weeks.

At 7/27/12 11:38 AM, EmmaVolt wrote: Ever seen the movie Book of Eli?

No I have not. Please tell me what it is about.

At 7/27/12 11:49 AM, X-Gary-Gigax-X wrote:

At 7/27/12 11:10 AM, e-lord wrote: for right now?

The very foundation of culture and morality would be lost

would confucianism and taoism count as religions?

They are not a significant voting bloc, so few People in the political class give it a second glance

if philosophies count, then people still may follow the teachings of jesus or muhammad or the buddha, without the whole supernatural aspects out of the former two

Ever heard of the Jefferson bible? It's exactly what you described. Anybody can enjoy reading it once they get past their prejudices

so what do you think?

wwwwwww

OK what is with the wwwwwww's at the end? I think it is unfair to say that people would have no morality with out religion. I have meet plenty of atheists that were not only polite and kind but also liked to help people. Clearly these people have some sort of moral compus. Also are you saying that the only thing that keeps you from raping and murdering your own sister is the fear of burning in hell?

At 7/27/12 01:36 PM, Camarohusky wrote: Very little would change. Much of what we consider religion is really just humanity and human nature.

The stories and ethos are defnitely the religion, but the morality, the comradery, the ceremony, the tradition, the divisions, the rules, and so on. All of these traits arethat of humanity, not religion. Religon has always been a nice and convenient place to find all of these, but without religion, we'd find them elsewhere.

I agree with you Camarohusky. It might affect our culture a little and we would of course stop going to churches, mosque's or any other religious places because they would not exist any more but I think that things would stay mostly the same.

At 7/27/12 01:36 PM, Camarohusky wrote: Very little would change. Much of what we consider religion is really just humanity and human nature.

While I do agree with you Camarohuskey.... your post along with the other posters made me think of this as a good-vs-evil particularly in reguards to how religions tell us they are good & they hold back evil.

I just read a paper by Chris Hedges

Where he says the greatest crimes in human history are made possible by the carrearists, the bureucrats, the cynics. They do the little chores that make the vast complicated workings of the systems of exploitation & death a reality .

" They collect and read the personal data collected on hundreds of millions of us by the 'State'. "
"They keep the accounts & secretes of Exon ,Enron, Goldman sachs, The Fed, Madoff Investment Securities, etc. They build or pilot aerial drones, man the road blocks. They work in corporate advertising, & public relations. They issue the forms & process the paperwork.
They deny foodstamps to some, they deny unemployment & medical benefits to others. They enforce laws & regulations & they never ask questions."

"GOOD ...EVIL these words do not mean anything to them !"
"They are beyond mortality, they are there to make the corporate systems function.
When insurance companies want to realise higher profits by abandoning millions of sick customers so they suffer & die, So be it. If Banks & Sheriff Depts toss families out of their homes into the streets ,so be it. If the financila firms rob people of their savings, so be it.
IF the Government chooses to fund defense contracts & close schools & libraries, so be it.
If the military has murdered innocent men ,women & children in Pakistan or Afghanistan, so what. When commoditiy speculators drive up the costs of wheat, corn, & rice so they are unaffordable to hundreds of millions of people, so what. If Congress & the Courts strip citizens of their basic civil liberties, so be it. They serve the system, the God of Profit & Exploitation !
The most dangerous force in the world is not from those with religious or fanatical beliefs. It is from legions of faceless uncaring bureaucrats who attempt to claw their way up layered Corporate & Government machines. They serve a system that serves their needs."

"It was the carrearists who have made possible the genocides of the past & have made the plans for those yet to happen"
"They are responsible for the extermination of Native Americans, the Turkish slaughter of Armenians, THe Nazi holocaust to Stalin's Liquidation & Mao's purge. They are the ones who kept the trains running, the camps guarded, the furnaces built & the forms signed & prosided over the property confiscation. They rationed food while people starved & storage facilities were filled to bursting, they manufactured the guns, enforced travel bans, seized bank accounts, cancelled passports & carried out segregation. They enforced the 'law' & seen it as doing their job !"

We discover our idealist leaders are actually mediocraties only when its too late !
A world without religion, isn't going to change any of that ...unfortunately !

At 7/28/12 12:14 PM, morefngdbs wrote: Where he says the greatest crimes in human history are made possible by the carrearists, the bureucrats, the cynics. They do the little chores that make the vast complicated workings of the systems of exploitation & death a reality .

What's a carrearist? Someone who likes their career so much they are willing to serve evil tyrants?

there is no need to keep arguing, the answer is in the video posted above

At 7/28/12 04:19 PM, kakalxlax wrote: there is no need to keep arguing, the answer is in the video posted above

I like the song a whole new world but I don't see what that has to do with what we are talking about. Please explain.

At 7/28/12 03:46 PM, Korriken wrote:

only 20% of all norwegians say religion is important to them

by that standard even America is an atheist country.

Is religion important in your daily life?

Norway: Yes (20.5%), No (78%).

United States: Yes (65%), No (34.5%).

So about the same, right?

At 7/27/12 10:21 AM, Jmayer20 wrote: Lets say all religious texts, all memory, and knowledge of every religion disappeared. What do you think the world would be like if it had no religion?

Would be great if all humans could work together. Science would be far more advanced, and all due to never have any religion.

At 7/28/12 04:27 PM, Jmayer20 wrote:

At 7/28/12 04:19 PM, kakalxlax wrote: there is no need to keep arguing, the answer is in the video posted above

I like the song a whole new world but I don't see what that has to do with what we are talking about. Please explain.

hear it again, the link i gave have the lyrics, pay close attention of what is being said

At 7/27/12 06:14 PM, DoctorStrongbad wrote: It would be the best possible world. Most wars are fought over religion.

The 100+ Million people who died in non-religious wars of the 20th century would tend to disagree with your claim.

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What would happen if the world suddenly woke up tomorrow with complete and total amnesia about religion? Well, we'd probably spend several years investigating why things like the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel still exist, along with the thousands of Churches that dot the American landscape, for starters. People would discover the concept of God, since the Bible is still the number 1 selling and most printed book in the world (and there's thousands of cultural and musical references to the subject), they would read "the word" of God and begin to believe, and all the stuff that goes along with Religion would start up again.

Of course, that's going with the idea of a collective and sudden onset of amnesia on the subject, and the world not changing to reflect that. If we're going the route of "religion simply never existed, period," then I'd say we would be missing a fair chunck of culture and art, and the cascading effect that these things would have on the world would be interesting to see.

For example; the Blues, and by extension, Rock music, would not exist. Since there's no religion, there would be no English monarchy that ruled by Divine Right, so there never would have been a reason for the Puritans to leave England and found the new world, and subsequently, Africans never would have been taken there to help build it. No new world, no african slaves, no south, no Delta Blues music to be sent back to England, and... no Led Zeppelin, no Cream, and no Jimi Hendrix. Also, no William Lester Paulfus or Leo Fender, so no Electric Guitar, either. Yngvie Malmsteen would still exist, but his style of music would sound really weird unaccompanies by a rock-guitar soundtrack.

Also, music as we know it wouldn't exist. For those of you who are music lovers, you know that things like Polyphony grew out of Church Choral traditions.

And since America didn't exist, by extension, Alexander Graham Bell wouldn't exist. No light bulb, no telephones, and by extension, no internet and no Newgrounds. Also, the Wright Brothers wouldn't exist, so there goes the airplane. Henry Ford wouldn't exist, so there goes the Model-T and all the cool stuff that came after it. The internal combustion engine (a european invention) might still exist, but it would be up for debate as to wether or not anything would have come of it.

So the world would be darker, duller, slower paced, and not near as populated.

Of course, in both instances, atheists don't exist, either. Since no one has a recollection of religion in one scenario, and religion doesn't exist in the other, the "avowed disbelief in Religion" wouldn't exist either. But in both scenarios, wars would still be fought and people would still die for the simple fact that we're human, and we just plain can't stand each other. See the opening statement I made about "wars fought in the 20th century."

At 7/28/12 03:46 PM, Korriken wrote:

At 7/27/12 02:15 PM, psychopathy wrote:

i should probably correct myself, as "atheist" is simply too exclusive. being nonreligious is just as valid in the context of this thread. but yeah, there are quite a few nonreligious/atheist people in the societies that i speak of

suppose that would depend on the definition of Atheist you want to use.

since norway seems to epitomize the countries i'm talking about, i'll provide statistics for that country. if you want more from other countries or something, i'll be happy to oblige

only 20% of all norwegians say religion is important to them

by that standard even America is an atheist country.

i doubt only 20% of americans would say religion is important

only 32% of all norwegians believe in god

yes and 47% on top of that believe in some sort of spirit. Not all religions follow the idea of some sort of manifest god that rules over them. Even without belief in a "god" they still believes there's something out there, a spirit (or spirits) benevolent or malevolent that does what it does. an atheist would tell you such a thing simple does not exist.

believe it or not, atheists don't, by definition, lack belief in spirits. just in deities.

That puts us at 79% non atheist. 21% atheist isn't that bad though.

no, it "puts" us at 79% atheists. as i said before, atheists don't disbelieve spirits.

can we get a forum atheist to verify this? Last I checked Atheists believe that there is no god nor spirits nor an afterlife.

looks like you're wrong bro

atheists can believe in spirits or an afterlife. they usually don't, though

i would love to see which sources you consulted which led you to the conclusion that my claim is erroneous

most of the same sources you like to use. I'm just more strict on my interpretation of an atheist. If an atheist believes in no god but does believe in spirits, then yeah.

"then yeah" what?

they're not atheists then? your definition of atheism isn't even consistent with the actual definition of the word. you just assume that because most atheists lack faith in spirits/afterlife/whatever, all atheists by your definition lack faith in it.

i'm sure you know how wrong that is

you indirectly stated that a lack of religion in the world would make all of human society resemble harlem, new york and other inner city areas

This is true, some places resemble this even with religion. just look over in Iran.

please substantiate your claim that a lack of religion would produce poverty, high crime rates, etc. as in the inner cities.

how am i programmed to think this stuff? please tell me.

Reflect on it, come up with your own answer.

you act like you know me better than i know myself. i might as well ask you

just because i disagree with you, it doesn't mean that i'm brainwashed or something. that's fucking moronic and arrogant to think.

In a world without religion... someone would make one up. And abuse the hell out of it. As long as we fear death and aren't aware of any possible borders of the universe, there would always be religion, even if by small percentage.
A more adequate question would be - will all the people's average intelligence and education ever rise above the margin where any kind of religion would be widely considered a superstition?

wow this is an insanely difficult topic to discuss philosophically but i will give my shot at it.

If there was no religion ever or the need to think and create religion, this is what i think would happen or be today's society. Since people will not be worrying about a god figure or the religious background to things more people would be inclined to scientific beliefs. This in turn would create faster advancements in technology and progress society in a faster direction. life would actually be more structured and have more and better designs. We would prolly have more laws and the laws would most likely be more restricting since more people will be interested in efficiency of life instead of "living life". Now right and left brained people will still be present, so our artists instead of being influenced by religion they would possibly just be influenced by science and other tangible things. Now having the precense of god would completely erase all tangible creative ideas that were sprung off the idea of god. Since god no longer exsists, all video games that we have were we have the "view of god and ability of god" wouldn't be created.

Alot of creative ideas in gaming and movies wouldn't of been created either, all the roman gods and mythology and all that other stuff probably wouldn't even exsist. Instead we would just have tons of technical detailed information about stuff or lots of philosphy to look at. Since all the people who study religion thoroughly and think of ways to improve on it won't be doing that, they will be going into other fields of study instead. What they study would be completely unknown so we would have advancements in those fields more. All the lessons taught in religion which are very valuable lessons will no longer be there for anyone of any age to hear. This may or may not promote violence and criminal activity, actually the real definition of criminal activity and violence might even be entirely altered. Everyone who has a rough time in life with nowhere to get help and resort to praying to god for assistance and going to chuch for motivation to keep living, simply wont have that option.

Not having religion will end some wars right now, but we only have those wars because of how things were shaped. But not having religion we might end the wars we know about now, but that doesn't mean we will stop all the other wars. The only reason we can have wars in general is because we got smart and started to band together. maybe religious belief was a way to help influence people to band together and start a society. So not having those identical beliefs might even push people away from banding together and thus negating how big cities, countries, and major places of interest really are. Not only doing that but it could also potentially stunt the growth of society and stunt various things. Although we would have more countries and cities and languages (since people develop their own tounge in seperate locations of the world being singled out from others) by not having as many groups of people banding together creating less nations, we have less people working towards a similair goal, thus creating chaos and anarchy.

Not only that, but now you have to take in mind that all these individuals who think more scientifically now based on how the ancestors viewed life, will be less ignorant about life. In some ways this will be good, in some ways bad. They will have more opinions, people will work together and know how to work together. Things will progress and improve at a steady rate and people's priorities on life would change. Thats the good.

The bad.

It will be more difficult to work on teams together, people will want to do their own way because they dont agree with someone elses way. Politicians will have a harder time in life and less of an impact, actually we might not even have politicans because everyone wont be as manipulatable to fall under one representative. By not having a sole representation group there is no structure to the community, by having not structure to the community you fall into chaos and anarchy. There may be a new improved method to structure or a new way of structuring the community that isn't currently in motion. But there is no telling whether or not that would be a improvement on current life and society. A lot of times you need people to just act out actions, then you need people to direct actions, then you need people to create those actions. Having only people who create actions gets nothing done in a efficient timely manner. Everyone will argue and try to create the best method and very few people will sit down and actually do the work to see if its applicable.

The school system would be utterly and completely changed. Everything about ti, the way things are taught and even the courses available. The reason is because by negating out religion we ignore all the years spent studying it and developing it. So all those years will be applied to other fields and those fields would be farther along then they are now.

Thats my philosphical thought.

actually im going to add to this.

By removing the thought of religion, we remove the initial thought of "why does something happen". Without that thought we might even remove the whole process of scientific theory.

At 7/30/12 12:32 AM, PMMurphy wrote: actually im going to add to this.

By removing the thought of religion, we remove the initial thought of "why does something happen". Without that thought we might even remove the whole process of scientific theory.

To be honest, I kind of doubt that the first night Man looked up at the stars was AFTER the day Christianity was born.

Religion is a totally natural phenomenon for social, intelligible creatures like humans. We're inquisitive to know how the world works because such knowledge can help put us further above savage creatures who only know survival instincts and hunting. If we were to erase all the religion and mythos that have existed across time, they would simply be replaced with more religions and mythologies. Science and religion are made for the same reason: The betterment of humanity.

You might even say Science is a religion. Sure, we never fought wars in the name of science, and priests don't have to spend 6-8 years studying in college to advance their religion, but I like to think that each type of study helps the world in unique ways. I'm just sad that there's no more room for religion since "the answer" in literal terms can be found in a textbook. No more new religion. And with the gravitation of minds toward such "answers" we've come up with, all the religions we have today are almost guaranteed to die out. In order to fill the void left by them, well, we'd actually have to start parenting our kids. I don't think we're ready for that.