At 7/29/12 11:19 PM, PMMurphy wrote:
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. (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.

We have had wars long before we banded together and formed complex civilization's. In fact we have be Waring since we were hunter gatherers. The only thing that has changed with that is that we have much higher death in war due to larger population. Also I do not see what you are talking when you claim that there would be anarchy because there would be no goals to unite society. Are you saying that scientist's have no goal's? Are you saying you have no goals that are not religious? Are you saying atheists have no goals? I can assure you there are many goals that are not religious. The very fact the Americans can unit together despite the fact that we have different religious beliefs is an example of unification other then religion.

some of you a missing the point to the discussion. We are supposed to think what would happen if religion was never created and will never BE created.

As for the whole war theory it depends on what you consider a war. The point is if nobody is organized and people dont come to groups. The definition or word "war" may never be in a dictionary.

At 7/29/12 11:19 PM, PMMurphy wrote: 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.

Actually, much of the scientific advancements of the Middle Ages were driven by religious reasons. It could be said that if religion didn't exist, the Rennaissance (and the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution and so on) may have never happened.

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".

Again, the concept of laws in most early societies was derived from religion. It is possible that the laws may have not existed, or at least not in a recognizable manner without the guidance of religion.

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.

This is pretty strong assumption. This assumes these people would actually be studying something. It is highly likely that the existence of religion was the sole reason these people were studying instead of being artisans or peasants. Without the monasitc system, a huge chuk of otherwise poor people would never have been able to devote themselves to such frivolous (in the purely productivity based sense) pursuits.

This may or may not promote violence and criminal activity, actually the real definition of criminal activity and violence might even be entirely altered.

We as humans are naturally inclined to certain rules and structures. Many of our big crimes are inherent and have existed in some form in every society cross huge reliious gaps and cleavages.

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.

No wars in history have been caused by religion. The wars would still exist. The difference would be the tools those in power (who had the secular reasons to commit war) used to convince the masses to fight for them.

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.

Large cities were born out of money and wealth purposes, not out of religious purposes. The biggest of the cities grew large as a method to consolidate trading and money making, not much different than a corporation today. Religion has had some influence on the growth and longevity of some cities, but the location and birth of cities is almost a purely economic issue, with a bit of military strategy sprinkled in (I only a say a bit, as big cities are not militarily based or motivated.)

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.

Agai, you're assuming the existence of motive for a frivolous pursuit outside of religion.

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.

We humans have a propensity to band together and follow a leader outside of the influence of religion. it is highly unlikely that our governmental structure would change without religion.

Religious wars would disappear, but struggles for land, wealth, and power would still exist, so it's not as if the world would be peaceful without religion. Many wars throughout history were in fact not about whose religion is right, but whose form of government is best, or which race was 'most fit' to rule the world.

One thing that I think of that I'm not sure many others do is that all of the great art and music inspired by religion would sadly no longer exist. Sad to think, but it's true.

Humans are a terrible, selfish, and greedy species, so I don't think we can blame religion for making us this way or thank it for preventing us from being worse. Either way, there would be war and charity, good and evil, ect.

At 7/30/12 11:27 PM, Camarohusky wrote:

:lots of interesting points, that i later thought about after my post.

Anyway, basically i was covering all bases and thoughts, even though there may have been no religion, there is no reason to say that society wouldn't evolve in a similair fashion. Actually considering that we are talking about thousands and thousands of years of existance you can't really claim anything would happen. You don't know what concepts were spawn off religion, thats impossible for ANYONE to tell. Our constitutional rights (i dont know my history well) were probably made partially from the 10 commandments. Considering i see many similarities between the two, tahts a solid statement.

If human beings didn't have religion, they would adapt and grow in some other way and live off survival of the fittest. That can take millions of turns and directions, which makes this an endless impossible debate.

By saying our government would stay the same, is saying that however many years religion exsisted for (which who says it really lasted for as long as the bible says) simply had NO EFFECT on how government philosphy was run? Your claiming that? Thats an ambitious claim.

The days of the week might be different too, our entire calender would probably be changed.

I think religion probably sparked interest for creative people to think "what about things that dont REALLY exsist" so maybe all those things that aren't tangible would never be thought of. Then that would limit our thought scope for scientific development.

Even though we wouldn't have the terms science or religion, i think science would still come about because of our ability to reason and rationalize. People would still come up with new ways to do things, they just wouldn't have a foundation of thought to work with.

As for the wars. I'm not saying violence wouldn't exsist. I'm not saying people wont die, im not saying it wil be peacefull. Actually i am trying to say the opposite, i think there would be MORE violence, LESS peace and more deaths. People might even grow the philosphy that it is ok to kill somebody who is not a proficient human being. I am saying that in a world like that, death violence and fights would be so common that nobody would even think about it or make a big deal. In bad neighborhoods even in the united states, people see death everyday and just walk past it like nothing really happened. Now if that happened EVERYWHERE it might not even really be a crime. Who would know? Your talking about tons of years of history and people passing on beleif systems and ways of life and lessons through ages on ages. One slight change in that huge history line would chain effect and ripple and change every little tiny detail that spawned from any bit of that communication.

you would change the very esscence of exsistance in every manner and form. Religion wasn't something that just kinda happened in some locations and spread around. EVERYONE had religion and had strong beliefs and lived their lives off it. Then people broke off from it and developed other beleif systems by being skeptical of it. Religion was created because people who didn't understand life wondered why and how things happened. Then they got together and said it was an upper being, people bought into it and then they started coming together for ideas and such. Then religion eventually became what it is today. Now some of that story may be right, some may be wrong. We dont know. We just trust what people say and "experts" tell us.

The point is. There is too much history, its too widespread of a topic, there are too many possibilties considering how evolution and survival of the fittest and us homosapiens became to be. Just too much shit to think about and consider.

This would be a good paper for someone with a PHD in philosphy.

At 7/31/12 09:11 AM, tyler2513 wrote: That's impossible. Whether you choose to be a believer or not, your position is based on faith.

Even if its "impossible" you have to pretend it is possible. Then think of how to alter the human mind to make it possible. Then think about how the changes on society would have to change and adapt for all those other things to be possible.

believer, faith, religion. You have to scratch all that stuff out. Break those concepts down to the thoughts and original creation of it. Then scratch all that stuff out too.

At 7/31/12 02:09 AM, PMMurphy wrote: By saying our government would stay the same, is saying that however many years religion exsisted for (which who says it really lasted for as long as the bible says) simply had NO EFFECT on how government philosphy was run? Your claiming that? Thats an ambitious claim.

I made my point about this earlier. Very little would change. Religion, alone, is nothing special. What religion is is a conduit for everything that makes us human. Religion does not add anything new, except a convenient place for many of our human traits to come together. And aside from the benefits of the monasitc lifestyle in the olden days, very little was th result of religion and nothing else.

As for the wars. I'm not saying violence wouldn't exsist. I'm not saying people wont die, im not saying it wil be peacefull. Actually i am trying to say the opposite, i think there would be MORE violence, LESS peace and more deaths. People might even grow the philosphy that it is ok to kill somebody who is not a proficient human being.

I don't see that either. Almost all the religions of the world have some rule regarding the control of violence, even those that had not connection each other at all. That makes me think that the controlling of violence was not a religious creation, but a human creation enforced through religion. If religion wasn't the rule holder, something else would be.

you would change the very esscence of exsistance in every manner and form. Religion wasn't something that just kinda happened in some locations and spread around. EVERYONE had religion and had strong beliefs and lived their lives off it. Then people broke off from it and developed other beleif systems by being skeptical of it.

The fact that everyone had it, and they all had very similar rules shows that the nitty gritty make up of all religions were quite similar. This, again, shows that religion was little more than a bearer or holder of human rules mixed with dogma, mythology, and ethos.

I think Trey Parker and Matt Stone summed it up best when they said that atheists aren't popular in America, because most well known atheists are "bitchy whiners". Of course, with no religion, there'd be nothing to whine about. Of course, religion's what held my family together for years, so I guess families like mine would be dead, but hey, at least our suffering made it easier for the rest of you guys, huh?

At 7/31/12 11:14 AM, Camarohusky wrote: repeats a bunch of information missing the key points discussed.

Here is a debate about religion and governments.
http://debates.juggle.com/does-religion-have-too-much-influe nce-within-the-u-s-government
It doesn't discuss this topic but it brings in ideas to take in consideration and have some important information. These are not experts though so they may or may not be discarded.

Some articles on the creative process since you obviously dont understand it.
http://www.productiveflourishing.com/demystifying-the-creati ve-process/
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/7249.php

Now here is the wiki pedia page for scientific theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory

Some more neuroscience articles
http://www.pnas.org/content/97/23/12403.full
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_network

something to add to the table, it talks about how to design systems these concepts and rules can be applied to anything design related.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_design

There are more articles i can reference but they are all computer science stuff. I also can find more information if need be. Everyone everywhere gets their "creative" and "imaginative" ideas from somewhere whether they realize it or not. There is something going on subconciously in all human beings that generate our thought process and how we think. Understanding this process is what will help determine how outcomes can be created if you erase parts of that process.

You cant just say something is going to happen no matter what because that is a lie. You need to understand how the brain operates, how it learns, how it generates thought and what creativity is. It is through a combination of those things and evolution that creates our society. Everything begins with a thought, without a thought we cant touch, feel, talk, eat, build on something or create anything new. Philosphies and theories wouldn't exsist without thought, not even mathematics, so if you take away the thoughts needed in the create of religion, you alter every other possible thing in exsistance.

Its like writing a very complicated program where you used math as a foundation. You used adding, multiplication and division. Then one day you sat down and said, yea i don't like the fact we used adding and i am going to erase all functionality related to adding. Thats basically what we are doing here, we are erasing a core fundamental element in everyday life and rewriting exsistance. We might end with the same result, we might have a different one. We wont know until we see it happen.

The only way to truly accurately do this problem and have everything make sense is to sit down and draw a diagram. Break down every single key element to society and life and break it down to each and every thought process, including religion. Then you begin mapping connections between similarities, then you erase everything that is related to religion and see what you have next.

Then you spend however long it takes to re construct the diagram with all the missing holes.

This is a highly complicated question that cannot be answered by simple observation.

Much better than this world, because people would take to scientific pursuits and working together rather than seperating from different people.

At 7/31/12 12:48 PM, PMMurphy wrote: You cant just say something is going to happen no matter what because that is a lie.

Yes I can, and no it's not. You say to break it down to its fundamental roots, well, I do that with religion and I find a bunch of traits that already exist. Religion is not a creator of humanity, rather is it a creation of humanity. Religion itself has created very little uniquely. What religion has done is provide a good conduti through which numerous human enotions and traits can be funneled. While the combination may be unique, none of the basic elements of religion are.

As religion is little more than a reflection of humanity, the fact that we are human and already have the traits give me confidence that we would not be very different without religion. You can try to speak in terms of computers all you want, and in logic, but you'd be way off. Religion exists on a different plane from logic, and using pure logic to try and understand it will not get you anywhere (kind of like using the Roman alphabet to read Chinese characters).

I don't think you can simply claim something like that. I would like to see the chart you made where you broke down society to the original thoughts of everything including religion. Also when was the first creation of religion and how was religion created? What created it? What was the thought and reasoning behind that thought that provoked it?

Do you have documentation of every single thought in existence that was ever created based of someone who heard/saw/or witnessed an aspect of religion? (even though thoughts cant "exsist" but thats not the point)

I want proof that our government system is by NO WAY influenced by religion. Please, elaborate proof too.

Most likely there would be higher crime rate in the world, because alot of religion's tell people not to steal, kill, lie, etc.. telling the truth, without religion... the world would be a dangerous place.

At 8/2/12 02:25 AM, razem wrote: Most likely there would be higher crime rate in the world, because alot of religion's tell people not to steal, kill, lie, etc.. telling the truth, without religion... the world would be a dangerous place.

You know we don't need religion to hold those values, right?

I'm surprised people still have to bring up something this obvious.

At 8/2/12 11:40 AM, Sense-Offender wrote: You know we don't need religion to hold those values, right?
I'm surprised people still have to bring up something this obvious.

Which is true, but people who live in bad neighborhoods get so use to crime and actions to the point that they develop a tunneled interpretation of things. They think that the crimes happening in those neighborhoods are everyday activity and life and dont believe anything should be changed about it or that it is even a bad neighborhood. By having a resource available for people to live by, it helps promote awareness of right and wrong, and remind people of common sense things.

It was a religious person, Gregor Mendel, who is considered to be the father of modern genetics. Why did I mention him and not someone like Sir Isaac Newton who was probably more accomplished than him anyway? Because Newton lived in a time period where everyone was religious whereas Mendel lived in an era past the discovery of evolution so his religiousness is perhaps more noteworthy than Newton's. Oh, and it was a priest that discovered the Big Bang Theory, you're welcome, atheists.

At 8/4/12 11:57 AM, Ericho wrote: Bla bla bla

I see you're still parroting yourself over and over again without realising that virtually everyone has responded to it? Did you not see my list of quotations in the Christianity thread? Evidently not.

Good news everyone, creators of a poorly sketched cartoon have intellectual authority on Theology!

At 8/4/12 06:41 PM, The-universe wrote: I see you're still parroting yourself over and over again without realising that virtually everyone has responded to it? Did you not see my list of quotations in the Christianity thread? Evidently not.

Honestly, I get tired of a lot of these religious threads, so I don't even pay attention to the longer ones, just the ones that come out recently like this one.

At 8/5/12 10:40 AM, Ericho wrote: so I don't even pay attention to the longer ones, just the ones that come out recently like this one.

It was last month.

At 8/5/12 01:34 PM, X-Gary-Gigax-X wrote: and love to just go on and on and on and on and on and on.

Just like these lifted from ericho's post history.

"Trey Parker (from of course "South Park") said perhaps the greatest thing about religion ever. He said that he'd heard a lot of truly ridiculous stories about religious belief. Then he heard the notion that there's this big universe and it's expanding and collapsing...just because. To him, that was the most ridiculous story out of all of them. Wouldn't you say he's right? Granted, he's no fundamentalist, but I think this is one of the most thought-provoking things ever said."

"Like I've said before with Trey Parker of "South Park", "Basically, out of all the ridiculous religion stories, which are all greatly, wonderfully ridiculous, - the silliest one I ever heard is, 'Yeah, there's this big giant Universe and it's expanding and it's all gonna collapse on itself and we're all here just 'cause, just cause'. That to me, is the most ridiculous explanation ever. So I think we have a big atheism show coming"."

"I still remember what Trey Parker said. Of all the ridiculous religious stories, which are all, truly, wonderfully, ridiculous the silliest one is that there's big Universe and it's collapsing and we're all here just because, just because. That was the most ridiculous explanation of all."

"Check out "South Park". Trey Parker has stated that he believes that of all the ridiculous religious stories, which are all truly ridiculous, the silliest one of all of atheism as it teaches that things are happening just because."

"The best defense against believeing in God is something like this to me, "Of all the ridiculous religious stories, which are all truly wonderfully ridiculous, by far the silliest one is, 'Yeah, there's this big Universe and it's expanding, and it's collapsing on itself and we're all here just cause...just cause. That to me, is the most ludicrous explanation ever". Trey Parker said that. I was actually going to make that my signature, but it was too long."

"Basically, out of all the ridiculous religious stories, which are all truly wonderfully ridiculous, by far the silliest one is "Yeah, there's this big Universe and it's expanding and it's collapsing on itself and we're all here just cause, just cause". That to me, is the most ridiculous explanation of them all."
- Trey Parker

"Bascially, of all the ridiculous religious stories, which are all truly, wonderfully, ridiculous, the silliest one I've heard is, 'Yeah, there's this big Universe, and it's expanding and it's gonna collapse on itself, and we're all here just cause...just cause'. That, to me, is the most ludicrous explanation ever." - Trey Parker

Trey Parker
"Basically ... out of all the ridiculous religion stories which are greatly, wonderfully ridiculous - the silliest one I've ever heard is, 'Yeah ... there's this big giant universe and it's expanding, it's all gonna collapse on itself and we're all just here just 'cause ... just 'cause'. That, to me, is the most ridiculous explanation ever."

Baring in mind I haven't gone through his entire post history and these are just his quotes of Trey Parker. I found an awful lot more paraphrases with alarmingly bizarre levels of hero worship.

Because what animators say about theology is absolute. No exceptions.

At 7/29/12 11:19 PM, PMMurphy wrote: 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.

With out going into your comments on todays society (which IMO is FUCKED)
Looking at hunter gatherer cultures...for example one I read about in National Geographic describe the Hadza people.
No form of governemnt, no chief.
They have lived the same way for thousands of years.
They cooperate in hunting.
THey gather in larger groups during times of plenty ( berry/fruit havest) they don't farm & have for generations resisted , christianity , to become farmers or herders.
They traditionally solve conflict by an offended party simply moving away to join another group
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadza_people

THere are tribes in the amazon still living in the same ways resisting outside pressure, no 'god' no governemnt & perfectly content to do so.

Your statements are based on your upbringing.
People can & still do live fien without having their lives complicated by others seeking to control them.
But those in control HATE THAT IDEA ...they'd actually have to go do something for themseoves.

Without religion? The world would be fairly similar to the way it is now considering religion was able to mold so many humans' minds and influence their behaviors.

Are you all really under the impression that humanity would become a utopia of scientific development and tolerance when only one ploy of humanity's ability to bend the boundaries is stripped away? The ability to manipulate would still be present. Even more so in the pre-modern era of the world. Without scientific developments of today, the flocks could be controlled with faulty scientific inquiries, destructive and false political movements, and completely mutated moral structures.

Manipulation and treachery is not synonymous with religion. Religion can be called a branch of it. You don't kill the weed without tearing away its roots.

At 7/27/12 05:40 PM, Ilssm wrote: People will say the world would be better off, but honestly, we'd still have prob elms, major ones at that, similar to the ones we have now, if not worse.

Why?

Because it's human nature. If it wasn't religion, we'd find something else, I'd bet my life on that.

Personally, I don't think religion is the problem. I think extremists, greed, and basic human instinct is.

I agree with everything here. I believe that religion, while definitely not faultless, often gets too much of the blame. Human attributes like bigotry and greed are what I believe are the main issues.

Let me tell you what would happen, little Jimmy.

Everyone would burn in the darkness that is hell, along with Satan and his fallen bretheren.

At 8/11/12 12:03 AM, Rahmemhotep wrote: Let me tell you what would happen, little Jimmy.

Everyone would burn in the darkness that is hell, along with Satan and his fallen bretheren.

But if you're burning then it's probably not dark.

the same

A world without religion is a world without cults, this is why people need to see religion more differently, as a private club of devotion to someone if not something, this is why people alone have the sheer right to choose.

People will learn to see religion as cults, either the easy way or the hard way matters not, what matters so is that all religions, and yes I do mean ALL RELIGIONS began as Cults and end as Cults, nothing more and nothing less.

That said, a world without religion is a world without cults.

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 love Norway already. I'm moving there as soon as I get the money.