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Would the world be better without religion ?
Airspell
Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 1,391
Some statistics could point to no whomurdered.ytmnd.com/
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Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and consciencious stupidity.
/agree
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You should be cautious of what you say on a forum since there is many kinds of religion here, and discussion religion aint really something that you should be doing on a gaming forum, offtopic or not, has no meaning and it would tick off to many fanatics , with that i mean the general man or woman that is fanatic about their precise religion.
List of SOE lies
Yeah...I wouldn't touch this topic with a 10 foot pole.
D.
Probably not something to start a thread with at any rate. It might have fit neatly on the end of this thread in the off topic forum.
http://www.dumpert.nl/mediabase/14410/a24f3851/index.html
http://www.dumpert.nl/mediabase/20218/e9fcbc23/index.html
Religion is beautiful. [sarcasm]
You guys do realize that his video states that Atheists are responsible for the most deaths in history right?
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He is defending religion..you do realize that right?
It seems a lot of people here havent even seen the OP's video
"Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god."
-- Jean Rostand
Well, I for one have.
If religion didn't exist, those "atheist" wouldn't have any religious people to kill...
If atheists didn't exist, there would still be murders based on religion...
*Note*- not to be taken seriously...
The difference is, religions kill people because of religious differences. Atheists haven't killed people because of religious differences, but political or racist ones. So, while it's true that Mao Zedong probably killed more than 40 million Chinese people in a famine, he was doing it not for atheism, but for Communism. Conversely, the 1-5 million killed in the Crusades (and that's just Europeans) all died expressly for the purpose of Christendom. Or the 3 million killed in the French Wars of Religion. Or etc. etc.
So a religious person's basis for murder is their religion, whereas these atheists are all killing people for something else.
This doesn't really answer the question of whether the world would be better off without religion. Probably there would be less terrorism and war if there weren't religion... but if religious conflict (especially in the modern day) is just an excuse for real anger behind broad economic disparities between the first and third world, then maybe there wouldn't be. Certainly there would be less historical warfare if there wasn't religion, though.
I'd say that when the soldiers may be going to battle, believing God to be on their side, the reasons for the battle itself are more often as not about political issues. This would appear to have been the case with many of the crusades at least. Much of what gets branded religious war is not over the ideological differences, but just because they are different tribes fighting over resources and land. Religion, in these circumstances, functions as a banner to rally behind (the ideology usually long gone) and also very useful for the leaders, if their troops gain courage from a belief in an afterlife..
Another point, in answer to Veraticus' last sentence; We cannot know what wars and horrors have been prevented because of the existance religion (neighbouring countires sharing religious ideals, religious philosophy influencing kings, etc), so we are in no position to judge whether there would have been more or less war without religion.
One other thing to bear in mind when discussing such things, is that we can't judge a philosophy by its abuse.
Yes we do.
But most importantly who cares?
In the future we will have more Atheists killing people because the religions will disappear.
Before the year 1900 95% of deaths were caused in the name or because of religion, after 1900 the trend has been inverted.
After the year 2000 the 95% of deats will be caused by atheists, which is positive, because that will mean that religions will be a long distant memory.
I always think positive
I think the world would be better without human nature.
I was speaking here more of ostensible reasons for the war, though. Individual soldiers can believe what they want. While it's true that the war may have been politically motivated, the purported reasons for the war (and much of the motivation behind them) are religious; in the case of the Crusaders, trying to reclaim the "Holy Land" from Muslims. Presume you're correct, though, and actually religion was just a convenient package for politicians to place messages of conquest in. In circumstances like this, we have to ask ourselves, "Would this war have happened if the package didn't exist?" If these politicians had to give the real reasons behind conflict, maybe a few of them could have been averted, as people would have questioned land grabs, rather than blindly following orders.
So I think that we can pretty clearly say that if religion didn't exist for some of these conflicts, probably they wouldn't have happened. Of course it's always difficult to say what might have been: perhaps they would have been replaced by equally bloody atheistic wars. All that we can say is that, without religion to motivate these wars (or even provide a "cover" for them), probably a few of them wouldn't have occurred.
And I'm not judging religions by how people use them to commit wars, I'm merely answering the topic at hand here.
Yes we do.
But most importantly who cares?
In the future we will have more Atheists killing people because the religions will disappear.
Before the year 1900 95% of deaths were caused in the name or because of religion, after 1900 the trend has been inverted.
After the year 2000 the 95% of deats will be caused by atheists, which is positive, because that will mean that religions will be a long distant memory.
I always think positive
Nice way to make up statistics there. 95% of deaths before the year 1900 were not in the name of or because of religion.
Currently playing:
LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too:
Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
I was speaking here more of ostensible reasons for the war, though. Individual soldiers can believe what they want. While it's true that the war may have been politically motivated, the purported reasons for the war (and much of the motivation behind them) are religious; in the case of the Crusaders, trying to reclaim the "Holy Land" from Muslims. Presume you're correct, though, and actually religion was just a convenient package for politicians to place messages of conquest in. In circumstances like this, we have to ask ourselves, "Would this war have happened if the package didn't exist?" If these politicians had to give the real reasons behind conflict, maybe a few of them could have been averted, as people would have questioned land grabs, rather than blindly following orders.
So I think that we can pretty clearly say that if religion didn't exist for some of these conflicts, probably they wouldn't have happened. Of course it's always difficult to say what might have been: perhaps they would have been replaced by equally bloody atheistic wars. All that we can say is that, without religion to motivate these wars (or even provide a "cover" for them), probably a few of them wouldn't have occurred.
And I'm not judging religions by how people use them to commit wars, I'm merely answering the topic at hand here.
Thems some deep words there.This is a circumstance scenerio though, some wars would of happend regardless of if religion was there or not.
The crusades for instance, talk about glorified pillaging and raiding. It was motivated by greed not faith, but then we have to wonder if there would of been such hostilities if religion was not longer there.
Also if religion did not exist then I "think" we'd of never stepped out of our caves.
My reasoning for this is simple, many great sciences are founded off of religion, funny thing is many great sciences are also hindered by it. (USA Stem Cell research as an example.)
Religion is great until you add the human element to it, after that it's like smoking next to ten barrels of gas, a propane tank and thirty six gallons of napalm.
And actually this still doesn't address the primary topic. More people have been killed in the name of religion than have ever been killed in the name of atheism: by that metric, religion is much more bloody than atheism has ever been. While it's true the atheist mass-murderers have been more prolific than religious mass-murderers, I don't think that says anything except that in the modern day it's easier to kill lots of people nowadays than it ever has been in the past.
For confirmation, check out this site: http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstatz.htm#RelCon
The author says it pretty well himself, I think:
Q: Is religion responsible for more more violent deaths than any other cause?
A: No, of course not -- unless you define religion so broadly as to be meaningless. Just take the four deadliest events of the 20th Century -- Two World Wars, Red China and the Soviet Union -- no religious motivation there, unless you consider every belief system to be a religion.
Q: So, what you're saying is that religion has never killed anyone.
A: Arrgh... You all-or-nothing people drive me crazy. There are many documented examples where members of one religion try to exterminate the members of another religion. Causation is always complex, but if the only difference between two warring groups is religion, then that certainly sounds like a religious conflict to me. Is it the number one cause of mass homicide in human history? No. Of the 22 worst episodes of mass killing, maybe four were primarily religious. Is that a lot? Well, it's more than the number of wars fought over soccer, or sex (The Trojan and Sabine Wars don't even make the list.), but less than the number fought over land, money, glory or prestige.
In my Index, I list 41 religious conflicts compared with 27 oppressions under "Communism", 24 under Colonialism, 2 under "Railroads" and 2 under "Scapegoats". Make of that what you will.
---
Notable, I think, is that atheists have never waged a war for their religion. That's my point.
True and there is no denial of that, but is it religions fault or the is it the followers? I highly doubt given the general message in most "holy" books that we were meant to beat the living hell out eachother , most define "love and peace" fairly clear.
For the most part athiests have nothing to kill for, their "faith" is lack of; which nobody would really die for.
Religions have much to kill for, and thats thanks to human natures tribal mentality. We're really just little monkeys flinging poo at eachother because one bannana is green and the other is yellow.
The Crusades are really a religiously-motivated conflict; not in whole, of course, but religion was always primary among the motivations. Seljuk Turks had just taken most of the Byzantine Empire. Urban II, seeing an opportunity to reunite the Catholic Western and Eastern Orthodox Churches, and also increase the power of the Papacy, decided that a Holy War was well-justified against the Muslims. He promised that any man that fought in the war would receive remission of sin: in other words, any sins they had committed or would commit during the war would instantly be absolved, and their ascension into Heaven would be guaranteed. Most of the actual people who waged the war from the European side were strongly motivated by the idea that they could undo their sins by fighting in the Holy War.
Anyway, I don't really want to get into the history of the Crusades here. Suffice it to say that clearly Urban II's motivations were religious (in uniting the churches and increasing the power of his own church), and most of the soldiers' motivations were religious (trying to get remission of sin). I think that makes the Crusades a religious conflict.
For many sciences being founded out of religion, the only one I can think of is astronomy coming from astrology. Ironically, astrologers constantly demanding more accurate astronomical data eventually led to astronomy becoming significantly more important than astrology, such that today one is considered a science and the other is considered pseudoscience. Do you have some other examples you were thinking of?
The Crusades are really a religiously-motivated conflict; not in whole, of course, but religion was always primary among the motivations. Seljuk Turks had just taken most of the Byzantine Empire. Urban II, seeing an opportunity to reunite the Catholic Western and Eastern Orthodox Churches, and also increase the power of the Papacy, decided that a Holy War was well-justified against the Muslims. He promised that any man that fought in the war would receive remission of sin: in other words, any sins they had committed or would commit during the war would instantly be absolved, and their ascension into Heaven would be guaranteed. Most of the actual people who waged the war from the European side were strongly motivated by the idea that they could undo their sins by fighting in the Holy War.
Anyway, I don't really want to get into the history of the Crusades here. Suffice it to say that clearly Urban II's motivations were religious (in uniting the churches and increasing the power of his own church), and most of the soldiers' motivations were religious (trying to get remission of sin). I think that makes the Crusades a religious conflict.
For many sciences being founded out of religion, the only one I can think of is astronomy coming from astrology. Ironically, astrologers constantly demanding more accurate astronomical data eventually led to astronomy becoming significantly more important than astrology, such that today one is considered a science and the other is considered pseudoscience. Do you have some other examples you were thinking of?
Yes, and those people were also offered their own suit of armor (rare, and highly expensive to the commoner) as well as food and drink, some were even offered knighthood, though I can see what you are saying about religious motivation, it was also just simple war, invasion forces incomming, hell yeah play the religious card to get the dumb peasants in gear.
See the motivation of that was simple defense, another human nature instinct, if someone/thing wants something you have, you defend it.
Alchemy, which later became Chemistry was founded on the ability to copy "Gods" ability to create.
Yes we do.
But most importantly who cares?
In the future we will have more Atheists killing people because the religions will disappear.
Before the year 1900 95% of deaths were caused in the name or because of religion, after 1900 the trend has been inverted.
After the year 2000 the 95% of deats will be caused by atheists, which is positive, because that will mean that religions will be a long distant memory.
I always think positive
Nice way to make up statistics there. 95% of deaths before the year 1900 were not in the name of or because of religion.
Yes?
And were the creator of the video pulled his statistics from?
Exactly the same place where I got it from.
Can't you see it was a joke?
I am just having a bit of fun, since those religious based thread are taking over the forum recently, I think it is time to take them a little bit less seriously, so hopefully we gonna see less of them.
I could debate this in great length and I could support my arguments with a lot of credible evidence. But this is something that would make some people highly unhappy since it would screw over their world view (being: omfg!!111!! religion is the suxxx!!!111!!11).
So I'm just going to summarize it:
NO
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Short answer: no way in hell
Religion has been the cause and/or excuse for a great number of atrocities in our past, but it is just as much a tool of unification and morality as one of division and conquest. Most of the wars that are often placed as the fault of religious conflicts would have happened anyways, greed and hatred have always been sufficient motivation.
In the end, religion is a tool of fear, fear of retribution in one form or another if one disobeyed the god's will for the most part. In a world where crimes and atrocities are often unpunished and unpunishable, religion often was and still is a hold, a check on some of mankind's baser passions.
However, the question remains whether the society of the world is advanced and mature enough that we no longer need this psychological crutch. Looking around, it is not hard to come to the conclusion that the answer is not yet.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Hemingway