Prof Richard Dawkins & The God Delusion - Imagine there's no Religion? What would the world REALLY be like?

Question

Dawkins claims the world would be better without religion - no 9/11, no7/7, no crusades, no witch-hunts etc. Has he forgotton about Stalin's Soviet Union (that brand of communism originated in dialectical materialism), a self-proclaimed 'scientific' and atheistic ideology? Has he forgotton about Hitler's Germany where Jews were seen as a viral infection requiring drastic solutions (i.e. total destruction) and Hitler played fast and loose with religion to manipulate the German people? Has he forgotton about Mao Tse-tung's China, pro-atheist and anti-religion? Would he, or you, for that matter, care to live under those less than begnign dictators in their atheistic and Godless countries? Let's hear the arguments for and against Pluralism v Totalitarianism. Let's ask whether we should respect the right to adopt freely chosen beliefs (within the law) without insult or persecution. Let's ask what this world would REALLY be like without religion - a better place?

Super something - No offence but you're an idiot? Ouch! Not nice! Glad I managed to rattle your cage, though. Have a nice day.

My appreciation to puppy, boxer and gvih2g2 for your considered opinions but, no, I've never heard of the Dominionists in the USA. Sects/cults give Christianity a bad name.

gvih2g2 - I'm not sure I can agree that Christian Aid uses religion as a pretext for doing good. However, I acknowledge that doing good is not confined to Christians. There are loads of lovely humanists, atheists, agnostics etc who do good.

Puppy - I take on board your comment about Dawkins not saying forced atheism is a way forward. Thanks for making that clear. And agree any form of oppression shoule be frowned upon.

Martin - agree that ANY kind of totalitarianism is wrong.

Answer 1

Bear with my strange answer, please: it's a selection of quotes from an article (see below) about attitudes to evolutionary beliefs. A difference is made between the genuine, scientific doctrine / hypothesis of evolution and popular ideas cultivated by folk imagination that treats the data with great freedom. The latter is called a Myth:

"We must sharply distinguish between Evolution as a biological theorem and popular Evolutionism or Developmentalism which is certainly a Myth... In making it Imagination runs ahead of scientific evidence... [it] differs in content from the Evolution of the real biologists... [which] is a theory about changes: in the Myth it is a fact about improvements... It then makes this a cosmic theory. For in the Myth, 'Evolution' is the formula of all existence.... I grew up believing in this Myth... neither the Greeks nor the Norsemen ever invented a better story.

"To reach the positions held by the real scientists - which are then taken over by the Myth - you must treat reason as an absolute. But at the same time the Myth asks me to believe that reason is simply the unforeseen and unintended by-product of a mindless process at one stage of its endless and aimless becoming. The content of the Myth thus knocks from under me the only ground on which I could possibly believe the Myth to be true. If my own mind is a product of the irrational - how shall I trust my mind when it tells me about Evolution?

"The apparent instances of Evolution which impress the folk imagination, operate by fixing our attention on one half of the process. What we actually see all round us is a double process... By concentrating exclusively on the upward movement in this cycle we seem to see 'evolution'. I am not in the least denying that organisms on this planet may have 'evolved'. But if we are to be guided by the analogy of Nature as we now know her, it would be reasonable to suppose that this evolutionary process was the second half of a long pattern - that the crude beginnings of life on this planet have themselves been 'dropped' there by a full and perfect life. The analogy may be mistaken. Perhaps Nature was once different. Perhaps the universe as a whole is quite different from those parts of it which fall under our observation. But if that is so, if there was once a dead universe which somehow made itself alive, if there was absolutely original savagery which raised itself by its own shoulder strap into civilization, then we ought to recognize that things of this sort happen no longer, that the world we are being asked to believe in is radically unlike the world we experience. In other words, all the immediate plausibility of the Myth has vanished... it is imagination which makes the Myth: it takes over from rational thought only what it finds convenient... the Myth concentrates on Haldane's one case of biological 'progress' and ignores his ten cases of 'degeneration'. If the cases of degeneration were kept in mind it would be impossible not to see that any given change in society is at least as likely to destroy the liberties and amenities we already have as to add new ones... A clear knowledge of these truisms would be fatal both to the political Left and to the political Right. The Myth obscures that knowledge.

"Another source of strength in the Myth is what the psychologists would call its 'ambivalence'. It gratifies equally two opposite tendencies of the mind, the tendency to denigration and the tendency to flattery... It appeals to every part of me except my reason. That is why those of us who feel that the Myth is already dead for us must not make the mistake of trying to 'debunk' it in the wrong way. We must not fancy that we are securing the modern world from something grim and dry, something that starves the soul. The contrary is the truth."

Now, can I apologise to all scientific thinkers on behalf of Christians who are running with the Myth, and not the facts? I would admit that many Christians try to debunk evolution in general (and Dawkins in particular) the wrong way. They are just as prone to denigration and flattery as everyone else. But this is not the way to do business with scientists. Reason shows that being either religious or non-religious is not the problem with humanity. It is pride in ourselves (our ideas / beliefs) that legs us down every time. Reason also shows that we have to come to grips with the possibility that we could have been created by design, for a purpose, and that it is our pride in ourselves that screws the planet up and would thwart that purpose. Let's ask what this world would REALLY be like without pride in ourselves.

Answer 2

Hitler was a devout christian, no matter how much the Christians would like to deny that simple fact. He was supported by the Catholics and the Lutherans in Germany because he was going to destroy the Atheists (Stalin's Russia). That little Holy War cost well over 25 million lives on various battle fields and might have totalled 56 million lives over all.
http://www.hitler.org/ww2-deaths.html

Now to go after the idea that china is not religious is small, China has a totalitarian Government yes, It always did. Mao saved more lives than he took. There were reasons that the peasants supported him and volunteered to serve as his army. The other choice was Chiang Kai-shek, an incredibly bloody warlord, US supported.

Now ask If you are in support of the Dominionists in the USA who want to make the bible law and ban every religion, even every sect of the Christian religion but theirs. Do you understand what Dominionism is? If not you should look it up. Do you want to be living in Pat Robertson's America. A place where you would face the death penalty for working on Sunday! Let us have a big cheer for religion, and the Christian Taliban.

Answer 3

People are very good at taking whatever's around and using it to justify what they want to happen anyway. Look at most politicians. Dawkins' friend Douglas Adams understood this, and even proposed the computer program "Reason" (in one of the Dirk Gently books), where you type in the conclusion you want and it somes up with the justification for doing it.

When people want to kill one another, they often use religion as a pretext. But equally, religion is often the pretext for doing good - look at organisations such as Christian Aid. It really just acts as a catalyst for what comes from within.

Dawkins says a lot that makes sense - including some of the best explanations of why you don't need to postulate a creator to explain our existence (after all, as an evolutionary biologist, that is what he really knows about). But I think the "religion makes people do bad things" argument is a logical cul-de-sac, and having gone up it he now risks taking the more rational arguments for atheism with him.

I don't think a world without religion would be much better or worse, so long as it still had people in it. They would just find a different excuse. But maybe they wouldn't waste so much time praying instead of working to make good things happen.

Answer 4

I personally think that the world would be a better place.
You cannot cite various dictators as your argument as many of the worlds dictators also used religion as part of their power.

I have no problem with people having the right to freely choose their beliefs, however on the whole that is rarely the case. Children are brought up to believe in Gods by their Parents and the society they live in. It is this type of Dogmatism that allowed Hitler to prepare the German peoples to despise the Jews and continues to breed hatred between peoples to this day.

Would it not be better if people to reserve their veneration and respect for the planet we live on and the people on it.

Religion creates an artificial cultural barrier between people that would be far better off if they could work together without that religion.

Answer 5

I don't think you could ever get rid of religion. Even if you could somehow begin with a blank slate and children were being brought up without being taught about any kind of God, I think there is a human need to believe in some kind of spiritual afterlife in order to cope with the death of loved ones and the apparent lack of point to our existence, so new religious beliefs of some kind would always crop up. I think you can deduce this from the fact that so many independent societies have all developed some form of spiritual belief system.
I do think that the world would be a better place if no-one ever tried to force their belief system onto anyone else, nor tried to aggressively convert them to another way of thinking, which is where all manner of wars and dictatorships have sprung from.
There's no point in trying to stamp out another's personal beliefs so long as they don't have any huge impact on anyone's way of life - in law or in the governing of a country.
Though it's difficult to say how many people would still hold religious beliefs in a world where none were forced onto anyone else. I'm inclined to think not that many.

Answer 6

First even tho we are now in the middle of a religious war, started by religious fanatics, the only other war I can think of started over religion was the Crusades. Most wars have started over land, money, and power. The Assyrians,Greeks and Romans wanted world domination. As did Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin,. The 100 year wars, the American Revolution, The French and Indian War, The Mexican American war, The Spanish American war, the Russo-Japanese war all were over land or the control of resources. The Korean War war over land and politics, the Vietnam War over politics. Saying that all or most wars are started over religion is a excuse used by atheist that ant to blame religion for all the problems of the world.
As for the practical side effects, religion is where most of the moral; standards derive from. Without the religious view Moral standards would be non existent

Answer 7

It is not religion to blame, it is people using their holy book to get away with anything. In the end they will realise how 'holy' they have been when they go to hell. Isn't Jihad a holy war, that's what they call it. So all the followers will believe they are religious martyrs. Any book that was written hundreds of years ago is out of date and full of contradictions. We should all just believe in God and try to live a good life, stuff religion and all it's laws and traditions, it brings nothing but conflict. I don't think Atheism is the answer, you should still believe in a God, that's what makes you a better person.

Answer 8

Man would have made the A Bomb with or without a war. I may have been done far too early in our history for our own good, but eventually a Godless scientists would have played the WHAT IF game, like they like to do.

What does one do with a bomb.

What does one's neighbors do when one explosed that bomb in a test.

If your neighbor threw out a stick of dynamite on New Years, could you sleep well at night knowing your neighbor has dynamite and isn't afraid to use it. More importantly, uses it for fun and games.

Answer 9

I think, without religion, there would be little hope. Science may answer the questions of here and now, but religion is what helps many with the questions of after and later. I think it's good to believe that loved ones go to a special place when they die, or that something is watching over us and there is more to our lives then random occurences. Man will always go to war, religion really has nothing to do with that (its an excuse often used, but never the real reason) and there will always be sick, death and poverty. Religion sometimes spurs us on to act on these matters. It is Man who is evil, religion is not. IT is a tool used to excuse our actions or motivations. Like a gun is nothing but a tool, but used and it can bring devistation or salvation.

Answer 10

What would this world be like without free speech? Think about it - no one challenging the government - no more revolutions, no more civil wars............ Its sad that at this pinnacle in history where "freedom" is supposed to be an inalienable right, people want to turn right around and start abolishing every system of thought that formerly created conflict. All the government needs to do is ensure that a person's conscience is not dominated by another.