Do you think religion made us civilized?

Question

Think of a world without it. We would have been barbaric people. Telling us whats right and wrong. Similar to having no
police or government today.Ten commandments to rules today!

I used the commandments as an example. All religions have a code of conduct in some way or another, telling us whats no acceptable.

Also, I'm not saying that police, government or religion is civilized everywhere, but have contributed to us as a whole in being better people, out of fear for doing wrong.Being you do your god wrong you pay for it or break rules and get imprisoned.

I'm asking this question as an overall percent of the world and not just reflection of what you believe.

Answer 1

You know, people want to believe one thing, and one thing only. You can see it in the answers they give. I can point to a people that are thought to be very civilized in history. The Roman Catholics. But they were also barbaric in their past. they killed and tortured Christians that believed like I do. So there is a more complex answer to your question than just yes or no. They helped, and they destroyed civilization. It depends what side of the arguement that you want to be on today.

I think that calling the relationship between man and God "Religion" only makes the point blunt. Religion hurts people with tradition. It can mantain a certain sense of order, but those that do not comply are often persecuted. That's what the Muslims are doing right now. They go after those who do not comply with their religion.

Answer 2

I believe laws are necessary or people would run wild, however, I do not believe religion is. I was raised by atheist parents and I did not go crazy. People have different levels of maturity based on the individual.

Religion (focusing on christianity here since I think thats where the poster was going..) can give people hope and do a lot of good. It can also make people paranoid, sexist, biggots, and even racists.

Some people also use religion as a crutch or as something to hide behind.

Religion can also put some very dumb ideas in peoples heads "The devil made me do it" "God said kill all fags" "Blacks are Gods cursed people" "We have to get married fast so we can have sex" " I got knocked up, so I have to get married" "My husband beats me but I can't get a divorce"

I, and many others do not need the bible to tell me how to live my life. There are good suggestions in the bible and things that people should never do because it would hurt others (murder, stealing, etc) , but there are also silly things that have no place in my life.

Answer 3

Evidence seems to say otherwise. Early civilizations apparently were able to form with or without shared ideas of religion, (religions, meaning organized belief systems.)

Ideas about where man originated and about other questions for which early man had no clear explanation is the likely reason that the first gods were imagined. Gods embedded into early philosophical ideas possibly spawned the earliest religion. Hinduism, the world's oldest religion dating back some 6000 years BCE, is a good place to study this phenomenon. It has added god after god as the ages passed.

It is fair to say, however, that religion did act as an early forms of government where secular governments were scarce and geographic features failed to help identify unique groups of people. It's my guess that the boarderlessness of religion and it's pseudo governing ability is part of what made it a lasting institute capable of transcending the differences of neighboring civilizations.

But, did it make us civilized... No. That's not very likely.

[][][] r u randy? [][][]
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Post Script: Please go back up 7 answers and read JR's answer again... "...laws are necessary... religion is not..."

Answer 4

No I do not.

I think that people, in an attempt to cement order, created rules that were supposedly handed down by a deity because the promise of eternal life or the threat of eternal suffering was the most powerful tool available. Very clever invention, religion.

But with a little determination, those rules could have worked just as well if handed down by mortal men, minus the fear tactics and false promises.

At any rate, I don't think flying planes into buildings and slaughtering Muslims to reclaim the "Holy Land" and the like are very civilized, do you?

Answer 5

I can think of one time period that religion made us uncivilized. During the dark ages religion prevailed and people were uneducated, poor and not very inventive. Also, the 10 commandments are strongly based on existing human belief systems. They were not all that original. Monotheism was original.

I'm not one that believes people have to have religion to be moral. You can have a strong appreciation for humankind, human life and the world without religion.

An Agnostic.

Answer 6

Do you think that the christian crusades, killing innocent people in other parts of the world, just because Christianity though they alone own the truth, was civilized ?

Do you think police in many countries are civilized ?

Do you think that the US government, lying to people and starting a war, is civilized?

My answer is "NO", I believe religion is the cause for a lot of trouble and we would be better of without any.

Answer 7

Yes, in earlier ages, religion may have been a stabilizing force that promoted social coherence and quelled individual dissent for the comfort of the majority, and for whatever ruler happened to be in charge.

But we have moved past religion today. We have better, secular , and more compassionate laws respecting the freedom of everyone in this country, including religion.

Science and secular philosophies are at the heart of this change.

And we have recognized the negative effects of religion when it influences war. I prefer to live by a social code that respects my freedom and a government that doesn't intervene in my private affairs!

Answer 8

It's true that religion has helped human behavior & morals in a positive way. But religion has also been the source of many wars, too. It's hard to say if religion has made us more civilized b/c people choose their behavior based on their own beliefs, and people's beliefs differ.

Answer 9

We are still barbaric in many ways due to some of the changes made in the Bible By King Constantine and his click of scribes at the council at Nicea. for the original teachings of Christ google gospleofthenazirenes.co You will be enlivened and inspiried by the original New Testament of Christ. (Yesuah)

Answer 10

No. Humans setteling down and gowing from a nomadic lifestyle to a farming based lifestyle did. The Neolithic Revolution. It gave us the incentive to settle indstead of going around and killing our food. Once we setteld down the settlements went from villages, to towns, then to cities. Since humans had more leisure time we could now begin to ponder things like how we came to be and how thw universe was created. Not noing how things actually worked we invented gods to explain them off.