Calling all atheists. Please answer this?

Question

Disclaimer: I do not believe in any religion or any deity. I am atheist.

Don't you guys think that religion is a good thing, generally speaking? Don't you think it is a good way to control the masses? After all, not every person is smart enough to come up with their own morals without the threat of punishment in the after life. Without religion, the world would plummet into chaos. Of course there are the downsides to religion, making certain things immoral, which really aren't, causing extremism, genocide, and wars, but don't you think that a religion, which lacked those problems would be a good thing for the world's population as a whole?

I think you all missed the part of my question that said "Of course there are downsides to religion... causing extremism, genocide, and wars..." I am saying, if a new religion was spread, a religion that would teach people to accept each other instead of hate them for their beliefs, wouldn't it be a good thing for the world? I realize that religion causes wars today, and that is chaos, but that is faulty religion, and I am saying, if we created a new one, that lacked the problems todays religion, do you think it would be a good idea?

Answer 1

Historically, I believe religion has been a civilizing force. Just like war. But I think we have gotten to a point where we no longer need those things. We don't need to go out with spears and hunt down our dinner any more. Civilization, like natural evolution, is often red in tooth and claw, but eventually it can become something better, I believe. And with a good set of laws and organization of government, religion is really no longer necessary. Losing it will come at a cost, though. The spiritual comfort it has traditionally provided will be gone. And nowadays, many religious groups do many good things, but I believe it is the nature of the people doing those things, more than it is the religion they belong to.

Answer 2

As a Gay man who has been oppressed by your impression of Good Religious Morals, and having grown up in the South where Religious morals help keep black people under thumb as second or third-class citizens, I think you've got some weird idea about how someone gets morality from religion.

The promotion for Dawkins' "The Root of all Evil" in Britain was a shot of the New York City skyline with the World Trade Center Towers still standing. The Caption read "Imagine No Religion." Had there been no surety of morality on the part of those 19 hijackers, they would not have flown into the Towers and the Pentagon.

We need to teach people moral thinking from their first days in school. If we abandon such responsibility to the religious, then we will get the Taliban, Fred Phelps, the Christian Right, and the IRA.

There is no religion that does not set up a dichotomous "us vs. them." The closest was Baha'i, but even they reject gay people and are hypersensitive to sexuality.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I think you're just a bit too worried about what will happen if there's not a supernatural boogie man to keep the unwashed masses in line. I don't share that sort of cynicism.

^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^

Answer 3

I don't know that that would be true.

The closest thing we have to a working model of a world without religion (or with very little religion) would be modern day Sweden (atheist population around 80%). They have a very low crime rate and a high standard of living. Though it is not possible to know whether Sweden's example could be applied to the rest of the world and there could be hundreds of thousands of other reasons for why Sweden is as it is.

Further, some of the most religious areas on the planet are also the most chaotic and unstable (the middle east springs readily to mind.)

The problem is that if religions are to be effective for the masses (as a means of control) they have to be absolute, otherwise there is no reason an average person would choose one faith over another. It's this characteristic of them being absoulte that creates extremism, genocide and wars.

There are other vehicles for distributing morals among the masses, religion just being the most heavily and austentatously used. Susan Blackmore describes the "altruism trick" in her book "The Meme Machine" in which she explains that people who do nice things for others and act in a fair way make people like them and we are more likely to imitate the actions of people we like. According to her, memes (cultural genes if you will) have been spreading morality before, along side and sometimes in spite of religion. Now granted, there are people who take advantage of the altruistic among us rather than imitating them but religion has plenty of parasites itself that use its teachings to justify exactly what they want to do (whether they believe or not).

Given that, I'd say the world would be either just about the same without relgion, if not better.

Answer 4

Well, the key words are "which lacked those problems." Religions are communicated through institutions, which are power centers - thus they tend to become interested, as you say, in "controlling the masses."

For an individual person I think religious activity can have a lot of benefit. It gives meaning to everyday life, helps people cope emotionally in a crisis, helps with acceptance of things beyond one's control, and of course provides a moral compass -- and most importantly, religious activity within an institution gives a sense of belonging and a social outlet. And for society, it allows transmission of a positive, ethical culture -- that is its major claim to merit, but it does require reconciliation with the existence of *other* systems of belief (major reason why it's bad).

I disagree that the world would plummet into chaos without religion. I think chaos would be reduced in an atheist world because religious teachings actually confuse the vast majority of so-called believers (religious institutions do this on purpose, in a sense).

I disagree that not every person is smart enough to understand ethics without being threatened with eternal damnation. I've certainly encountered some atheists who are shepherd-followers, not critical thinkers ... it just depends what values were transmitted to you, and what resonates.

A religion that lacked the problems of ossification of moral teachings and institutional corruption could indeed be an excellent thing for the world's people ... if we all shared the same one, or at least were taught that respect for other religions is morally paramount. That's a lot of qualifications...

I hate to be cliche but...

"Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace..."

Answer 5

No.

Controlling the masses is itself a bad idea; controlling them through irrationality even worse.

You're wrong that people would be immoral and the world would plummet into chaos without religion.

Most people have an inate sense of right and wrong; this has been shown through mutli-national, multi-cultural studies of people of all religions and no religion.

Educating everyone would be a much more effective way to improve the world than continuing to indocrinate them into insanity has ever been.

Once you teach people to abandon reason, you've let the genie of destructiveness loose.

Answer 6

disclaimer- I do believe in a religion or deity. I am a catholic

I think the people who knock religion are even more weak minded than the people they claim are weak. To me, what you wrote looked a lot like trying to reassure yourself by claiming superiority.

Also, if there were no religion, there would still be killing, don't be a fool to assume different.
For example, Communism is by no means a religion, yet there have been genocides and chaos due to it. (stalin's massacre's killed more than the holocaust, pol pot's genocide was aimed at religion)

and of course, without religion you wouldn't have anyone to mock and claim superiority over.

edit

well yes and no. Christianity tells to accept people too (love one another as i have loved you).

the problem is people manipulate it to achieve their own goals. (I want to conquer poland, to sell it I'll say it's a religious issue)

lost(dot)eu/21618
replace (dot) with .

Answer 7

Well, every atheist has had a conversation with a theist who will eventually ask, "If god doesn't exist, what keeps me from going out and killing people I don't like". These kinds of sociopaths need religion, or they need to be put in a cage. As for people with healthy minds, I see no good that couldn't be more easily come by in an alternate way.

Answer 8

Having seen some of the postings by religious people on here, yes, I think that it's a good job they have a book that tells them the rules!! LOL

But in general, no, religion is not a good thing. It is the cause of more hatred and anguish than anything else in this world.

There are exceptions, however - buddhism springs to mind.

Answer 9

As a whole, in the US, the majority of drug addicts, prison inmates, child abusers, and broken homes are Christian. I don't think that religion helps much

EDIT

Based on the above evidence, no I don't think that a "new" religion would be any better. The idea that we need to control people is a bit scary.

We live in a world that is unfair. There are people with more than they will ever use, and there are people with next to nothing. So long as the world is so unbalance, there is going to be crime, depression, ignorance, war, disease, and many other terrible things. Controlling people makes all that worse.

Answer 10

Religion CAN be a good thing--it is not intrinsically good or bad. And don't say "religion" when you mean "theism," because there are religions like Humanism that have nothing to do with "reward after life," and still help bring a lot of people together with a coherent set of morals, etc.