"God is not great"?

Question

Christopher Hitchens insists that religion "poisons everything." While, without reading his book yet, I can see how this might be true. It does bring about separation between people- resulting in problems. John Lennon asks us in his awesome song "Imagine" to imagine that there's no heaven- to help "all the people live life in peace".
I say that if we can't find a common ground, we'll never have peace.Personally I like to think that we can find unity threw diversity- with that making us stronger people.
If we exclude religion from our life, would it really make a positive change? Or would it just be one damn thing after another regardless?

I'd just like to add something real quick. Someone said "without religion we'd have no reason to not steal, rape, and murder" something like that. Well actually we do have something, the law. You see if we break the law, we have a price to pay. i.e. we still have a fear to do wrong to others.

One last thing. The idea that religion is not the culprit, it's the people. Many people use this argument for gun control as well. "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." But truthfully people kill people, with guns. So religion could in fact play a part in some evils- with this in mind. What inspires people to do what they do? For better or for worse?

Answer 1

This is kinda lame sounding but true:

Have you ever seen the movie *Dogma*? There's a line in it that makes PERFECT sense.

*It's better to have ideas than beliefs. You can change an idea. Beliefs? A little harder*.

In other words, NO religion is "right". and IF there is a "God", I'm sure he/she will let the world know once someone does.

And yes, I think we'd be better off without ORGANIZED religion. It's the root of most of the world's problems. But due to that whole *free will* thing, we'd still be screwed lol.

Answer 2

I don't think that religion is the problem. The problem is that people constantly feel the need to prove that their way of thinking is right. If people just learn to accept that we are all different then there will be no war. It is just people trying to change the world for what they think is the better which is the problem. I honestly believe that there are no bad people as such. There are only the misguided who think that their actions will benefit us all. This never happens and you can't make all the people happy all the time. Life is just a give and take where people have to learn to value an individuals opinion more. If you ban religion then you are making people unhappy for what you believe will make the world a better place. It will create animosity rather than the desired effects that you seek.

Answer 3

most religions r actually many versions of the same truth. Problem is no-body wants to know the truth and even if they knew it do they want to change. Our common ground is where we r at what we experience today. However we don't agree on what should be done for the best and how to go about it. So the only time we will have peace and unity is when we r all dead. That is the only thing all beings and creatures share in common, the realm of darkness which is the universal mind and it is where we are safest. Deep hey.

Answer 4

The idea that if we didn't have 'Religion' then the world would be lawless is nonsense, it's lawless now with all the 'Religions' in place, people do kill one another in the name of it, virtually every part of this planet has a war going on because of it, Sunni, shite, Muslim, Hindu, christian, Jew, need one go on. Perhaps there is a truth that if there were no Religion then people would fight about something else and i concede that could be true but since man first walked the earth he has concocted methods of control over others and taught them it's bad if they don't believe in one form of God or another. I am not religious in any way but that doesn't mean that I am a bad person but I will fight against those people who want to indoctrinate me in a way of life i do not believe in. I do not object to people who are peaceful in their lives and their faith but for the most part Religions keep people under and i for one won't be part of it.

Answer 5

I can see how the belief that religion "poisons everything" might seem like a logical idea but to say that it actually makes sense is like saying that communisism is a really good form of governement. Religion gives man kind something to work toward ie attempting to achieve nirvana or heaven or enlightenment. It also gives us Moral and Ethical boundries. Law came about because of religion. If you look at Genesis, dont recall the chapter, it talks about 2 cities - Sodom and Gamora. These cities had no religion, no faith in any form of a higher being, they just lived their lives as they saw fit. These cities were declaired the most sinful cities ever. They were raping, murdering, having insestual relations, affairs, gambling excessively, theft and vandalism, sodomy and other heinous crimes, stuff people spend life in prison for. Yeah, they had laws ie the code of Hamuraby, but no one cared, they lived as man will live without a higher beings standards being implimented. Laws are kinda like the theory of communism - it looks good on paper but if there is any kind of action that deviates from the theory then the whole thing is flawed. In the case of man sans religion there is no balancing factor, no fear of consequences. In communism it is the inevitable greed of the leaders, the corruption of the system and its enforcing bodies, or the overwhelming rush that comes with ultimate power leading to overbearing ruling.
Even if there werent religion as point of contention there are other things men would fight about. Look at how many genesides are going on out there in current events. You had Rwanda, Czechlislovacia, Somolia and presently Iraq and several places in Africa. Land, water and food were/are/will be reasons for wars. There is no such thing as true peace because we are diverse. Diverse is the same as to say divided and when you divide something it is broken and broken things just arent going to hold up. The same is true with mankind. We are a broken group because we focus too much on our diversity and not enough on unifying ourselves. Religion divides us yes, but it unifies us in another sense. A religion, no matter the type, brings together people of every race, creed, color, background, and orientation. It doesnt care where you have been only that you all get to the same place. It gives you something to live by and something to strive for. Without religion our lives on this planet truly become meaningless and worthless. What is the point of living if there is no after life and no reward for you life here, no promise of seeing loved ones again?
Man kind without religion is like a room full of kindergarden students with no teacher. We run amok and the mess that is left behind is worse than a tangled ball of yarn and equally as hopeless.

Answer 6

Actually it's totally the other way around .... the poison you are talking about is not because of religions, it's because of people not fully understanding and believing in religion .... and about the " no heaven" concept .. let's talk a little seriously here, if there was no hell nor heaven ... do you know what will really happens ? no one will care about morals anymore .. since they won't be going to hell, people will have the nerve to kill, steal, rape and do anything to find some money or authority [ no hell rule also ], all the bad and horrible things can be done easily without any justification ... about humans laws, have you heard the saying ( laws are meant to be broken) ? beside, what do you think the lawyers do for a living ? they find the laws' holes ... if you think that laws are good enough ... then think again

Answer 7

What is Love? What is Hope?
What is Hate? or Indifference? or Selfishness?

If there is no heaven, no hope for a better way, then Selfishness would lead to separatedness, get more to enjoy myself. Few would see the need to help others.
Many would give up, just satisfied with attaining security.
The way many live today anyway.

Love seeks to help others attain security. Love serves.

Some cry for peace, apart from security that governments cannot achieve in peace.

Only 1 FAITH serves others;
other religions seek to attain by giving to others, or attain a mental state or soul that achieves satisfaction within.

Christian Faith says "give it away". There are false teachers of Christian Faith, seeking to attain mystical power or wealth contrary to Love and Hope.

Government is not "FAITH". Government provides services, protects and promotes well-being of its' citizens. Christians serve government much to the detriment of Love, confusing issues for believers and unbelievers.

Love does not hurt others.
How can it be "poison" without being misinterpreted on both sides?
Ah, the conflict of purity is the real "poison" within our souls.
When evil robs innocence of purity and takes away joy, then the poison develops.

Joy is not happiness, for one can experience joy without being happy. Joy is found within the Hope of Love.

"We had the Joy of knowing the deceased", when no one seems happy at a funeral.
Yet even this Joy would increase with a Hope for the future life.

Separation is the result of selfishness, not Love.
Love seeks what is best for others.
Freedom results from Love, not "license" to perform acts that ultimately break down purity within,
the inner strength to be equal to each other.

Several have told me they have no need for religion.
Their words show they are involved with selfish pursuits,
if only to be left alone, to achieve for their families,
making money at the expense of others needs and desires.
They don't claim a "Hope" of the future.
Yet even to leave an inheritance is considered good religion.

Of the Bible, man knew of God,
turned away from God in evil pursuits,
judgement on all mankind
reduced to 1 family by the flood,
1 who heard God, Noah -

Again, men turned away,
God found 1 man, Abraham,
then Jacob, became Israel -
God made the nation large in Egypt,
then Moses wrote this History of Man.

Over 1500 years Israel turned from God as a People,
God even offered Pure Love as a Lamb,
Forgiveness even REJECTED.
Israel cast aside until the End Times.

Israel plays a big part of Future.
After 2000 years, we Hope for sooner than Later.
Yet Love continues. Faith.

Answer 8

Although it is true that many people have wasted their lives to create a hell here on earth in order to prove the heaven they sought, I belive that it is not religion that is the culprit. It is narrowmindedness that causes people to see differences as a ground for separation and segregation and not to see diversity of beliefs as a proof that we are all in the same boat searching for the same reason for life.

Answer 9

We would just find some other way to segregate each other. At least for some people religion provides a source of hope, support and morals.

Answer 10

Perhapse we have not paid our dues yet for knowing and thinking in a world magnificent and immense in most respects, that has far greater things within its folds than the limits our earthly needs, however, by asking this questions like this, we might be on our way to better knowledge and understating of all things. God Almighty is beyond any comparison, and that the realisation of His greatness is for the purpose of our own human mind, as the concept of God when properly understood can be a great unifying principle in the mind for all things and all ages.

If I speak in favours of the concept of God then God in the mind is to denote what we can understand, the absolute measure of our understanding of all that is there, in the mind or in the universe. The concept of God is not what we understand God to be, for our understanding may improve with experience in time, or it may even deteriorate, but is always there as the ultimate capacity of the mind, of what we understand and also of what is beyond understanding, of what is sensibly graspable and also what is sensibly unknown and surrounding human consciousness.

It is not the concept of God, or God in general sense, that divide people, religion does, and further into this the people who play God as they try to follow religion according to their personal understand do when they try to impose upon others what they believe in. When religion is used as a source of power, prestige, or a refuge, and not a source of experience of essential human excellence in the mind and heart that we encounter the worst in our religion experience.

Religion in supposed to be a great unifying discipline in life of many people who choose to understand the reality of the existence in same way, but this discipline has to be first understood and based upon the concept of God as the ultimate unifying principle in mind of all people regardless of the way they choose to see it - the understanding that there is a natural potential in the mind of all people for the realisation of spiritual truth.

Many people like your self, an myself, crave for such a place of ‘unity through diversity’, a place of mutual harmony, neutrality and understanding, where people could rest and think non-controversially, without personal prejudices and narrow-minded biases. But this is also the fact in human nature we seek excellence in everything we see, that we seeks to find things better still once we have found something better than we always had. This search ultimately leads us into thinking what is best in the mind, and in the world, in deeds and in ideas?

The solution is not in running away from the concept so supreme as that of the God, the capacity to which is essential to the mind, or from religion, for this is human realisation of the Truth in its various different shapes and forms, but the answer to our quest is in the understanding of the mind, in the realisation of it fullest capacities, in the acknowledgement of all our needs starting from physical to social, to intellectual right up to our needs for self-actualisation, or spiritual. And when a people with such mind open up to its marvellously sublime stretches would come together they would make ‘positive change’ regardless of all difference that are presently barring us from doing so and embittering many innocent lives.