Atheists: Evidence/References for the Social Construction of Religion...?

Question

Imagine life in the western world without religion... (think about dominant religions for the sake of simplicity of this question).

Some people need religion to provide morals. For instance, heaven and hell. If it was proven that there was no heaven or hell, don't you think that people would 'sin' more if there was less of a reason to? It's wrong to kill because you wouldn't want people to do it to you, right? But for Christians, Jews, etc., it is an even bigger reason not to kill because you will live your afterlife in a firely pit of hell...

I don't believe in heaven or hell, reincarnation, sin, divine powers, etc. However, I do believe, at this point in time, that religion provides morals and values to those who would have few without the power and fear of 'God'. Religion answers questions with no answers (beginings of the world, for instance), and most people need that.

I'm looking for sociological theories and other references to back this up.

Every f****** time I aska question on here I get pissed off...

Religion serves a purpose. To answer questions that cannot be answered.

Atheism serves a purpose. To answer questions that cannot be answered.

NO ONE can prove the supernatural. Not atheists, not christians or whoever else. People believe things because they need answers. Atheist need answers... and those answers are that there is no supernatural powers there...

PEOPLE WANT ANSWERS.
NO ONE CAN ARGUE THAT WITH ME.

Zero cool... then WHY don't people?

Yes, the United States has the highest crime rate of all industrialized nations.

However... the United States also has the highest income gaps of all industrialized nations.

Inequality brings crime, not 'God'.

BLUE SKIES: Here's a conversation between me and my sister yesterday, over the phone:

Her: I'd kill her (our grandmother) if I didn't think I'd go to hell!

Me: Well... I don't believe in hell, but I don't think I could bring myself to actually kill her..

Her: ... yeah... well...

Answer 1

I agree with you.

Proof of what you say is found in the question often asked here by theists, which goes something like, "If you don't believe in God [or the bible] how can you tell right from wrong?" or "If you're an atheist, where does your morality come from?" That's a good indication to me that (some) bible believers think that atheists are more likely to become crazed murderers, thieves and rapists, because they don't have "God" in their lives. "Believers" don't comprehend that a person can be moral and good without the threat of damnation or fear of a wrathful deity.

I agree with you that many theists *need* religion to keep themselves in line. They *need* the idea of a punishment, from my experience talking to the hardcore ones out on the branches of my family tree. They actually seem to express a form of strange excitement when they talk about non-believers burning in hell. I get the impression that imagining others going to hell is like a consolation for them, a kind of payback for spending their lives denying themselves many (harmless) pleasures or freedoms, while the "heathens" around them seem to be free spirits without the confines of bible-based guilt.

I'm not an atheist but I outgrew bible-based religion a long time ago. Usually I don't mind debating religion with believers, but sometimes there comes a point when I think 'You must really need this religion', and I just drop the subject and let them believe what they like. Sometimes religion is a security blanket which can keep a person emotionally anchored in a world that might otherwise seem like chaos to them.

Answer 2

I both agree and disagree. It's overly idealistic to believe that the great masses of people would be as moral without the heaven/hell concept and God tallying their every action as they would with it.
Religion should be slowly replaced by humanist ideals and morals, not immediately disproved. I think that morality only exists outside of religion, however, and that the type of extrinsic reward-seeking morality that religion brings to the table is far from true morality. It's self-centered and truly just goes against what is essentially revered as goodness and altriusm. I mean, what's a favor if you expect ultimate bliss in return?
So yeah. I have my own ideas on this. I recommend you look into some of what Kant has to say on the matter, though I got most of my ideas from reading (not necessarily agreeing with) Kafka and Nietzsche.


edit:
"Yes, the United States has the highest crime rate of all industrialized nations.

However... the United States also has the highest income gaps of all industrialized nations.

Inequality brings crime, not 'God'."

Let me be the first to disagree with you here. Wealth, wealth distribution, and wage equality are represented by the Gini index. There is only one nation which has managed a solid Gini index as well as a great GDP, that nation is Japan. All other nations with a decent Gini index are pretty poor.
Japan, despite its considerable wealth and excellent wealth distribution still has a considerable amount of crime, this is due to harsh social conditions, acceptance, and a host of other things. You can't boil crime down to a single bottom line. It's not simple. Mental illness, culture, circumstances, religion, ideals, I mean, almost everything can contribute to crime. Passion, is another big contributor to crime. Adultery is one of the biggest motivators for murder in the world, and if I haven't missed my guess, it probably always will be, and it probably has little to nothing to do with wealth distribution.
I'm a firm believer in Smith's economics. I believe that a little disparity in wealth can be a good thing. In great heaping piles, money accumulates much faster, as with more of its own gravity, than separated. For this reason, having a lot of people with a lot of money creates a great deal more jobs, and increases standard of living across the board.

Answer 3

"Some people need religion to provide morals."

No, they don't.

Moral codes predate the current religious texts by centuries.

PS Jews don't believe in eternal damnation in Hell.

ADDENDA

"Every f****** time I aska question on here I get pissed off..."

So? Stop asking questions on here.

"PEOPLE WANT ANSWERS.
NO ONE CAN ARGUE THAT WITH ME.'

No, but we can argue your implied point that people MUST have answers. As I tell my students, "I don't know" is a perfectly valid answer that provides impetus to the continued search for answers/truth.

"I do believe [...] that religion provides morals and values to those who would have few without the power and fear of 'God'."

How do the extremely high crime rate in the inner cities where there is strong belief in God? Seems your theory is not quite right.

You can stop ranting any time, now.

Answer 4

I think you're confusing morality with sucking up to a deity. Morality is doing good regardless of who is watching.

At any rate, I don't buy into that belief-in-belief model for morality anyway. Crime is very low in secular Western Europe, Japan, Australia, etc. The United States stands alone in the world in both its religiosity and its astonishingly high crime rate.

Answer 5

There were morals long before any organized religion. What makes you think that we can't survive without religion guiding our morals? Personally, I believe morals are instilled into a person thru there upbringing. Family, friends, teachers, etc. guide the morals of this country more than the churches do.

Answer 6

I believe this is known as the 'noble lie' hypothesis - the idea that even though religion is nonsense, it helps society.

But in fact religion is extremely harmful to society, creating divisiveness, fear and suffering. Religiosity is associated with high levels of violence, suicide, stress and murder. See 'Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies' at

http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html

for details, especially in the US, with it's 1st world economy and technology allied with 3rd world levels of belief.

CD

Answer 7

Why do people need stories to deal with reality?

Learn the golden rule and teach it to your children. If we all did so,the world would be a better place.

Your premise is flawed. It needs to be discarded,not backed up.

Add.

Religion doesn't serve to find answers.Its stated goal is to indoctrination into a belief system. Who needs that?

Morals are learned from observation and patterning. WE learn what we see. See golden rule comment above.

Again,your basic premise is flawed.

Answer 8

i could could desire to believe you on that. regardless of if in basic terms conversing of my very own reviews. it is not possibly an identical difficulty, yet I grew up with an excellent type of animals and gained a great quantity of my character features from them. If I strengthen into close sufficient to somebody, i ought to spend hours in basic terms sitting by ability of them jointly as enjoying their presence, like a cat. i assume if which could ensue, morals could be absorbed besides.

Answer 9

I wouldn't condescend to assume that people are so ignorant and emotionally stunted that they need the psychological sanctions of religion to keep them in line. I wouldn't insult their intelligence like that. I think people ARE capable of dragging themselves out of comforting delusion. I think people ARE capable of being decent and kind and honest without the threat of heaven and hell constantly hanging over their heads.

Answer 10

I disagree when you say that religion answers questions,it doesn't.It only gives it's own slant on those questions.
As for morals.If the only thing that is stopping people from killing is the fear of hell,then they have some serious issues to deal with.