Is religion holding the human race back?

Question

Does is limit our individual and collective development?

Answer 1

Not the whole human race.If religious zealots had their way then yes but thankfully mankind as a whole is sensible enough to not give unbridled power to the church any more.There are enough free thinking individuals to give balance to the closed mindedness of religion.
As an individual,being religious does mean that you are less likely to constantly challenge your own beliefs,unless you are having a constant "crisis of faith".
So in conclusion,as individual yes,as collective,no.

Answer 2

In my personal opinion, I think religion is holding us back. But then, I am an atheist so from where I stand it will look that way. Someone who is religious would not think so.
But we do have factual data proving that it has happened. When the church became dominant in Europe, all ancient and so-called "pagan" knowledge was burned and destroyed, or hidden away. The Egyptians, Romans and Greeks all knew the earth was spherical, knew about maths, medicine, astronomy, natural science, philosophy, etc. The church surpressed all that knowledge. So much so, that Galileo Galilei was condemned as an heretic for saying that the earth is not flat!
Imagine where we as humanity might have been if we hadn't had to "rediscover" so many things. Still today religion is keeping people in an "old" mindset. Christianity might be more modern than most but still it shares many of the old-fashioned and inhibiting traits with other religions such as Islam, Judaism and Hinduism.

Answer 3

No, it has given us so much in the past, it can continue to do so into the future. People both keep us driving forward and hold us back. What's slowing us down now is probably more lack of direction.
If we don't know which way to go as a culture, and indeed, species, we'll work against ourselves. We don't need religion to do that. In fact it's religion that has given the most successful and even ethical societies the direction to succeed in the past. Leave aside the theological discussion if you wish, religion is actually a force that can unite a society and give it drive.
As for ethics, human beings don't need religion to hate, or to form gangs under warlords, or to fight wars, or to persecute. It's sometimes used as an excuse, but really, if religion weren't there the excuse just would have been a different one.
No, religion is actually needed more than ever to help those in society who drop out. The human beings who are left out in the cold, in increasing numbers. To help those who are struggling with purpose, but are perhaps otherwise brilliant. There are so many reasons we need religion, but most of all perhaps, just to remind us we're human

Answer 4

I sure hope so, I've seen too much of what happens when humans either individually or collectively are not held back by a religious moral code.

One prominent liberal once said that Puritans were not against dog fighting because they cared about animal rights but because dog fighting gives pleasure to those watching.

My response to that is this: Do we really want individuals in our society who gain pleasure from watching pain being inflicted on another being?

I wish the Puritans would come back. I've seen too many people who don't have the moral compass religion gives. People complain that much cruelty is done in the name of religion. But much more cruelty is done by persons who have no religious moral code -- Hitler and Stalin come to mind.

Answer 5

In what respect ? Morally ? Socially ? Technologically ?

Yes , Yes and Yes.

We only just over-took the Egyptians a few hundred years ago , progress was suffocated by religious dogma. They weren’t called the dark ages for nothing , religion has always persecuted knowledge. Even today the great advances in social science , biology and psychology are under attack by religion because they happen to be the work of man and oppose the work of God.

Mr Pop.
Don’t confuse Political Communism with a lack of belief in a deity . Are there any atheist Capitalists ?

Answer 6

no longer something has held again humanity more suitable than faith. indexed below are some examples: Gender inequality (in adult adult males's want) the position do those concepts come from? Anti gay rights- the position does that theory come from? faith lack of stem cellular study contained in the U. S.- faith faith is the purely element contained in the international that has the capacity to make logical and knowledgeable human beings deny reality and make judgements in keeping with faith. enable's bear in options what faith is, that is a posh note for lack of reason. in case you imagine that the books of the religions are previous and do not characterize the religion, humanity ought to comprehend a million) human beings in 2016 be able to act morally properly on their own and could. and 2) it will be considered illogical to respond to unanswered questions with a fill contained in the sparkling basically because the fan base is tremendous and three)there are this style of large volume of diverse religions on the instantaneous, and diff. religions that were observed over the centuries that to imagine your faith is the most options-blowing concept device and way of existence is a comic tale

Answer 7

Well, you atheists haven't gone far either. So much for your Communist brethren, they aren't doing that good either.

I would say, absolutely NO in most cases. But, there are always the extreme cases and I won't deny that.
Prophet Muhammad(pbuh) said, "Don't overburden yourself with religion". Wish more people would have listened.

Answer 8

Religion is a practise which disciplines us. It is a self controlling mechanism for an individual. However having said that all reliion teaches one thing i,e humanity and tolerance. Ofcourse diverse religion adds diverse ideas and view points to the same problem and so infact religion helps in individual and collective development.

Answer 9

I personally think it does. But every time I say it I get a bunch of thumbs down.

It only does in a small way though.

Answer 10

Not so much religion, but the power hungry hypocrites that rule and teach it.