Is religion really the problem?

Question

Let say everyone in the world didnt believe in God.
Do you think these situations would still have happened?

9/11
The War on Iraq
Palestine-Israel conflict
Mall/School shootings

Without religion, would people actually live peacefully? Or would they find something else to fight about?

Answer 1

religion is not the problem PEOPLE are!!

Answer 2

Its not about religion or belief in God.

Its about choosing to serve a purpose that is better than yourself and serves the greater good.

Some people can pull this off in a religious context, but a lot of religions are just big business and politics and are self-serving.

Than there are some people's brains are just so fried from drugs or illness they actually believe that killing people will be for the greater good. Ive noticed religion doesn't help and in some cases can make it worse.

Its up to the individual.

Answer 3

You know the answer to your question before you ask, but it is something to ponder after the way Christians are put down on R&S

Please explain to me why this is so bad.
Defintion of religion

Further information: Transcendence, Theism, Sacred (comparative religion), Religion and mythology, and Myth and ritual

Religion has been defined in a wide variety of ways. Most definitions attempt to find a balance somewhere between overly sharp definition and meaningless generalities. Some sources have tried to use formalistic, doctrinal definitions while others have emphasized experiential, emotive, intuitive, valuational and ethical factors. Definitions mostly include:

* a notion of the transcendent or divine, often, but not always, in the form of theism
* a cultural or behavioural aspect of ritual, liturgy and organized worship, often involving a priesthood, and societal norms of morality (ethos) and virtue (arete)
* a set of myths or sacred truths held in reverence or believed by adherents

Answer 4

The problem isn't people, humans naturally tend to be able to get along pretty well provided they aren't threatened (being able to get along with those in your group has survival advantages which allows for natural selection to produce an innate morality in humans), the problem is religion which divides humans for no reason and sets people against each other who have no reason to fight.

Even the cases where a bad thing would have occurred without religion, religion can often make things a lot worse and a lot harder to resolve.

"9/11"
Would atheists fly an airliner into a building? To do something like that one would need to have a strong belief in what one is doing and you probably won't find that among the atheists here.

"The War on Iraq"
The Shrub is a Christian (though there are questions about how devout he really is) and so are most of his staff.

Most of the problems that are happening in Iraq come from Muslim extremists who believe in god and who are doing what they are doing because they think it is what their god wants them to.

"Palestine-Israel conflict"
That's all about religion, remove religion and the conflict will go away.

It has been shown that it is those who are most religious that are most likely to want to keep the conflict going while those who are more secular tend to be more open to peace (and that applies to both Israelis and Palestinians).

"Mall/School shootings"
Sometimes done for religious reasons but we'd probably still have to put up with a few every so often (though note that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were theists).

Answer 5

Religion is only used to motivate the terrorist/soldier to fight for a non-existent cause. It is all about the money. All wars have been fought for some kind of economic gain. If you told the people the real reason they were fighting, it would be hard to get volunteers, so both us and them are brainwashed into believing that the fight is about some just cause. Which just isn't true.

Answer 6

If everyone had the one true religion, and there by definition only one since they are all different, then no. There would not be conflict based on religion because there would only be one. Now, if everyone didn't believe in God, then there would be nothing checking greed, and everyone would definitely be out for themselves. There would be no charities, no church-based outreach services, etc... Churches do more for society than a lot of people think in their hedonistic mindset.

Answer 7

Religion is not the problem.

The mainstream motivation* in life is the problem.

*i.e; consolidation of power, gaining promotion via increased reputation, social conquests, ignorance of personal failings through blind pride, raising children to be able to 'do well' in life despite what the child might want, wannabe celebrities, and so on and so forth.

Indeed, i believe religion takes a back seat when it comes to the world's problems.

edit: I forgot to add "psychopathic pursuit of happiness".

Answer 8

In country like Japan where religion is very weak and not way of life, people still find problems to fight about. Land-dispute is a big one both at private level and national level.

Religion is not the problem, people are....

Answer 9

I agree that PEOPLE are the problem.

If a kid plays counterstrike then brings a gun to school and shoots his classmates is that the games fault? no.

Looking at the examples you've given, most experts believe that political factors cause terrorism, not religion. In a recent school shooting in (I think) Finland, the guy that did it said he was practicing 'social Darwinism' and in his various Internet profiles he said he hated religion.

Religion is a convenient scapegoat and it suits the Atheist cause to blame religion and not the people behind the acts.

Answer 10

Arguably, it is a great contributor to the problem. A lot of violence and hatred in the world is caused by religious differences. Just look at the Holocaust, the Christian Armenian Massacre, the Muslim Albanian massacre, the Inquisition, what's happening right now between Sunni and Shiites in Iraq.

Answer 11

Religion is not the problem.

I imagine you have heard the saying, "Guns don't kill people, people kill people"!

This holds true with religion. People will always find something to fight about. I mean without religion you would still have groups that fight for certain causes, it just wouldn't be in the name of religion, just something else.