Religion. Is the world better for it, or without it?

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Religion. Is the world better for it, or without it?

"I want Jesus to come back and say, 'THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT.'"

I didn't want to mention this because . . . well, I didn't want you guys to think I'm any crazier than I am.

But sometimes I swear I can hear Him say just that. Metaphorically speaking, but yes, in the religious "wtf am I a prophet or something?" sense. And it rings clear as a crystal bell.

Of course, you don't have to believe me when I say this. I am only human after all, with a laundry list of my own flaws and everything. But every now and again I do have deeply religious experiences fueled purely by my own introspection (I don't go to church or anything, but I justify that by literally remembering the Sabbath). And in all honesty, that's how anybody should commune with God, if anything.

And yes, somebody should tell certain folks that they're going about their whole religion thing all wrong. Am I the man to do something like that, though? I'm hardly in the position to do so.

/ramble

[Raydeus]

Re: Religion. Is the world better for it, or without it?

The reason why this experiment failed is because we've been here before, and we are all repeating the same things we replied the last couple of times. Because of boredom.

[Firewind]

Re: Religion. Is the world better for it, or without it?

I didn't want to mention this because . . . well, I didn't want you guys to think I'm any crazier than I am.

But sometimes I swear I can hear Him say just that. Metaphorically speaking, but yes, in the religious "wtf am I a prophet or something?" sense. And it rings clear as a crystal bell.

Of course, you don't have to believe me when I say this. I am only human after all, with a laundry list of my own flaws and everything. But every now and again I do have deeply religious experiences fueled purely by my own introspection (I don't go to church or anything, but I justify that by literally remembering the Sabbath). And in all honesty, that's how anybody should commune with God, if anything.

And yes, somebody should tell certain folks that they're going about their whole religion thing all wrong. Am I the man to do something like that, though? I'm hardly in the position to do so.

/ramble

Hey wow Yellow Mage says what I think, awesome!

[Jarre]

Re: Religion. Is the world better for it, or without it?

I would prefer people to have Faith rather than religeon, history has shown what religeon is, an ideal to control people, always has been. If you want to beleive in a higher being to give comfort, be my guest, but don't try and force it down my throat or act against someone because you beleive that higher being requires you to.

[Feba]

Re: Religion. Is the world better for it, or without it?

I sided with the "worse off" camp, but honestly, I think that the problem isn't so much in religion (organized, or "spiritual", or "faith based", whatever forms we speak of) as in blind trust and indoctrination. Never a good thing; doesn't matter if you're indoctrinated in facts, you still need to exercise some personal judgment. Without any Orwellian sarcasm, "facts change". You have to be able to interpret and adapt.

What I would want to mention is that I think religion may have been an important step in human evolution; as a technology. Just as modern schools are very different from schools a hundred years previously, and schools a hundred years from now will be even more vastly changed, religion too has served a changing role in keeping our various societies working. For better or worse, they provided a set of guidelines to work within, and gave people very good motivations to work within those guidelines. They continue to give people a coping method for tragedy, and also provide social networks of support in times of emergency (both personal and widespread). And, though it's somewhat neglected now, religious institutions have historically had a huge role in education; in recording modern events for posterity, educating people about that history, and also in spreading knowledge outwards through proselytization and missionary work, and inwards through whatever those missionaries discover about the lands they visit. Many languages which only existed in spoken form were recorded in writing for the first time only when visited by men of god, who would also write down their own oral history; not to mention the translation of the bible into more languages than any other document, making it an invaluable linguistic text. In brief, religion has been hugely useful, if nothing else as a method of long term communication and storage of important information.

However, it's slowly been falling from favor since around the invention of the printing press, and the more our physical information storage comes into power (printed word, then recordings, now hard drives and the internet), the previous traditions of religion, as well as oral history in general, have severely dropped off. This is also partially because of the rise of education; more heavily educated persons tend to be far less religious, and I think a lot of that may be more a matter of "if you have a DVD player, you're not going to use the beta unless you have a damn good reason" than it is "education shows religion to be wrong". Not wrong as much as that it's not as correct as the modern method.

But anyway, to wrap that back around, I think a lot of the people that claim a need for religion to answer questions that science doesn't/can't are seriously in the dark to something I think most atheists are more comfortable with-- philosophy. If religion is "a book with answers", philosophy is a method to find those answers from within oneself-- this is probably where a lot of people who feel "spiritual" get that.

[Armando]

Re: Religion. Is the world better for it, or without it?

But anyway, to wrap that back around, I think a lot of the people that claim a need for religion to answer questions that science doesn't/can't are seriously in the dark to something I think most atheists are more comfortable with-- philosophy. If religion is "a book with answers", philosophy is a method to find those answers from within oneself-- this is probably where a lot of people who feel "spiritual" get that.

While I agree, being handed the answer is always much easier than reaching your own conclusions; and no one's ever been threatened with damnation for not agreeing with a philosopher.

[DakAttack]

Re: Religion. Is the world better for it, or without it?

I'm not going to vote. My opinion is that religion is great up to a point. It makes you think, but then it makes you follow. I'll be damned if people don't follow blindly, ruining any thinking they may have done.

[Etra]

Re: Religion. Is the world better for it, or without it?

/thread