(Long post ahead)
I want your opinions and scientific judgments. I'm in the middle of a debate with 4 or 5 other people. It started innocently enough, by discussing this article. To quickly quote part of the article:
"...belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems.
The study counters the view of believers that religion is necessary to provide the moral and ethical foundations of a healthy society."
The person who posted the article is an atheist, which is important because his views offer an obviously different perspective from the dozen or so religous people who instantly flamed him. The article, while clearly about as arbitrary and ridiculously vague as it comes, got me thinking though, and somehow everyone got off on the tangent of whether it causes people to do things or not. I contended that religion does in fact directly (and this is the key) affect people's behavior and decisions.
Most people then flamed me as well, several said I was stupid, and one guy even went so far as to proclaim me the biggest idiot on Earth, saying that religion doesn't cause anything, it's the people who make their own decisions to do what they do. Both are sort of half-truths, I guess. People are certainly accountable for what they do, but religion makes things complicated.
The concept of religion is this: somebody somewhere got up one day and said "This is what I believe, and I want others to believe the same thing." That's it. A religion is born. It's a political institution at it's most fundamental level.
And you cannot tell people "This is what's right, and this is what's wrong", which is precisely what religions do, without those same people feeding on that message and turning around and using it to irrationally judge others. It's technically just a formalized system of prejudice.
Family units do much the same thing, but family units also employ common sense and hands-on observation, something that an institution based on the fervent belief in the unseeable and unknowable clearly lack on the surface. And in family units that message comes from just your mom and/or dad. In religion it comes from the almighty creator of every single thing that will ever fuckin' exist, and that's a pretty powerful motivator. Mom, or ALMIGHTY GOD? *insert thunderclap here*
The point is this: a person who is a lunatic is just a nutbag. A person who is a lunatic and has religion is a very zealous nutbag. While religion isn't the physical cause (no book or words on a page can force someone to wage war or be hateful) it compounds the problem.
Of course the most obvious example would be muslim extremism, since it's in the news almost every minute of every day, and has been since 9/11. If you take those kids out of those madrassahs, and away from the Koran and it's teachings, you get.....kids. Now they may grow up and do drugs and steal cars and get involved with drive-by shootings and whatnot, but they will just be kids, driven by their impulses and not those of the religion Mohammed decided to create because he got bored one day. Religion gives people beliefs and ideals that they may not otherwise have had, and behave in ways they may otherwise not have behaved.
(Which is exactly what drugs do, coincidentally.)
Then, to hopefully prove my point, I posted the following hypothetical scientific question: If religion, in all its shapes, beliefs, and contrivances, were to completely vanish from the face of the earth, would people behave differently for better or for worse? It would be like you are an observer, looking down at the world. One day religion is there, as it always has been, and the next it's gone, and it's like it had never been. No one knows anything about God or religion or an afterlife or anything else remotely religious. It's just gone, with no memory of it.
How would peoples' behavior be different on the two days?
If there is a change, does that mean religion is a catalyst?
Do you think religion can be blamed for the cause of many of the world's problems, or would people still hate and kill each other, simply for other reasons? Religion, like politics, fascinates me so I thought I'd try and get some conversation going that's a bit headier than usual.
And as an added bonus I give you this wondrous gem of inspiration.
I want your opinions and scientific judgments. I'm in the middle of a debate with 4 or 5 other people. It started innocently enough, by discussing this article. To quickly quote part of the article:
"...belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems.
The study counters the view of believers that religion is necessary to provide the moral and ethical foundations of a healthy society."
The person who posted the article is an atheist, which is important because his views offer an obviously different perspective from the dozen or so religous people who instantly flamed him. The article, while clearly about as arbitrary and ridiculously vague as it comes, got me thinking though, and somehow everyone got off on the tangent of whether it causes people to do things or not. I contended that religion does in fact directly (and this is the key) affect people's behavior and decisions.
Most people then flamed me as well, several said I was stupid, and one guy even went so far as to proclaim me the biggest idiot on Earth, saying that religion doesn't cause anything, it's the people who make their own decisions to do what they do. Both are sort of half-truths, I guess. People are certainly accountable for what they do, but religion makes things complicated.
The concept of religion is this: somebody somewhere got up one day and said "This is what I believe, and I want others to believe the same thing." That's it. A religion is born. It's a political institution at it's most fundamental level.
And you cannot tell people "This is what's right, and this is what's wrong", which is precisely what religions do, without those same people feeding on that message and turning around and using it to irrationally judge others. It's technically just a formalized system of prejudice.
Family units do much the same thing, but family units also employ common sense and hands-on observation, something that an institution based on the fervent belief in the unseeable and unknowable clearly lack on the surface. And in family units that message comes from just your mom and/or dad. In religion it comes from the almighty creator of every single thing that will ever fuckin' exist, and that's a pretty powerful motivator. Mom, or ALMIGHTY GOD? *insert thunderclap here*
The point is this: a person who is a lunatic is just a nutbag. A person who is a lunatic and has religion is a very zealous nutbag. While religion isn't the physical cause (no book or words on a page can force someone to wage war or be hateful) it compounds the problem.
Of course the most obvious example would be muslim extremism, since it's in the news almost every minute of every day, and has been since 9/11. If you take those kids out of those madrassahs, and away from the Koran and it's teachings, you get.....kids. Now they may grow up and do drugs and steal cars and get involved with drive-by shootings and whatnot, but they will just be kids, driven by their impulses and not those of the religion Mohammed decided to create because he got bored one day. Religion gives people beliefs and ideals that they may not otherwise have had, and behave in ways they may otherwise not have behaved.
(Which is exactly what drugs do, coincidentally.)
Then, to hopefully prove my point, I posted the following hypothetical scientific question: If religion, in all its shapes, beliefs, and contrivances, were to completely vanish from the face of the earth, would people behave differently for better or for worse? It would be like you are an observer, looking down at the world. One day religion is there, as it always has been, and the next it's gone, and it's like it had never been. No one knows anything about God or religion or an afterlife or anything else remotely religious. It's just gone, with no memory of it.
How would peoples' behavior be different on the two days?
If there is a change, does that mean religion is a catalyst?
Do you think religion can be blamed for the cause of many of the world's problems, or would people still hate and kill each other, simply for other reasons? Religion, like politics, fascinates me so I thought I'd try and get some conversation going that's a bit headier than usual.
And as an added bonus I give you this wondrous gem of inspiration.