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Better, worse or the same?
- Thread starter Jimmy
- Start date
Worse.
gnomon
Well-Known Member
It's like if you are asking if culture did not exist in my opinion. Which is why explaining what you mean by something could go a long way.
Spirit of Light
Be who ever you want
Worse
I don't know. My world is shaped so much by religion that you may as well ask whether or not we'd be better off if there'd been no philosophy. We could be a dried husk or we could be utter bliss. But if I had to hazard a guess (because it could never be anything more) I'd say a mixture of better in some things and worse in others.
I doubt we can truly tell as to such, given it seems almost inevitable we had to go through such episodes (of developing religious beliefs in all their forms - from the most primitive to what now exists) - as to assigning agency to 'whatever' as we became more intelligent but later becoming aware that such was not the case and further developments as to such. Just so easy to dismiss all the conflict and divisions that have accompanied religions all the way though - as if it definitely would have been worse without them. It probably is just a facet of evolving intelligence that species go through such turbulence.
I personally feel that on a world scale we would have faired better throughout history without religion. Fewer wars, pogroms, persecutions and deaths. But that leaves the possibility of a more populus earth now.
Locally religion has helped many and given comfort through difficult periods. Although even locally religion has always rejected diffence.
Religion is born of civilization, it seems humans need togetherness which both civilisation and religion provide. We also need to destroy competition as in other other beliefs, eliminate difference as on other beliefs.
So would the world have been better, the same or worse? Who knows, but it would have been different.
questfortruth
Well-Known Member
About like now. We hit the absolute bottom.
Religion is our cohesive moral social fabric; if we spent less time blaming religion, and more on creating a better one, we'd have a better society between us.
In my opinion.
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
The same. Apes are apes and do what apes do.
stvdv
Veteran Member
Most apes are mainly 90%+ vegetarian
Huge diffetence with humans
Humans are not apes
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Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Oh we certainly are apes. Fur, tailbone, and all.
True apes, a proven clade that is being made more clear and refined everyday.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0306235101
People somewhere would still be arguing over whose authority is legitimate until somebody says, 'I am descended from the sun' and thereby gets his authority acknowledged. Also, some of the 'big questions' we all ask would have never been asked until somebody gets the brilliant idea to ask at least one of them.
Augustus
…
imo, religion was pretty fundamental to helping unite the larger social groups necessary to create "civilisation". So We would be worse off.
It's a common trope now to consider religions divisive, but I think this is a fundamental misunderstanding as it seems to assume that we are naturally united unless we find something to divide us. We can look at our closest primate cousins living in small groups to see that this is obviously nonsense.
Religions have probably been the greatest unifying force in human history.
Better, but my perspective is as a westerner. Maybe it's of more use in eastern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Here comes an unpopular opinion, one that will likely lead to dissent and maybe even resentment, but one that is carefully considered, sincerely believed, constructively offered, and unlikely to be successfully rebutted:
What has religion done for man, or shall I say for western man? It's not hard to enumerate much of what it's done to man. We're seeing more of that harm playing out in America now, as Christians try to please their god as they imagine it to be. And there is currently a thread in progress about Iranian Muslims executing LGBTQ "corrupters of the earth," also an example of Abrahamic theists carrying out the imagined will of their god. These are things done because of the belief in supernatural deities, things humanists don't do or advocate for lack of any religion teaching them such things.
When people point to the benefits of religion, they point to things that secular people do as well, and usually better. For example, universities and hospitals. Secular governments do that better and more charitably than the religions. I did my internship and residency in a Catholic (private) hospital. The nuns called themselves the Sisters of Charity, but uninsured patients in the ER stable for transfer were sent to the county (public) hospital for the taxpayers to treat. Why is that? It's a business, and a profitable one at that.
America, like much of the world, just went through an economic upheaval related to the pandemic. Where was the church? I saw vaccines, tests, and bailouts from government. In countries with less money, like the one I live in, Mexico, it was also the government that provided vaccines and tests. And in our village, the church does nothing for the community. Our animal rescue shelters are all manned and underwritten by we expats. When a pothole in a road needs fixing, somebody needs to get out there with some cobblestones or concrete, but it won't be the church. I don't think they come outside at all. People bring the money to them, so they don't need to go out into the community at all.
Some say religion brings comfort from fear, moral values, a sense of meaning or purpose, etc., but we don't need religion for that. In fact, religion perpetuates the need for the comfort of religion, a need humanists meet without religion. Without religion, one eventually comes to a place where he accepts the possibility that there is no god looking out for him, and that he may not see an afterlife. He defines his own purpose and moral values. So, I don't see much value in a system that perpetuates dependence on it by meeting needs that can be fulfilled better without it.
What we see instead is pedophilia scandals and coverups, prosperity ministries, theocratic tendencies, churches living off of the largess of taxpayers forced to pay the church's share of community investment while posturing as charitable institutions to get those tax breaks. If it all went away tomorrow,
So, the benefit that the religions claim to provide is better provided by secular sources, and would continue without religions, and the harm that results from faith-based belief disappears. That equals a better world.
Heyo
Veteran Member
I don't know. I think religion had its value 5000 years ago when it was essential to nation forming. It lost its usefulness on the way and today we see that the most secular nations are the happiest and among the most prosperous. When exactly did the switch happen? My guess is about 3000 years ago, maybe 2000. The Greeks and the Romans as well as the Chinese empire could have developed and thrived without religion. In the middle ages and the modern era religion was detrimental to development.
While the training wheels got us going, we should have ditched them a long time ago.
Tinker Grey
Wanderer
Augustus
…
It's quite hard to say that as religion was central to their culture/societies.
There were no secular and religious spheres, so they would need a completely new culture. If we give them that then we can give it to any earlier society too.
Other than its role in schools, universities, preserving and translating classical texts, funding sciences, etc. perhaps, although these were not exactly unimportant for development...