Is religion necessary for social order?

[Revoltingest]

Zionism is the most anti-christian movement to ever exist. Its true many have been duped into supporting it.

I don't know if "duped" is the right word to describe
Zionism relative to other religious beliefs, which are
all irrational. Zionism is no less irrational, except perhaps
in regard to Christianity & Judasim being extremely
hypocritical, ie, practice vs professed beliefs in the value
of all human lives.

 

[Revoltingest]

where did you come up with nonsense like this.

Care to edit the post to be civil?

 

[Revoltingest]

It hasn’t helped in the past hundred years

Because they haven't heeded my counsel.

 

[Shaul]

The question I ask today is Is religion necessary for social order?.

I invite everyone of all faiths (or lack of faith) to participate in this thread. I do ask that we go with the hypothetical assumption that there is no God(s) or anything of metaphysical nature, like the atheists believe. The reason I ask we go with the atheist POV for this thread is that it will help us better analyze the title question .

Since the dawn of Civilization, there has been religion.

For a moment, suppose there is no God. Would it be preferable (or at the very least non-consequential) then, if society as a whole eventually moved away from the God belief? Or does religion play an essential role in social order, regardless of the lack of God?

I am not sure my opinion on the matter. I will say that there are many individuals who may never be able to accept that there might be no consciousness after death. Religion seems to play an important role in stemming an individual's fear of death. Perhaps if scientist were to somehow prove that the unfalsifiable concept of God was false, I believe a mass existential crisis across society could occur.

I made this thread to get your perspectives!

It isn't necessary for order. But order isn't everything. Totalitarian societies are quite orderly, but orderly in deleterious ways. Religion is beneficial for creating Just societies.

 

[Nakosis]

The question I ask today is Is religion necessary for social order?.

I invite everyone of all faiths (or lack of faith) to participate in this thread. I do ask that we go with the hypothetical assumption that there is no God(s) or anything of metaphysical nature, like the atheists believe. The reason I ask we go with the atheist POV for this thread is that it will help us better analyze the title question .

Since the dawn of Civilization, there has been religion.

For a moment, suppose there is no God. Would it be preferable (or at the very least non-consequential) then, if society as a whole eventually moved away from the God belief? Or does religion play an essential role in social order, regardless of the lack of God?

I am not sure my opinion on the matter. I will say that there are many individuals who may never be able to accept that there might be no consciousness after death. Religion seems to play an important role in stemming an individual's fear of death. Perhaps if scientist were to somehow prove that the unfalsifiable concept of God was false, I believe a mass existential crisis across society could occur.

I made this thread to get your perspectives!

I think some kind of threat of punishment is necessary for social order. Religion happens to provide this. Not for the many but for the few. Could society police itself without religion? Possibly but it would take a lot more resources. Can a society survive with this greater drain of its resources? IDK, that's the question.

 

[Valjean]

It isn't necessary for order. But order isn't everything. Totalitarian societies are quite orderly, but orderly in deleterious ways. Religion is beneficial for creating Just societies.

But religious societies can be just as repressive as secular, totalitarian societies. It makes little difference whether the leader is human or divine.

Justice?
Religious "justice" is often quite harsh and arbitrary. It tends to be Divine Command justice, meted out to stay in God's good graces or conform to religious ideals.
Secular justice, on the other hand, tends to be practical and tailored to social needs. It's based more on consequences than on religious doctrine.
I prefer secular justice.

 

[Shaul]

But religious societies can be just as repressive as secular, totalitarian societies. It makes little difference whether the leader is human or divine.

Justice?
Religious "justice" is often quite harsh and arbitrary. It tends to be Divine Command justice, meted out to stay in God's good graces or conform to religious ideals.
Secular justice, on the other hand, tends to be practical and tailored to social needs. It's based more on consequences than on religious doctrine.
I prefer secular justice.

I purposefully used Just with a capital J to signify the objectively absolute Just. Religion is more beneficial for creating a society in harmony with the absolutely Just. Temporal secular justice, lowercase j, is inferior to the truly Just, uppercase J.

 

[Valjean]

I think some kind of threat of punishment is necessary for social order. Religion happens to provide this. Not for the many but for the few. Could society police itself without religion? Possibly but it would take a lot more resources. Can a society survive with this greater drain of its resources? IDK, that's the question.

Why would secular policing take more resources than religious enforcement?
Secular police have only actual, harmful actions to address. Religious policing has to deal not just with actual crime, but with thought-crimes, non-conformity and impropriety as well. It takes a large force of actual police, as well as religious enforcers and civilian collaborators.

 

[Valjean]

I purposefully used Just with a capital J to signify the objectively absolute Just. Religion is more beneficial for creating a society in harmony with the absolutely Just. Temporal secular justice, lowercase j, is inferior to the truly Just, uppercase J.

But is there absolute Justice? How is it recognized? What is it based on? What is its purpose?

Consequentialist justice deals with actual, harmful actions. There's general agreement around the world that stealing, assault, &c are harmful and need be addressed, but religious justice tends to be intolerant of abstractions, impropriety and non-conformity, as well. Religious justice tends to be unnecessarily repressive; sometimes even Draconian.

"In harmony with the absolutely Just" seems to be an attempt to create a "1984" style society of mindless automatons.

 

[Nakosis]

Why would secular policing take more resources than religious enforcement?
Secular police have only actual, harmful actions to address. Religious policing has to deal not just with actual crime, but with thought-crimes, non-conformity and impropriety as well. It takes a large force of actual police, as well as religious enforcers and civilian collaborators.

Because much of the threat comes from non-corporal entities which don't have a pension nor rely on tax-payer dollars.

 

[LeftyLen]

You & I have different perspectives on what's rational vs irrational,
& progress vs backsliding. The differences don't seem reconciliable.

FYI, I'm a Libertarian, & share some agendas with
both conservatives & liberals. And I loathe Marxism,
which is the worst flavor of fascism.

Horeshoe theory, the far right and far left at some point merge, becoming the same thing, re shirts black shirts, same beast.

 

[LeftyLen]

I see just the opposite.



In my view they are, we are all human beings. Unless of course you want women chained to the kitchen sink while giving birth to your offspring.



Many new diseases cause huge mortality rates until science and medicine can create medication to help combat them.




The industrial revolution was driven by the moneyed right and the right are still pushing the idea that climate change is not a thing



And i bet on the secular.



I don't see any religion as healthy or rational when it interferes with politics.



Not really, religion is declining, people have easeier access to information, its not a point of rejection but education.




Examples please.

examples, marxism. A long series of fallacious analogies. Secular 'religions' have far in 150 years slaughtered far far more than all religious regimes

 

[ChristineM]

examples, marxism. A long series of fallacious analogies. Secular 'religions' have far in 150 years slaughtered far far more than all religious regimes

Bull

You want a list of religious wars and conflicts throughout recorded history?

They account for almost a billion deaths.

 

[LeftyLen]

Bull

You want a list of religious wars and conflicts throughout recorded history?

They account for almost a billion deaths.

Millions were killed, tortured by primarily the Roman Church, less so by protestants. the notion of church state separation in our secular Constuition to a great degree ended that. 'Mixing church and state corrupts both"-Thomas Jefferson. We all know this, we all should know that in just 125 years marxist regimes slaughtered by a factor of 10 to 1 more than all the religious regimes in history, this is documented fact, yet leftist dogma survives , a parasitic ideology.

 

[Nimos]

Yeah, I agree. It is better, but that is because we feel it is better.

I don't think it is purely due to that.

But also because we look for explanations. So if we take a simple example If I said to you "You are not allowed to do that!!", then your most obvious reply would be "Why?", to which I would say "Because you can't". That is not an answer that most people find satisfying.

However, if I gave you a rational explanation as to why you weren't allowed to do something, the chance is that you would probably either accept it or even agree that it would be for the best to not do it.

This means that you go away with a feeling of having been informed which is satisfying for most people, compared to just a feeling of being told what to do, which essentially religion is to a high degree, "You can't do that because God says so" or "It is what the scriptures say". But none of these are rational explanations and therefore very unsatisfying for most people if they don't fully agree.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I don't think it is purely due to that.

But also because we look for explanations. So if we take a simple example If I said to you "You are not allowed to do that!!", then your most obvious reply would be "Why?", to which I would say "Because you can't". That is not an answer that most people find satisfying.

However, if I gave you a rational explanation as to why you weren't allowed to do something, the chance is that you would probably either accept it or even agree that it would be for the best.

This means that you go away with a feeling of having been informed which is satisfying for most people, compared to just a feeling of being told what to do, which essentially religion is to a high degree, "You can't do that because God says so" or "It is what the scriptures say". But none of these are rational explanations and therefore very unsatisfying for most people if they don't fully agree.

Okay, please explain what is rational to you and use evidence from science to back it up as your standard stated.

 

[LeftyLen]

Bull

You want a list of religious wars and conflicts throughout recorded history?

They account for almost a billion deaths.

But Marxists could not be wrong. After all, their knowledge was scientific, based on historical materialism, an understanding of the dialectical process in nature and human society, and a materialist (and thus realistic) view of nature. Marx has shown empirically where society has been and why, and he and his interpreters proved that it was destined for a communist end. No one could prevent this, but only stand in the way and delay it at the cost of more human misery. Those who disagreed with this world view and even with some of the proper interpretations of Marx and Lenin were, without a scintilla of doubt, wrong. After all, did not Marx or Lenin or Stalin or Mao say that. . . . In other words, Marxism was a fanatical RELIGION. It had its revealed text and chief interpreters. It had its priests and their ritualistic prose with all the answers. It had a heaven, and the proper behavior to reach it. It had its appeal to faith. And it had its crusade against nonbelievers.

What made this secular religion so utterly lethal was its seizure of all the state's instrument of force and coercion and their immediate use to destroy or control all independent sources of power, such as the church, the professions, private businesses, schools, and, of course, the family.

 

[ChristineM]

Millions were killed, tortured by primarily the Roman Church, less so by protestants. the notion of church state separation in our secular Constuition to a great degree ended that. 'Mixing church and state corrupts both"-Thomas Jefferson. We all know this, we all should know that in just 125 years marxist regimes slaughtered by a factor of 10 to 1 more than all the religious regimes in history, this is documented fact, yet leftist dogma survives , a parasitic ideology.

Please show the document.

In the meantime

A list of religious wars and conflicts in which one side or both fought to impose their belief in their god on the other.
You are free to check yourself, there are estimated minimum and maximum deaths listed for some wars but overall i estimate around 800,000,000 (eight hundred million) deaths.



US Western Expansion (Justified by "Manifest Destiny")

AIDS deaths in Africa largely due to opposition to condoms:

Al Qaeda, 1993-

Albigensian Crusade, 1208-49

Algeria, 1992-

Arab Outbreak, 7th Century CE

Arab-Israeli Wars, 1948-

Armenian Genocide:

Atlantic Slave Trade (Justified by Christianity):

Aztec Human Sacrifice:

Muslim/Bab’i conflict, 1848-54

Bosnia, 1992-95

Boxer Rebellion, 1899-1901

Christian Romans, 30-313 CE

Congolese Genocide (King Leopold II): 13,000,000

Croatia, 1991-92

Crusades, 1095-1291

Dutch Revolt, 1566-1609

Eighty Years' War:

English Civil War, 1642-46

First Sudanese Civil War:

French Wars of Religion:

Great Peasants' Revolt:

Holocaust, 1938-45

Huguenot Wars, 1562-1598

India, 1992-2002

India: Suttee & Thugs

Indo-Pakistani Partition, 1947

Iran, Islamic Republic, 1979-

Iraq War:

Iraq, Shiites, 1991-92

Islamic Terrorism Since 2000:

Jewish Diaspora (Not Including the Holocaust):

Jews, 1348

Jonestown, 1978

Lebanon 1860 / 1975-92

Molucca Is., 1999-

Mongolia, 1937-39

Muslim Conquests of India:

Nigeria, 1990s, 2000s-

Northern Ireland, 1974-98

Russian pogroms 1905-06 / 1917-22

Rwandan Genocide:

Second Sudanese Civil War:

Shang China, ca. 1300-1050 BCE

Shimabara Revolt, Japan 1637-38

Sikh uprising, India, 1984-91

Spanish Inquisition, 1478-1834

St. Bartholemew Massacre, 1572

Taiping Rebellion, 1850-64

The Holocaust (Jewish and Homosexual Deaths):

Thirty Years War, 1618-48 -

Tudor EnglandVietnam, 1800s

Witch Hunts, 1400-1800

Xhosa, 1857

 

[LeftyLen]

Please show the document.

In the meantime

A list of religious wars and conflicts in which one side or both fought to impose their belief in their god on the other.
You are free to check yourself, there are estimated minimum and maximum deaths listed for some wars but overall i estimate around 800,000,000 (eight hundred million) deaths.



US Western Expansion (Justified by "Manifest Destiny")

AIDS deaths in Africa largely due to opposition to condoms:

Al Qaeda, 1993-

Albigensian Crusade, 1208-49

Algeria, 1992-

Arab Outbreak, 7th Century CE

Arab-Israeli Wars, 1948-

Armenian Genocide:

Atlantic Slave Trade (Justified by Christianity):

Aztec Human Sacrifice:

Muslim/Bab’i conflict, 1848-54

Bosnia, 1992-95

Boxer Rebellion, 1899-1901

Christian Romans, 30-313 CE

Congolese Genocide (King Leopold II): 13,000,000

Croatia, 1991-92

Crusades, 1095-1291

Dutch Revolt, 1566-1609

Eighty Years' War:

English Civil War, 1642-46

First Sudanese Civil War:

French Wars of Religion:

Great Peasants' Revolt:

Holocaust, 1938-45

Huguenot Wars, 1562-1598

India, 1992-2002

India: Suttee & Thugs

Indo-Pakistani Partition, 1947

Iran, Islamic Republic, 1979-

Iraq War:

Iraq, Shiites, 1991-92

Islamic Terrorism Since 2000:

Jewish Diaspora (Not Including the Holocaust):

Jews, 1348

Jonestown, 1978

Lebanon 1860 / 1975-92

Molucca Is., 1999-

Mongolia, 1937-39

Muslim Conquests of India:

Nigeria, 1990s, 2000s-

Northern Ireland, 1974-98

Russian pogroms 1905-06 / 1917-22

Rwandan Genocide:

Second Sudanese Civil War:

Shang China, ca. 1300-1050 BCE

Shimabara Revolt, Japan 1637-38

Sikh uprising, India, 1984-91

Spanish Inquisition, 1478-1834

St. Bartholemew Massacre, 1572

Taiping Rebellion, 1850-64

The Holocaust (Jewish and Homosexual Deaths):

Thirty Years War, 1618-48 -

Tudor EnglandVietnam, 1800s

Witch Hunts, 1400-1800

Xhosa, 1857

we all know this sordid history. The fact is Marxism, a 'secular religion' has killed in a short period far far more

 

[ChristineM]

we all know this sordid history. The fact is Marxism, a 'secular religion' has killed in a short period far far more

So you can't show what you claimed, fair enough.

Marxism has killed less than 10% of religious deaths

BtW, marxism was never a religion .