Are we better with religion, or better off without it - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14756108
First of all, high, I am new on here, albeit I have debated on various sites for many years. My number one rule is not to personalise issues, and not to insult others, even if I consider they have daft opinions.

I was reading another thread which mutated into religion, so I thought I would do a little a digging and open things up. There are still countries in the world today which are governed primarily by religion, Islam predominantly. Most Western countries are ruled by political values, however are still tolerant toward religion. I am prepared to put my cards on the table and say I think there is as much truth behind any religion as there is Postman Pat. That's to say there may have been a Postman called Pat, but he certainly wasn't the son of a fictitious being who apparently created the earth :lol:

Of course, religion may have brought us certain values, such as the commandments and ummmm, the ten commandments. I'm sorry, but the fact is that what ever religion one chooses to follow was invented in years gone by when people really didn't know any better, and we were still dragging women around by their hair and scribbling things on rocks. I would like to think that everyone now know's better and is prepared to accept that the world is more than 5000 years old, and Kane and Able didn't produce the next generation of children.

So, the question is, if you could make religion go away with the wave of a wand, would you, or do you think that religious diversity is a positive thing ?
#14756118
Humans have always needed something bigger than themselves in order to become the best humans they could. I don't care where people find this, as long as they do.
Organized religion and personal religion are two entirely separate things.
#14756127
This goes to prove how primitive we still are !!


Studies of heroic acts has shown just the reverse. Heroic acts are always performed by individuals who are acting out of a concern for something larger than themselves. They are never acts for individual glory.
#14756134
Personally my view is, if religion brings a modicum of comfort then so be it, but religion should be left out of school. Children should not be brainwashed by adult dogma. Of course this will never happen because if children were not indoctrinated at an early age the chances are religion would die out. In western society at any rate.
#14756147
Red Rackham wrote:Personally my view is, if religion brings a modicum of comfort then so be it, but religion should be left out of school. Children should not be brainwashed by adult dogma. Of course this will never happen because if children were not indoctrinated at an early age the chances are religion would die out. In western society at any rate.


Ummm, we have debated on another site, which appears to have disappeared. I do agree that it is a good thing that some people get comfort from their religion, as a child does from believing in Santa Claws. The question is that should we go on encouraging people to believe in a fictitious being when all they need to do is have a few pints of real cider.
#14756161
Religion has very seldom governed polities in Europe, not just now but even 2000 years ago, Greece & Rome were governed by political institutions through politically secular officers.

When Christianity became the official religion of the Empire it still was not permitted to take over political offices and Rome made a proclamation that read: "ecclesia vivit lege Romana", which means that "the Church lives under Roman law", the Christian church itself was then organised according to Roman Law and all European countries have been organised according to Roman Law. That is however not to say that the Church has not exerted influence and at times she has also taken over gubernatorial responsibilities. This has happened whenever countries have become too weak and secular law has broken down due to war/famine, etcetera and it was in perilous times that the Church stepped in to fill the void created by plagues and wars.

There is a general misconception among people not very well versed in history that this temporary honey-moon that we have been living the past 5 or 6 decades is somehow standard in human history and not special. Also the European secular institutions have nothing to do with Europeans being better than others or establishing them recently, it only has to do with the fact that the European copied the Roman system, while Muslims and Jews did not. Both Muslims and Jews organise their communities religiously to the present day. Israel being the only Jewish community which has been forced by the UN not to go down that religious road but it still has gone down that road up to a certain extent and if it were up to the Israelis, it would go even more down that way.

If you want to talk about the influence of the church in social morality and whether we should forbid it, I ask you what about the influence of Television, Film and advertising? These institutions bombard you with moral values on a constant basis from all possible directions, within this cacophony of information why is your focus on a church that gives you a moral message far better than Hollywood films and whose influence is far less than Hollywood films?
#14756273
noemon wrote:If you want to talk about the influence of the church in social morality and whether we should forbid it, I ask you what about the influence of Television, Film and advertising? These institutions bombard you with moral values on a constant basis from all possible directions, within this cacophony of information why is your focus on a church that gives you a moral message far better than Hollywood films and whose influence is far less than Hollywood films?

The difference is the Hollywood/TV/etc institutions that do this do not claim to have an absolute/irrefutable knowledge of the world. That morality, is flexible and evolving as it should. The one from religion is rigid, with very tiny changes over time when their views become too incompatible with the general consensus at which time they give up a bit and change their "official stance".
#14756275
It is effectively irrelevant what they claim because their power is far greater than the church's and are also far less accountable. Hollywood morality is not evolving it is imposed by the morality of the producers/directors.
#14757997
I think most people at some point in their lives will feel the need to say a quiet prayer, if it hasn't happened yet don't dismiss what I'm saying because the chances are and regardless of religion, it will at some point probably happen. I feel I must at this juncture reiterate that I'm not religious myself. But in times of extreme stress or fear does a quick prayer mean you believe in a god? In my case the answer is no, it's just something that's said or possibly thought at a specific point in time that reflected events at that time and certainly doesn't make anyone religious.
#14758006
Know It All wrote:First of all, high, I am new on here, albeit I have debated on various sites for many years. My number one rule is not to personalise issues, and not to insult others, even if I consider they have daft opinions.

I was reading another thread which mutated into religion, so I thought I would do a little a digging and open things up. There are still countries in the world today which are governed primarily by religion, Islam predominantly. Most Western countries are ruled by political values, however are still tolerant toward religion. I am prepared to put my cards on the table and say I think there is as much truth behind any religion as there is Postman Pat. That's to say there may have been a Postman called Pat, but he certainly wasn't the son of a fictitious being who apparently created the earth :lol:

Of course, religion may have brought us certain values, such as the commandments and ummmm, the ten commandments. I'm sorry, but the fact is that what ever religion one chooses to follow was invented in years gone by when people really didn't know any better, and we were still dragging women around by their hair and scribbling things on rocks. I would like to think that everyone now know's better and is prepared to accept that the world is more than 5000 years old, and Kane and Able didn't produce the next generation of children.

So, the question is, if you could make religion go away with the wave of a wand, would you, or do you think that religious diversity is a positive thing ?


In my view, if it was possible to make religions go away like this, we would promptly invent some more, the more popular of which would be similar to the old ones. and some with a new-age twist such as aliens, transhumanism and a woolly feelgood environmentalism. these last would especially satisfy those who like to think they have grown beyond all that religion stuff.
#14758673
I have no idea if you could say that religion has made life worse or if it has made life better.

Regardless of religion, people find people and routines to make their lives better. I believe that some people are just born with a happy disposition and others are born to be the brooding/emo type. Some of it is heredity and some of it is that instinct to survive. It is as natural as the feeling of hunger and the desire to satisfy that hunger. And everyone has to find at least one individual to hold onto in their mind. For some it is their mother and for others, it is a belief or belief system. People just need something to keep them rooted.

Prayer is just one routine that can add stability to a person's life. Another routine could be running a mile each day.

People just want to believe in something and they want that something to show them that life is good and it is worth the struggle...that it is worth living. For many, that something is a religion.

I suppose if we ignored religion, then we would still have books, the main source of religion. Then we would find another book and make it The Book to carry around everywhere?

We humans tend to be sentimental whether we acknowledge it or not. For some, they would rather forget about that blanket that they carried with them all the time, everywhere they went as a child. Or some of us carry a lucky token or some kind of object that we think brings us luck. That in itself is a type of religion, I think because we find comfort in it. One of the purposes of religion is to bring comfort to people.

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