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 Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2009 11:44 am
I am going to leave the topic as thus: Would the world be better off without religion? As in, if the idea of a god had never existed in the first place.
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Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 10:16 am
[boo's guild]
 [ooooh, good one!]
In many ways, the world would be indefinitly better, but on most personal levels, the world would be very depressing.
Without religon, there would not have been fights, battles, wars, or persecution related to religion; which would be a wonderful thing to be rid of. Many lives would be saved. However sad on the surface those sound, they are important for life. Without war and all the lives lost, there would be even more issues with over-population. Every death helps to save the world.
You could also say that relgion helps save lives by giving people something to live for, by pursuading people to not commit suicide, but I would have to agree that saving lives is only good in moderation at this point.
Religion not only causes issues that are an anti-heroic blessing, but it also can make the world a better place, as I have found out personally. Finding my path has helped me move on with my life, past depression and being a waste of resources and into a piece of the puzzle that will be important someday.
We need religion to find meaning in our pathetic lives and to rid the world of unfortunate, excess souls. 
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Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 10:17 pm
I agree with a lot of what Captins bootie was saying.
It really is kind of hard to pick on side or the other because the pros and cons are so hardcore. But I think it is good to have religion because a lot of the time peoples religions help them find or descover them selves or where they belong. Also religion give many people hope and faith which often gives a person a reason to keep on living.
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Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 10:31 pm
My view is that while there would be no social divisions, persecution, or wars related to religion, there would also be infinite negative repercussions.
First of all, without religion, humans would be no different in their mental functioning than most other animals. Animals, as far as we know, do not possess the ability to comprehend abstract ideas such as that of a god which therefore means the sole meaning of their life revolves around surviving and finding food. Humans would, therefore, also lack a culture and live day to day with the sole intention of searching for food avoiding death.
Humans would not have produced any of the art associated with religion or developed any of the ideas that religion inspires. There would have been no reason to write or develop government other than that necessary to survive.
On the other hand, out of this pure, most basic need to survive, humans could have developed more advanced technology quicker than they presently have done. Because they needed to find the most efficient means to survive, they could have learned how to make fire rather than believing that a god was going to just give them a means of cooking food. This eventually could have led to a more genetically advanced human race than we presently have.
Because evolution revolves around survival of the fittest, humans, with no need to appease or please a god, would live only to survive and thus would most likely have evolved physically to accomplish this most basic need. We could have been looking at a robotic society by the present year, or, more sadly, one composed of infantile animals.
On the whole, we do not know if religion has helped or hurt human society. It has caused wars on a global scale but it has also created friendships and sense of purpose and belonging that all humans crave innately. We can only look to the future for answers.
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Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2009 12:53 pm
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Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2009 1:00 pm
I am still not sure if I explained my thoughts on evolution fully. If people had no reason to do anything but survive, then...wouldn't they whatever would help them survive the most efficiently?
Religion has given many people, as I said, a sense of belonging. They know where they fit in and are contented with that status. They have a path to follow and are contented with releasing their personal power to that of a god and just let themselves be guided like a string puppet. They also do not have to worry as much about survival, in one way, because if they are poor on earth, then they believe they will be rich in heaven. Or something like that, depending on the religion. It has also given people moral guidelines, a secondary set of laws to follow that no government can enforce and thus returns some sense of personal responsibility.
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Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2009 11:56 am
my personal belief is that religious theology was created by humans in an attempt to explain the unknown, it is, i think, like any other expression of creativity. It is taking in the external world and interpreting it and then explaining it as it makes sense to you.
I have a difficult time separating religion from humanity. I guess you could say that I believe, in a way, that conscious thought created God, not the other way around.
I think religion is a natural process of the human mind that will, hopefully, someday all come together for the benefit of all of us.
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Posted: Sat Nov 14, 2009 3:22 pm
I can understand why you would say that consciousness created God. We only know that 'God' exists while we are living and while we are believing. No more and no less. Humanity appears to be the only one to have created a god or to think one exists.
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Posted: Tue Jul 27, 2010 3:12 pm
Hm.
I think everything that has come across because of religion has been necessary to the development of civilization. You see, people didn't actually use religion as the basis of waging war. No, that's stupid. What they really wanted was land, money, or power, and they used religion simply as an excuse. Religion has been abused and contorted to fulfill the needs of greedy people or needy people who don't know who the enemy is, so they blame the only thing they know. Religion would be perfect and beautiful if no people ever followed it. Religion would be perfect if you were the only one on earth. It's people that have made Religion a problem.
Again, it's people that made religion. God wouldn't make up all this superfluous crap to be strictly obeyed even when the sociological need for such beliefs has become obsolete - such as the Kosher and Halaal eating rules, sociologically appropriate for one and a half millennia ago when they didn't have strictly enforced standards in place for the cleansing of meat. It's not even to explain the unknown, per-se, that religion was made. No, God was used to explain the unknown. Religion was used as a means of social order, a means of social order that has become obsolete. For all intensive purposes, without religion in the older world, we would have been very lost. I am glad religion existed. Now that most every single religious obligation aside from direct prayer is become obsolete, I don't see the need for any of it. I'd rather just worship the one who designed the universe, and give Him credit for all of existence, because I'm sure humans didn't make up the laws of the universe, because the universe has existed long before humans.
The idea of God had to have existed in the early years. Without explaining the unknown, we would, by human nature, be consumed in thought about it instead of concentrating on expanding on what we did know to develop technology that would eventually explain what we had reserved for God. As we learn more, God seems to be less and less powerful, but since what we don't know is infinite, God is infinitely powerful.
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Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2010 7:15 pm
religion in theory and when practised correctly is an amazing thing, its human interpretation and greed that mess things up. People twist and mangle the teachings to make it say what they want it to say.
in many ways it would be better beacuse not so many lives would be lost fighting for religion or beacuse of that they think there religion in telling them. i believe i would not be who i am now if it weren't for religion. i have had the chance to do things like drugs and that sort of thing but my religion is what has stopped me.
i also hate when people say i hate religion abut what they really mean is the hate Christianity. You know that is what they are saying beacuse when you ask them why all there proof is Christianity. and i tell them "there are other religions then Christianity" and when they say yes i know i ask them to point out one thing wrong with Buddhism and Hinduism or Judaism and when they don't know what to say the normally shut up pretty fast.
finely when it comes to Satanism (i feel the need to touch on this subject some people are afraid to talk about it and it get forgotten) is just about living for the pleasures of today and not worrying about the next life and just have fun and not worrying about the affects of there choices. essentially it is a philosophy with a scary name, and some freaky looking symbols such as the pentagram witch is the symbol of Venus the goddess. teens who go around with the pentagram on there shits and talking about being a satanist is just falling into the church propaganda.
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Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 9:56 pm
neatsa religion in theory and when practised correctly is an amazing thing, its human interpretation and greed that mess things up. People twist and mangle the teachings to make it say what they want it to say. neatsa finely when it comes to Satanism (i feel the need to touch on this subject some people are afraid to talk about it and it get forgotten) is just about living for the pleasures of today and not worrying about the next life and just have fun and not worrying about the affects of there choices. essentially it is a philosophy with a scary name, and some freaky looking symbols such as the pentagram witch is the symbol of Venus the goddess. teens who go around with the pentagram on there shits and talking about being a satanist is just falling into the church propaganda.
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Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2011 6:47 am
Eleiza0250 neatsa religion in theory and when practised correctly is an amazing thing, its human interpretation and greed that mess things up. People twist and mangle the teachings to make it say what they want it to say. neatsa finely when it comes to Satanism (i feel the need to touch on this subject some people are afraid to talk about it and it get forgotten) is just about living for the pleasures of today and not worrying about the next life and just have fun and not worrying about the affects of there choices. essentially it is a philosophy with a scary name, and some freaky looking symbols such as the pentagram witch is the symbol of Venus the goddess. teens who go around with the pentagram on there shits and talking about being a satanist is just falling into the church propaganda. `Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,' I said, `art sure no craven.
Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the nightly shore - The pentacle is also used in pagan religions, which is what you're describing not Wicca.
Also the pentacle used to be used in Early Christian sects as a way to describe the 5 wounds of Christ. Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'
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