This

I didn't single out any specific religion.

Sometimes right is right...and we "SINGLE OUT" christianity because its the leading religion here in the states. BUT in all forms,religion sux

If I do and am convicted then I face wasting my life in prison or facing step backs on my life path. Not for the fact I might not get heaven when I die. Why would I jeopardise my time alive by going against the judicial system in a modern civilised society?

Hindus don't go to church.

Muslims don't go to church.

Jews don't go to church.

Sikhs don't go to church.

Zoroastrians don't go to church.

I think if you swap the word "church" for "place of worship", that was the point being made.

At what point are you referring to Russia being not a nice place and why was that?

I don't know anyone in real life, who I think would be a better person if they weren't religious. Sure there's internet/tv characters we hear about, but if you know someone who is a religious dumbass, then it's pretty likely they would just be a normal dumbass without religion.

Inb4 non-stem majors saying there are no intelligent religious people.

word games....synagogue, temple, house of worship, mosque.....all are churches for their religion

In your first sentence, you are ascertaining that physical punishment/reward is what makes something wrong. In the next sentence you ascertain that non-physical punishment/reward has no bearing on your ethics. This is illogical, because the subject we are talking about, ethics, is an intangible thing like honor.

Where do ethics come from?
Are you going to bow to a government and do what they tell you. regardless of what they tell you?

Happy Independence Day America! But not you OP, you're spelling like a Brit so fuk off you lobsterback son of a bitch.

Books causing wars now?

Come on.

Anything that restricts my fundamental freedoms is a bad thing. But it wouldn't change anything for me personally, I'd still practice as I usually do (very personally) and act as I usually do.

Christianity is the only reason why there is civilization and the reason 99% of the misc is still alive

Honestly lol'd at him thinking ww2 had anything to do with Religion

When I, and everyone else, die we cease to be. You either get fried or stuck in the ground. You don't go to a nice place and you don't go to a bad place of get refused entry tot he nice place, so my choices between right and wrong are based on living in a society and being a valued member of that society, not a cult or through fear of some imaginary cloud fairy.

I live in a democratic society so some of the time you get things your way and other times you don't.

The way I interact in society is influenced by my family and friends. Not once have I been told I'd best do x,y and z or some person in a book will get miffed, might as well tell kids if you behave then the BFG will give you good dreams or if you are naughty then the other giants will come and eat you.

"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."

/thread

I know, sounds crazy doesn't it?

If you're simple enough to think religions start wars IDEK what to tell you.

America is the least religious we've ever been right now, and we've been at war since 2001.

I could be wrong as I'm no history buff, but no leader has ever stood before his people and said "we need to go to war cause I need more money".

Instead what they do is say "hey you're just like me, well that person isn't like us, so let's get them", that has nothing to do with religion, other than guy A and guy B having that religion in common.

You're completely ignoring that people have, and have always been financially motivated to go to war, and that financial motivation was sometimes under the guise of religious differences.

Christmas hates him

Click here to see more

Lot of inanimate things have control over you?

Idk about making it illegal but if everyone just realized it was BS and stopped believing then the world would be a much better place

Man you miscers are stupid, like another level of stupidity. How can you be this stupid in 2017?

Gold, Drugs, Money, Oil.

I'm sure Javier will stop chopping off heads once religion is outlawed.
I'm sure John will stop buying hookers off the black market once religion is outlawed
I'm sure politicians will stop being corrupt once religion is outlawed.

Humans have a need to believe in something greater than them. Our world leaders need to be held accountable to a higher power or belief. If you take away religion and peoples ability to believe in a higher power then the state becomes the supreme authority for your society. The state is what determines right and wrong and because of human nature, horrible things result from it. If you want to see what happens when religion is outlawed, look at the USSR under Stalin. 60 million people died under his rule. Look at Egypt, the pharoahs were seen as living gods and incapable of doing wrong. The Nazi's were in the process of outlawing religion as Christianity wasn't compatible with state values. Look how those empires turned out.

You don't have to be religious but you can't just discredit religion and how it has benefited our society. Judeo-Christian values are what built the society that you live, thrive, and are allowed to think freely today. The judeo-christian value that salvation comes from within and not the state is revolutionary. Some religions actually encourage free thinking.It's not so simple as that. It goes back to the age old question of "What is good and evil". Some philosophers such as Nietzsche have argued that man cannot be good until he realizes his capacity for evil. Humans by nature are selfish creatures. If you outlaw religion and belief in a higher power than humans resort to their basic instincts to determine their actions. OP, you live in a first world society that was built on judeo-christian values. It's easy to say that right now. You have all your basic needs met. But imagine yourself in a situation where you are starving, I mean truly starving. How would you act then? I don't know how I would act but I wouldn't put it beyond me to do some extreme/potentially horrible stuff. Here is an interesting quote to ponder by C.S. Lewis (the guy who wrote Chronicles of Narnia).

“No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness — they have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means — the only complete realist.”

You don't have to be religious but it would be absolutely foolish to disregard the belief systems that our ancestors formed to make our society as obsolete and useless. Our ancestors were smart, they have struggled, worked hard, and shed blood and tears to build the society that you live in today. Don't ever think that you are superior to your ancestors and their belief systems. That's why many religions consider Pride the greatest sin. Pride is a reckless confidence in yourself and the inability to humble yourself to learn from the life experiences of our ancestors. Many people today think that just because they can operate a smartphone that they are superior and more enlightened than their ancestors. That's bad thinking.

The video below is worth a watch. It can be found in a podcast. It's a long video but definitely worth listening to while your cleaning house or driving your car or something. Some of the misc knows about him but he is a very smart guy who gets it. I'm not the most religious guy but he has changed my view on how I view religions.

They didn't claim the world would be a utopia without religion did they? Just that it would be relatively better once you remove one significant cause of a great deal of violence and oppression. You're the one being stupid here

And why have you been at war since 2001 (except being told to do so by the Arabs because it'd be good for Bush business)?

You might want to look up what happened when the Muslims conquered Jerusalem, doesn't help having the same place as the centre of three major religions to be fair. Even various factions under the same religion come to blows. Also try The Iranian revolution maybe? India - Pakistan? Buddhist revolt in Vietnam?

100% the world would be a better place without religion, there is no doubt of that, it still won't be perfect but it would be a step in the right direction for certain.

Bad thing, religion doesn't corrupt it becomes corrupt. The people that use religious doctrine to carry out actions such as war would find some other reason to justify their actions, profiting from those they can exploit in whatever way possible, whereas the practices many people routinely commit in genuine servitude do good for them and others, praying (actual praying not just wishing for selfish chit), chanting, meditating, remaining faithful and committed to their partners, performing charity and practising forgiveness and tolerance, would very rarely be carried out if everyone is just acting on their impulses alone, but these actions subdue the egoic sense of self in favor of acting for the good of all. That's not to say that's not done in any way without religion, non-religious people act humane all the time, but most of the time it's when they can justify their actions, it's a very rare thing to have a person act truly selflessly when they can't justify a reason for doing so, religion helps in that sense because people will go out of their way to do just about anything if they have a strong faith so it's not a bad thing it exists.

People tend to focus on the negatives when it comes to religion, citing the wars etc that have been carried out for religious purposes, but religion doesn't make man go to war it's man's nature to go to war, life itself will exploit what it can, when it can, and as often as it can as ruthlessly as possible as long as it continues to benefit from that exploitation. Religion doesn't give birth to war or exploitation, nature is war, nature is exploitation, and so anything that encourages people to act selflessly is not a bad thing, the common consensus in all religions is that acting selfishly and doing things such as killing is ultimately wrong, but people who tend to hate on religion ignore its fundamental principles and focus on all the bad things that have happened in the name of religion when bad things happen for just about every reason anyway with or without religion.

What religion do these monkeys practice?:



That was your cue to stop.

It would be overall a good thing, but we would need a replacement ethical system to help people figure out things in life.

Atheists always forget that people believe in mystical things for a reason. Most atheists are just pissed at the stupidity of the beliefs and don't see that people need them.

Better how retard? Relatively my ass. We'd all still be wage slaves, Taxes will continue to rise, the dollar with decrease in value, this country will over flow with stupidity, there'd still be drug addicts, government would still be corrupt.


Religion could disappear in thin air and NOTHING in our lives would change.

a world without religion? sign me up.