Religion is a cancer, and the world would be much better off without it

Religion is a cancer, and the world would be much better off without it

I fail to see how your take away from my post, was that I am an extremist apologist.... And I am not going to entertain your strawman.


I am saying that people would still be murdering, raping, and pillaging, even without some holy excuse. As people have been doing for thousands of years, without the excuse of religion.To sit here and say that the existence of religion being wiped out would somehow change human nature, or somehow be beneficial, especially considering how easily humans justify actions for selfish reasons, is stupidly naive.

Your post suggests that if you took away religion, the same amount of violence would be occurring through other justifications. So people would still be beheading infidels, blowing up stadiums, and flying planes into buildings through other justifications, because according to you religion isn't the main root cause of these acts of violence, instead it is "human nature". The problem is we both know that you don't actually believe this, and if a Muslim exploded in a US city tomorrow you'd certainly be blaming the religion itself.

Without religion there would still be violence, but a significant type of violence would be greatly reduced. So there would be less violence than there is today. Logic 101

Just read your sig. Makes sense now.

Your post is obviously talking about muslim extremists. Religion is more then muslim extremists. There are countless attacks that were politically driven. Without religion there will still be terrorists.

But would there not be less terrorists if scripture-driven terrorism was eliminated?

Without religion, there would still be violence, oppression, and bad stuff. But the violence and oppression and bad stuff that is directly a product of fundamentalist religious belief will not exist. Therefore, by simple maths, there will be less violence and oppression and bad stuff than there is today. Why are people struggling so hard with this ITT?

Depends. If you werent promised heaven would you still act the way you do today? In my opinion, ppl's morals would go out the window when the sweet reward of Heaven wasnt on their conscious.

Except this is bull****. The safest, least violent, least oppressive countries in the world today are secular nations and within those, the ones where the actual amount of religious people is lower tend to generally fare better in most counts. The most oppressive and violent ****holes are ones which are either direct theocracies or where there is a great deal of very fundamentalist interpretation of religious text.

Places like Scandinavia have very little religious influence in either law or among the populace in general and somehow they haven't all started butchering each other, instead they are some of the safest countries in the world (well the recent influx of Islam has dampened that a bit, but still)

Morality does not find its basis in religion

Everything can be a cause for conflict, there's music that glorifies gang wars, movies glorifying violence, games made with children in mind whose objectives is to shoot others in the face. Wherever you look you can find someone doing something horrific because they're "influenced" to do so, it's a small minority sure, but that is also true for those with religious beliefs. People act like every religious person is a nut job psychopath killer, yet you could put 100 people of each religious group in a room and they'd all likely get along fine, but some how thinking banning religion some how solves something when man is influenced by just about every thing, with that attitude why not ban everything? If we can make the world a better place by removing all causes for conflict then that solves all of our problems right? Yeah, that truly is as retarded as it sounds.

If you've ever come into contact with people who have a strong faith, you might have recognised that these people are some of the most gracious, polite, giving people you could ever meet. I come from a completely non-religious background and am amazed by how loving these people can be, and they owe it all to religion. We ignore that though, there's no quantifiable way of deducing how much these people have contributed towards society in the long run, it's easier to look at negative impact because we record incidents of wrong doing with statistics, anything good that has come from religion is mostly unattributed to the cause but you can be sure a lot of good has come from it and continues to do so, because for the most part it is being practiced as intended. All religions have the same basic concept; God created everything, every star, every planet, every creature and every person is a creation of one thing, meaning there is nothing that exists that wasn't created by him, in essence then everything is equal and should be treated as such. Most religious people act in that way, to them it doesn't matter what color, race, even religious belief someone is, they try to treat everyone with complete compassion and tolerate any wrong doings against them, for the most part. There are those that get a distorted idea of what it means to devote yourself to God, but that's going to happen with everything, as I said in my previous post it's not religion that corrupts man, it's man that corrupts religion. The purpose of religion is ultimately unification and not segregation, it's segregation that is the source of all evil and will manifest itself in whatever form possible, be it gender, race, color, you name it, whatever reason people can come up with for treating someone else different has been done, will be done, and will always be done, religion itself is not the problem and so should never be treated as such, the sooner we all learn this and actually see the problem for what it is the better.

It is now completely illegal to practice or be part of anything religious.

Do you see this as a good thing or a bad thing.

I personally see it as a good thing. I have never believed in a God of any kind. Never even believed in Santa as a kid.

I also think the world will progress much faster and be a closer community due to no one true book to govern lives or try and provide all of the answers. Nothing divides people more than religion in my eyes so the sooner it does one the better.

Thoughts?

The relationship is ruined because one person is close minded and can't wrap their head around other people being different, has nothing to do with religion.

Depends. If you werent promised heaven would you still act the way you do today? In my opinion, ppl's morals would go out the window when the sweet reward of Heaven wasnt on their conscious.

I just got a 50 cent raise. 'Improvement'

Not true, people would take life more serious and stop taking it for granted. Life would be more appreciated tenfold. Maybe world hunger would end because people would physically do something about it because this would be the only life we get.

You sound naive, people divide people, some religions are just used as tools for that purpose. Lol at thinking human nature is going to miraculously cure itself with world religions out of the picture.

1st and 2nd world war.

1st: Christians against the Ottoman Empire (or rule of).

2nd: Hitler thinking he was doing "God's work" - first few pages of Mein Kampf.

lol if you really believe that. People are *******s period. If religion disappeared things wouldn't change that much. Things won't suddenly become great and people start caring more for others. You're being too optimistic. If anything, I think people would try to take more advantage of others, and get ahead since this is the only life we get. Most people already don't care much for anyone outside of their circle.

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.

OP, philosophical question for you. If not from God (Or an authority higher than any man can muster), where can Ethics come from?

There would be less unnecessary conflict. You don't agree?

Your post suggests that if you took away religion, the same amount of violence would be occurring through other justifications. So people would still be beheading infidels, blowing up stadiums, and flying planes into buildings through other justifications, because according to you religion isn't the main root cause of these acts of violence, instead it is "human nature". The problem is we both know that you don't actually believe this, and if a Muslim exploded in a US city tomorrow you'd certainly be blaming the religion itself.

Without religion there would still be violence, but a significant type of violence would be greatly reduced. So there would be less violence than there is today. Logic 101

yeah i think i can mostly agree with you on that. And no extremist threat would be good.

Edit: I guess i'm just trying to say, besides the extremist problem, religion honestly isn't affecting too much of the World negatively or positively as far as ethics are concerned. The main factor is human nature, which I'm not convinced is really affected by religion much. Some people are decent, and many are *******s. Whether religion is involved or not. Just my opinion

It's rather ridiculous that you would believe that crazy people wouldn't exist if we eliminated Islam etc.

It's rather ridiculous that you would believe that crazy people wouldn't exist if we eliminated Islam etc.