• Our friends from the Johto Times are hosting a favorite Pokémon poll - and we'd love for you to participate! Click here for information on how to vote for your favorites!
  • Welcome to PokéCommunity! Register now and join one of the best fan communities on the 'net to talk Pokémon and more! We are not affiliated with The Pokémon Company or Nintendo.
    Register

What if religion never existed?

Gymnotide

Gymnotide

8377 | Scorpaeniform
    • 3,596
    Posts
    17
    Years
    ITT: Gymnotide, trying to waste your time.
    And trying to incite cyber war.

    How would you feel? Considering religion's part in your life so far (whether through its presence or the lack thereof), what would be different? If applicable, where else would you put your faith(s)? How do you think society would be different? What do you think would have developed more, had it not been for religious influence / pressure / stigma? What wouldn't we have? What has religion done for us thus far? Do you think religion would develop today? Do you think religion is inevitable? Do you think religion has a correlation with present-day morals (even if not all people are religious)?

    I don't want anyone to play the war / prejudice card in here, though.

    And, hey! Let's take a quick moment here and recognize that I am talking about all religions here, including but not limited to monotheistic, polytheistic, atheistic, cult-based, superstition-based, ritual, spiritual, ancient, anti-, pseudo-, and scientific religions. *cough* Atheism is neither irreligiousness nor secularism.
    edit sry this was missed so I made it bigger.

    Oh, and, do yourself a favor and answer all the questions.
     
    Last edited:
    How would you feel?
    Yay, I can finally have a bus ride quietly!

    Considering religion's part in your life so far (whether through its presence or the lack thereof), what would be different?
    I probably would have gained (perhaps not the best word) the time I wasted praying, but I would waste it sitting near the PC so yeah not much different.

    If applicable, where else would you put your faith(s)?
    In myself, that I could (hopefully) find a proper relationship one day.

    How do you think society would be different?
    We won't have comedy shows mocking religious people (the ones that say stupid things)

    What do you think would have developed more, had it not been for religious influence / pressure / stigma?
    Technology.

    What wouldn't we have?
    Certain groups of people might not be with us today, I can only think of Jews since they were in secluded communities until Israel was formed.

    What has religion done for us thus far?
    Saved certain groups of people? I dunno.

    Do you think religion is inevitable?
    With the "adaptation rate" of atheism, in a few generations religion might probably be regarded as something crazy.

    Do you think religion has a correlation with present-day morals (even if not all people are religious)?
    No. There might be some similarity and it might have influenced it but I think it was minimal.

    Religion today is like.. a middlefinger to the face. Hell, even people who are "religious" middlefinger it commonly. Like guys who would jump at any opportunity and girls who don't know what modesty is. And really that's just a common example, most religious people don't commit even half of the commandments or whatever they're called.
     
    This would basically mean what if nobody gave a damn if there was a god or not?

    Heck, there wouldn't be any wars! Nobody would be a dick! We'd actually be a happy world! And I go with Family Guy that we'd be about 100 years more technologically advanced than we are right now.

    Terrorism is a temper tantrum from Islam because his brother Christianity is being mean.
     
    AdvancedK47 said:
    This would basically mean what if nobody gave a damn if there was a god or not?

    Heck, there wouldn't be any wars! Nobody would be a dick! We'd actually be a happy world! And I go with Family Guy that we'd be about 100 years more technologically advanced than we are right now.

    Terrorism is a temper tantrum from Islam because his brother Christianity is being mean.
    Click to expand...

    There are over 9000 things wrong with what you just posted.

    Are you really blaming religion for all of the world's woes? Plenty of wars weren't fought over religion. I also personally know many very kind religious people, along with many very unkind nonreligious people.

    And did you really just state that terrorism is an Islamic thing? Just wow...
     
    How would you feel?
    Nothing, as usual.

    Considering religion's part in your life so far (whether through its presence or the lack thereof), what would be different?
    I wouldn't have wasted five years worth of sundays at church.

    If applicable, where else would you put your faith(s)?
    Myself.

    How do you think society would be different?
    Lot of ways. The two towers would (most likely) still be standing, we wouldn't have all these extremely invasive airport security searches and a multitude of other things.

    What do you think would have developed more, had it not been for religious influence / pressure / stigma?
    Whole list of things. Cloning technologys, genetic engineering, technology (In general) astronomy (Well, modern astronomy would have developed sooner since people way back then would have been more accepting of the earth NOT being the center of the universe.) early history (Remember, way back then historians decided that the earth was only 3k something years old. They used the bible to come to this conclusion.) gay rights, and a multitude of other things

    What wouldn't we have?
    A tax-exempt group who takes in millions of dollars a year, and always needs a little bit more. (Try to figure out what this refrence is from.)

    What has religion done for us thus far?
    Caused the crusades? Murdered thirty some innocent people up in salem a few hundred years back, gave birth to some of the most disturbed people to ever exist,

    Do you think religion is inevitable?
    I'd give it a hundred or so years and religion will be pretty much a thing of the past (With how quick athiesm is catching on)

    Do you think religion has a correlation with present-day morals (even if not all people are religious)?
    Not really.

    Religion is nothing more then a scheme to control people.
     
    FreakyLocz14 said:
    There are over 9000 things wrong with what you just posted.

    Are you really blaming religion for all of the world's woes? Plenty of wars weren't fought over religion. I also personally know many very kind religious people, along with many very unkind nonreligious people.

    And did you really just state that terrorism is an Islamic thing? Just wow...
    Click to expand...
    To be fair, just how many terrorist attacks can you atribute to Christians/Catholics/Buddhists/Taoists etc.? I doubt anywhere near as much as Muslims. Not to mention making cartoons or fun of Jesus/Buddha doesn't have people giving death threats.
     
    I thought this thread was about Religion never existing, not Islamic Terrorism.

    Though I'll have a say on both.

    If religion never existed, lots of things would change. Most people in the world are not atheists, and for a good reason. Now, I'm not saying all of them would fall apart...but a good majority would. God/deities gives people hope. They can provide the impossible. They can change things that we can't. Take that away, and people begin to relize how mortal/insignificant they really are.

    And on terrorism, grow up. When will someone say something good about Islam? Instead of targeting the negative, try learning a thing or two before you bring something like that up. I'm getting tired of people sounding like a broken tape recorder, as if other religions/atheists haven't done anything wrong. And who's to say anyone is wrong?
     
    Irreligious / secular* not atheist plz
     
    Religion (in the eastern hemisphere anyway - meaning all the big 5) basically started when humans were first able to grow enough food to allow some of their tribes to devote their time to other activities besides keeping themselves fed. Before, everyone had to hunt or gather to stay alive. I'm talking about religion as an institution of authority, btw. Humans have long had spiritual or mystical or whatever attitudes as evidenced by very early human burials. Religion is really just an early authority and often not very different from a chief or monarch who can have some of the same "powers" a priest has. They have power because they know how the world works and/or because they have a special relationship with the supernatural. For religion not to have developed it would mean people's view of the natural world was one in which everyone could commune with it and that there was no particular authority figure who knew how to make it rain, or protect people from dangers, and so on. You might have to have an egalitarian culture of sorts for this to happen, or possibly a culture which does not have a need or interest in the supernatural though it's hard to see how an early human society could develop without some kind of supernatural understanding of the world since there are so many things that just beg you to explain them, such as why the moon or the seasons change.

    What would develop differently is all a matter of how the culture that didn't develop religion developed instead. If it were an inquisitive culture, one that didn't have a "this is how the spirit world works" or a "this is how the ancestors want us to act" then it might develop technology faster than our cultures did, but maybe not since some of the drive to develop better tools came from a desire of people to better understand "god's universe" or something along those lines. Would it be more peaceful without religion? I think that falls under a question of whether or not the culture has an authority figure who can lead people to fight when it wouldn't be in their interests to do so, i.e., when they should be worried about feeding and sheltering themselves. People have fought for resources, for food and such, and that would happen regardless of religion, but they have also fought for ideological reasons (religion) and for reasons of power (political).

    I suppose I think in some way religion is inevitable since, according to how I've defined it, religion only requires a culture that has a hierarchy and a desire to explain the world around them. These two things seem to be very common across human cultures. How exactly each culture goes about its religion is the real question. I suppose that without these things that make religion possible you'd also be without other things that make science and freethinking possible, that is, writing. If people don't care about the world around them then they have no reason to develop writing. Without writing you probably can't get the kind of scientific achievements we've seen in the last hundreds of years. Certainly some things would be possible, such as wheels, but when even in our own real history many of the greatest inventors and greatest discoveries were made across vast distances it would be virtually impossible for one person to learn from another's work and build off of it without writing.

    I really can't say what our morality would be like without religion. Again, it's a matter of how a particular religion acts. I'm not implying that religion is the source of morality though. Rather, I think that morality is something that just comes as part of a complex culture and that religion is a similar byproduct. They're more side-by-side than one-from-the-other in my view, though they can of course influence each other.

    And this is getting too long so I'm just going to stop here.
     
    AdvancedK47 said:
    Alright

    Yep.

    World War II. Quality > Quantity.

    But you should ask why the kindness or unkindness. The kind ones are afraid of rotting in hell, and the unkind ones are simply having a fit over the stupidity of a concept of hell.




    I'm trying to fit politically with the American point of view. What else matters, right?
    Click to expand...

    1) So now WWII is the only war that ever happened? What about WWI, the American Civil War, the Vietnam War, etc.?

    2) So now your're resulting to stereotypes? Idk if this is a bad attempt to be funny/sarcastic, or trolling, but it's not cool. The United States has approximately 300 million people in it. I seriously doubt that you can accurately state that they all believe that all Muslims are terriorists.
     
    I think we'd have minus'd a few wars from our history, not had centuries being held back by the catholic church during the middle ages, and would learn to depend on ourselves more to get by day to day, in the case of the faithful.

    I think FreakyLocz is a little biased when she says she knows very many kind religious people and very many unkind atheists. I don't think she's lying, but exaggerating just a little or only saying things that benefit what she wants others to believe. Religion and kindness do not go hand in hand, and implying that with religion you're a better person which I think she does here;

    I also personally know many very kind religious people, along with many very unkind nonreligious people.
    Click to expand...

    is so silly. I know tons of people who are nice, religious and non religious. Likewise I know tons of judging, rude and arrogant people, religious and non religious. Because you follow a religion doesn't necessarily mean you're a nice person, which because of things like religion is more of a subjective term than it needs to be.

    As for the Islam thing, I know that not all of them support terrorism, but pretending that things like 9/11 aren't a direct cause of religious misguidance is ridiculous even in the name of appearing.. I don't even know. All I'm saying is, while some people in the Islam religion might be misguided, that doesn't mean they all are, but that doesn't dismiss what those select few have done.
     
    If religion had never been invented, the world would be a far better place. Religion is the major wall of opposition to everything that has the potential to make our lives better. I'm not saying it is the only wall, but there have been very few concepts - social or scientific - introduced to the world that haven't been challenged on ridiculous religious grounds.

    What wouldn't we have? Fear. Fear of divine retribution, fear that living the way that makes us happy will displease the immortal deity who acts as judge and supposedly has the power to make our eternal lives hell if we mess up our mortal ones.

    I have more to say but quoting is too hard on an iPhone lol. But needless to say, I fail to see one down side of a world without religion.

    Oh and freaky, religion hasn't started every war, but it has started a lot of them. And terrorism may not be an Islamic thing, but it certainly is a religious one.
     
    FreakyLocz14 said:
    1) So now WWII is the only war that ever happened? What about WWI, the American Civil War, the Vietnam War, etc.?

    2) So now your're resulting to stereotypes? Idk if this is a bad attempt to be funny/sarcastic, or trolling, but it's not cool. The United States has approximately 300 million people in it. I seriously doubt that you can accurately state that they all believe that all Muslims are terriorists.
    Click to expand...

    Oh, World War I was a political mess, alright. But it was about 1/3 of the casualties of WWII. The Civil War and Vietnam War are much less comparable than that. World War II simply shows the deep crap religion can spout compared to political temper tantrums.

    Ok, I made an overstatement. But by what I see on the news often, that's what it looks like. And I did state that the larger number of terrorists that Americans pay attention to are Muslim, but not that all Muslims are terrorists.
     
    lol I love it when my threads incite war.

    My personal view of religion is as follows:

    Not disregarding its positives, but considering its negatives very little, religion is the most powerful tool invented in mankind. It's one that appeals to the base emotions of fear, hope, happiness, guilt, among other things. It serves (not as its sole function, but as one of its big ones) to control the population. Shinto, a religion based almost completely on fear, is a prime example of this--you fear that bad things (not necessarily divinely-wrought) will happen to you, so you act better and avoid troubles. Others, like Norse Paganism, seek to bolster the view of mankind and understand its place in the world by creating the stage on which man's life occurs. Greek polytheism is a combination of the two (and, among the three mentioned, is the most misunderstood, regrettably). Still others, like Jain, preach complete pacifism and perhaps are as harmless as they get.
     
    I tried to type a tl;dr but it's not working out.

    So basically, Religion created culture. There's no way around it and deny it. No music, since it was commonly used to worship spirits. No art since most artistic discoveries were based on religious art. Heck, almost all Middle Age art is religious. I'm not saying it wouldn't develop independently, but it wouldn't develop as fast since none of these people would have inspiration. I mean, Da Vinci and Michaelangelo with the Last Supper and Sistine Chapel drawings respectively are prominent examples. Modern art is based off the techniques that developed from these artists and many more, whose art was influenced from the religious art of the Middle Ages.

    Oh and people arguing we wouldn't have modern day advances like cloning and stem-cell research. We wouldn't even have even gotten that far without religion due to its great influences in world history. There would be practically no order. All our morals of modern day society are partly influenced by religion. The roots of nations, Western society's especially, are build on Christian morals. Without religion, you would need another force to unify people, or at least develop similar morals. Civilization is shattered otherwise.

    Tl;dr, The human mind works in a way that we fear punishment. Much like how you wouldn't want to be grounded. It influences you to not do anything bad. Without punishment, you can do bad things freely, and it would be very hard to resist temptation without punishment to dissuade them. However if you do get grounded, you learn your lesson and become a greater person. Which would be like religion influencing people to not do bad things and work toward the greater good.

    Sorry if this is confusing, I think I confused myself actually.
     
    If religion never existed than leaders would try to find some other excuse to go to war with others...
    Lots of religious wars have actually started due to secular forces...
    Who knows the Middle Eastern terrorists might still bomb us but will use the "you darn americans are stealing our oil" instead of islam.
     
    I believe that religion is an inevitability, considering I(and other people) wouldn't want to grow up knowing that I can only work hard in life to find out that there is nothing after death. A lie to give us hope in a world without religion would make us feel better and that life is worth living to it's fullest. Though as in for how the people would be different; racism, stereotypes, homophobia would still exist the world, but generally more people would be accepting and tolerant. As for technology, we would most likely be more advanced by at least one thousand years... perhaps only a few hundred. But without religion a lot of great masterpieces of art and music will never have existed and people would never know the beauty that has been lost, I feel sorry for them for not getting the chance to see/hear what they miss out on.
    Who knows what wars will be started over without some form of religious belief being insulted, maybe someone will steal cookies or developing technology and not even giving credit to who made it possible, maybe it would be an AI rebellion, assuming there are AIs at that time. Though I don't think people would allow AIs to roam free without having restrictions placed on them.

    I did type up a final statement, but it divulges onto religious intolerance of previous posts made in this thread. And I really can't see myself making another post in this thread without breaking out a fight with someone over historical inaccuracies or how intolerant they are to the truth.
     
    AdvancedK47 said:
    This would basically mean what if nobody gave a damn if there was a god or not?

    Heck, there wouldn't be any wars! Nobody would be a dick! We'd actually be a happy world! And I go with Family Guy that we'd be about 100 years more technologically advanced than we are right now.

    Terrorism is a temper tantrum from Islam because his brother Christianity is being mean.
    Click to expand...

    No wars at all?
    Family Guy? What is this?

    Tempter tantrum from Islam? Brother Christianity?
    I have the urge to check which parallel universe I belong to, because I seem to be forgetting.
    A lot of people would find that offensive.

    Spoiler:
     
    Last edited:
    Wish said:
    So basically, Religion created culture. There's no way around it and deny it. No music, since it was commonly used to worship spirits. No art since most artistic discoveries were based on religious art. Heck, almost all Middle Age art is religious. I'm not saying it wouldn't develop independently, but it wouldn't develop as fast since none of these people would have inspiration. I mean, Da Vinci and Michaelangelo with the Last Supper and Sistine Chapel drawings respectively are prominent examples. Modern art is based off the techniques that developed from these artists and many more, whose art was influenced from the religious art of the Middle Ages.
    Click to expand...

    You said it yourself; there's no way to know that any of these things wouldn't have developed independently. And wouldn't it have been great if they could have been developed using a positive force rather than a negative one? Art and music are great things, but they have come at a serious price.

    Oh and people arguing we wouldn't have modern day advances like cloning and stem-cell research. We wouldn't even have even gotten that far without religion due to its great influences in world history. There would be practically no order. All our morals of modern day society are partly influenced by religion. The roots of nations, Western society's especially, are build on Christian morals. Without religion, you would need another force to unify people, or at least develop similar morals. Civilization is shattered otherwise.
    Click to expand...

    I honestly don't believe any of that. Religion has been an enemy of science and change every step of the way, because every new idea introduced to the world that contradicted the religious texts challenged their toxic stranglehold on the minds of the masses. And to suggest that religion created order itself is a serious underestimation of the human race and its abilities. Humans created order and used religion as a tool of fear to maintain it.

    Also, to suggest that humans are unable to identify basic morals without a controlling force is also a serious underestimation. It does not take a Bible to know killing is wrong; it only takes common sense. Common sense which would be developed simply by watching people mourn the death of a loved one.

    The human mind works in a way that we fear punishment. Much like how you wouldn't want to be grounded. It influences you to not do anything bad. Without punishment, you can do bad things freely, and it would be very hard to resist temptation without punishment to dissuade them. However if you do get grounded, you learn your lesson and become a greater person. Which would be like religion influencing people to not do bad things and work toward the greater good.
    Click to expand...

    This is true, but there is a big gap between fear of being grounded and fear of burning in the fires of hell for all eternity :P. If anybody independent of religion had tried to say that, it would have been considered emotional abuse / blackmail. I'm not sure that's for the greater good.
     
    I personally believe that Religion does play an important part in my life and without it, there would be ignorance like before Islam Pagan Makkah used to burry their daughters alive, used to worship idols and engage in fornification and other illegal acts. There were many cruelties and sufferings in the society back in those days and if religion never existed, humanity would never tend to live in peace. Religion gives us guidance, set of morals and ethics that we should follow in order to live a peaceful life and it would be really hard to imagine life without god and religion. There wouldn't be any life what so ever because God created everything. If He didn't exist, we wouldn't exist either, simple as that. Humans need someone who they can depend on, ask help from and there has to be a power looking out for us in case of emergency. Otherwise, there is no purpose of our life. If there was no religion, people would do anything they wanted without actually caring about the consequences. Religion will also help someone be a better person because it teaches them the difference of what is right and what's wrong. If people didn't believe in a religion then they probably wouldn't have any idea what would happen after they die. With that being said, and Religion as a whole isn't bad, it's people who play it as a tool which they use as an excuse to feel better than somebody or cause harm to somebody and to justify hate, murder etc etc. It's all because of hatred and intolerance among people and I don't blame religion for it. It's the way people interpret the teaching in a wrong way and we can't do anything about those people.

    AdvancedK47 said:
    Heck, there wouldn't be any wars! Nobody would be a dick! We'd actually be a happy world! And I go with Family Guy that we'd be about 100 years more technologically advanced than we are right now.

    Terrorism is a temper tantrum from Islam because his brother Christianity is being mean.
    Click to expand...

    There wouldn't be any wars? Are you kidding me? If this were true, then surely atheism would lead to a more peaceful world. But has it? No!
    Religion doesn't cause war. It's people who misinterpret the context and there are some who even twist the teachings of a particular religion and people follow them blindly as if they are always right. Unfortunately, people like to pick and choose, and humanity being as flawed as we are, we will do what we can to exploit things for our own ends. If there was no religion, people would still fight for money, power and territory so what's the difference?

    I guess you have been watching fox news which has nothing better to do other than portraying false picture of Islam and people actually believe all of the BS that media says. It's just sick, really. Come to think of it! If Islam really were a religion that promotes violence, why is it that we have never heard of the "Islamic terrorism" during Holy Prophet, Hazrat Muhammad's ( PBUH) time after whole of Makkah and Madinah accepted Islam? So yeah, you shouldn't judge Islam based on the actions of the Muslims. If a Muslim does a heinous crime then do not generalize this to all Muslims or say that this is what Islam teaches.
     
    You must log in or register to reply here.
    Back
    Top