Imagine NO Religion...Would the world be more peaceful?

A few questions such as this one in particular, have been floating across my mind lately.

With Religion, there comes wars, dogmas, arrogance, questionable doctrines, etc etc.

Some have even suggested that religion was 'created' to control the masses. - to what extent, and how far?

My old signature had these words: Religion is man-made, but faith comes from God

If I never knew of religion...would I have a faith in God (whatever I conceive this entity to be)?

Anyways...let's get back to the title of my thread.

Supposing that Religion is taken out of the equation altogether, my question to you all would be:

"Would our world be a more peaceful place?"

Thoughts?

~Ducky~

i think you would have less violence based on differences in religious belief, but it may be offset by the lack of any fear of god that keeps a lot of people in line.

No, humankind would just figure out another dumb reason to wage war.

Race, cultural differences, food, territory, whatever. religion has been abused by people in power to rally the population behind them, making them believe God wants them to fight the good fight. It has been used as a cattle prod way to many times.

This is my idea of utopia. A society that needs not to be told what to think. Fear not what they do not know. And does not what they would not have done to them.

Just peace. Simple respect for one another. It's easy!!

reply to post by TheDuckster


One could assume so, if one was under the perception that people believe in God because they believe that it is the divine and correct thing to do.

Otherwise, one would have to assume that there are people out there who don't believe in any particular God whatsoever and yet still choose to ravage the land in land rovers firing cold-war era AK-47s at civilians.

Does Religion have anything to do with the mass-genocides in places like Rwanda or suchlike?


There are hundreds, if not thousands of examples where wars (both small and large) have been fought with no reference to ANY higher power.

If you can't disprove this, then i'm going to assume you're stabbing with the dagger of light into the darkness of confusion.

Originally posted by an0maly33
i think you would have less violence based on differences in religious belief, but it may be offset by the lack of any fear of god that keeps a lot of people in line.

Why fear a god, when all you have to do is ask for forgiveness, then you have a clean slate.

As for the OP, I think we would have a much different world today. Religions are designed to control Some of us, and to pit us against others to keep us divided.

I don't think it's religion that has caused all the wars and disharmony, but rather people's inability to keep an open mind and allow others to believe and follow their own faiths.

It's hard to find people that can discuss different religious views without it erupting into a heated and controversial discussion. Most people are very passionate about their beliefs and want to/need to believe that they're right. If they were to allow even for a moment, doubt to creep in, it would show a weakness in their belief system. Noone wants to be weak, or uncertain, and in some cases proven wrong.

These are my thoughts on it anyway.

Michelle

Originally posted by TheDuckster
Imagine NO Religion...Would the world be more peaceful?

Well, take a look at the models of anti-religious countries. China, N. Korea, and the U.S.S.R.

These countries did their best to elimitate religion and no one with any serious religious convictions were allowed in power. Are these the model of what society would look like without religion? I can't help but to think yes.

While I am neither a Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, or agnostic, I don't see how you can remove some form of believing in a higher power and still have human development from our dim past to the present.

What I mean is, once proto humans developed the idea of time as a transitory thing, with a "before" and an "after", then the next natural step was to wonder about applying those concepts to life. To just have memory of yesterday must at some point bring the idea of tomorrow, and the visible death of others must lead to speculation of a tomorrow for those who are "like self" when they die.

Therefore, society could hardly develop without some form of religion. It seems a safe bet, IMO, that when contact is ever made with aliens, we will find that they too have some form(s) of religion or belief in an afterlife. I seriously doubt that sentience could arise without it.

More to the topic, it is one of the cables the bind us as humans to life itself. Without this mooring, it is likely that there would be a continuance of initiative for our species, leading to stagnation and eventual devolvement.

"fear" wasn't meant to be taken literally. i sort of meant that a lot of people learn their values and morals through religion. unless there was some other mechanism that instilled those values, don't think you would see any major decrease in violence.

[edit on 14-3-2008 by an0maly33]

If we look at history , there were wars due to religion and there were a lot more due to other reasons. Ours and Theirs selections do not depend only on religion or even ideology, thus wars are fought not always due to religion or ideology. I think that if one morning all religions magically disappear, number of conflicts will not change drastically,because all other reasons are still there.

Originally posted by Harman
No, humankind would just figure out another dumb reason to wage war.

Yeah. Exactly. People are stupid that way. Check out this transcript of a little exercise in prejudice Oprah had on her show:
Blue Eyes vs. Brown Eyes

How stupid is that? And people discriminate nonetheless.

People will discriminate over anything. That's why I think people who condemn all religions and say it's the root of all evil to be no better than the religious folks they condemn. It's not the religion(s) that are at fault (after all the root and core message of all religions ask it's adherents to be good to one another) but humanity's inherent flaw to discriminate. To discriminate and politicize the discrimination for a sense of identity and belonging.

Idiots.

Edit to add: The following paper discusses how people politicise all kinds of issues to discriminate and eventually justify war/genocide.

socrates.berkeley.edu...

It's got to do with manipulating people's emotional triggers.

[edit on 14/3/2008 by Beachcoma]

Honestly, I think that we'd just fight over something else. Hell, we have gangs in cities that fight over buildings!!!

While religion does indeed cause its share of conflict, I don't see where eliminating it is going to be a viable option to peace.. In all reality, what it will do is further the "us against them" mentality that a lot of fanatics have.

Any time you start messing with people's beliefs, you're treading on thin ice. Another things is that when you start deleting religions from the world, you encounter the problem of where to stop.

Do you do away with any form of spirituality, period? If so, then you are really going to have a fight on your hands from people such as myself and others. A world without belief in something would be a sad world indeed. I don't think this world needs anymore sadness....

Originally posted by SpeakerofTruth
Honestly, I think that we'd just fight over something else. Hell, we have gangs in cities that fight over buildings!!!

Agreed. I was thinking of the tribes slaughtering each other in Rwanda. To anybody from outside the area, you couldn't tell them apart. But to them, the differences are so big and obvious that they seem to think it's worth hacking at each other with machetes.

On the other hand, our global trading system has people of all colors and religions and tribes working extremely hard to cooperate with each other and keep goods flowing.

So our mutual hatreds can be mitigated at least somewhat by good old money.

The thread title could also be saying:

"Imagine everyone having the same lifestyle and the same opinion and the same clothes on...Wouldnt the world be more peaceful?"





Yes it would. But I dont want that kind of peace.


Not getting rid of beliefs but instead respecting differences...thats the kind of peace Id like.

[edit on 14-3-2008 by Skyfloating]

Thankyou everyone for your responses so far.

I'm seeing a few common denominators from most of the posts.

1. Eliminating Religion may or may not stop the strife in this world.
2. There will ALWAYS be something to fight about, if religion wasn't in the picture.

Dbates brought up a good point. i.e. Communist Russia is kinda the ultimate testing grounds to the topic of this thread. The results are evident (from the onset of communism unto this day). There were underground religious/spiritual movements that thrived regardless of the prevailing circumstances.

~Ducky~

NO. Just look at Stalin, Lenin, and Mao. 'Nuff said.

reply to post by chromatico


Care to elaborate? I DO appreciate your thoughts.

Thankyou kindly!

~Ducky~

reply to post by TheDuckster


These were all anti-religious leaders and were responsible for far more slaughtering than any religious leader ever was.

reply to post by chromatico


Let me see if I read you properly. (Correct me if I'm wrong)

These people, that you mentioned, were 'right up there' with being 'just as bad' as those who were 'head of religious organizations'?

~Ducky~