How would the world be without the idea of "God"?

What would be of humanity if the whole idea of a "God", dieties, afterlife, or anything was never cemented into society but just a phase of human life and died as an idea? If Christianity didn't exist or Judaism or ANY religion.

Is religion just (due to anyones perspective) a necessary evil and/or element of life?

What do you think?

[edit on 25-3-2010 by QuetzalcoatlAlien]

Humanity is scared of oblivion. Because of this, religion will carry on for sometime. We evolved becoming more self aware, and as a result, became dependent on imaginary friends to comfort our fears of unknowns. I think religion was a necessary step in our evolution, so if we didn't ever have religion, we'd still be monkeys of some sort. When religion is finally seen for what it is, IMO a series of fantasies needed to satisfy our curiosities and comfort our desire to be whole and live forever, humanity will be much better off. That's if we actually make it to that point.

[edit on 25-3-2010 by unityemissions]

It does not have to involve God or the afterlife to be considered a religion.

One particular religion has been cleverly injected into contemporary science books. It is based on the belief that the time, space, and matter originated from an infinitesimal region.

This cannot be observed, tested, or demonstrated, so belief is required and is therefore religious.

Man himself would have to be destroyed for the world to be devoid of all religion.

That is a tough question and a very good question! For a very long time i thought that religion was "the devil" but i am starting to change my mind on this view.

I used to believe that if the world had no religion than the world would be more peaceful because you can't argue with someone over religion.

But now i think it would all be the same. Religion is a double edged sword. It helps people believe in life and give people a reason to live. It also let's the powers that be control people.

But i think we would still have the same problems. Over population would force people to move into new territories. Just like the europeans coming to america, i don't think religion caused the problems between the natives and the whites.

I think the real question is what would the world be like without governments?

Or what would the world be like without Technology?

Religion is actually too broad a term to cover with a single umbrella. For example, most forms of Buddhism are very open-ended and non-committal about questions such as the existence of a supreme being or the origin/end of the universe. Fundamentalist Christianity or Islam, on the other hand, stress certain truths about these topics very strongly. But even these religions cannot be characterized by their fundamentalist strains. Mystical Christianity has existed since the early years after Christ, and Sufi Islam is also mystical, sharing a more open-ended and non-text-based approach to religion.

In fact, religious scholar Karen Armstrong points out:

...It is, for example, crucial to note than an exclusively literal interpretation of the Bible is a recent development. Until the 19th century, very few people imagined that the first chapter of Genesis was a factual account of the origins of life. For centuries, Jews and Christians relished highly allegorical and inventive exegesis, insisting that a wholly literal reading of the bible was neither possible nor desireable.

-Karen Armstrong, "The Bible; A Biography."

So, before this thread goes too much farther, remind yourself that "religion" is not at all defined by the most rigid and orthodox varieties that tend to grab attention. Far from it. Nor is it in any way incompatible with science and rationality, if approached in a nuanced and intelligent way. Do not make the mistake of projecting the most dogmatic and inflexible versions of "religion" onto the whole range of human activities that go under that name. No phenomenon in life is defined entirely by its cartoonish extremes.

[edit on 3/25/10 by silent thunder]

Edited guys

I didn't fully realize the broadness of the term "religion", sorry!

Religion is an inevitible production of a sentient species.

I can almost garantee that every type of sentient life out there went through a stage of the religious. Even the queens of a hive mind would come across the concept of that which controlls the flow of causality.

The problem comes when we begin to undersatnd reality... and how incorrect our previous assumptions were. Will ALL sentient life choose to leave behind their fantasys and accept reality or choose to die.

i don't see the need to change the topic. To me it seems ridiculous to say that humans couldn't evolve without religion or a belief in god. In truth, it appears religion is a relatively new thing.

You can argue that the first religious people were the folks who buried their loved ones with objects they used while living.

When we discover other intelligent life out there, it will possibly be the beginning of the fall of religion. It's inevitable and it would be catastrophic.

But take a look at all the people that put their beliefes in the most common religions out there today. Just imagine the reaction as our true creators tell them, "We are god". Their religion is taken away. Their comfort is taken away. Their understanding of why they were put here on earth was taken away. Their Beliefs may stay the same, but it may fade away.

Just my 2cents

Those who believe in evolution are unaware of the implications of that religion.

To say that "simple" single-celled organisms somehow self-assembled from a soup of complex chemicals is quite a stretch.

Why?

Because single-celled organisms are more complex than a space shuttle, complete with a functioning satellite onboard ready to deploy.

This begs the question... what could have done this really?

The combined mental power of all mankind cannot replicate it...

But this all happened by accident?

I found God not by blind faith, but through science itself.

True stuff.

Does the embed code technically make this a third line?

never mind. I misunderstood a post for a sec..

also: I'm dumb and should have used this posting for my next

[edit on 25-3-2010 by unityemissions]

Someday, Almost all of the Religions other than Corporate Atheism will be banned forever

Originally posted by ancientfuturist
It does not have to involve God or the afterlife to be considered a religion.

One particular religion has been cleverly injected into contemporary science books. It is based on the belief that the time, space, and matter originated from an infinitesimal region.

This cannot be observed, tested, or demonstrated, so belief is required and is therefore religious.

Man himself would have to be destroyed for the world to be devoid of all religion.

I hold this view, but never bothered to think of it as a religion. Interesting. If it can't be observed, tested, or demonstrated then how could it logically be lumped in with science in any way?

Lets see.... most people who don't believe in god that I know spend their time thinking about other more important things. So really.... there wouldn't be any loss at all.

reply to post by ancientfuturist

This begs the question... what could have done this really?

There's no evidence of any supernatural godly being. Discovery isn't about starting with the answer beforehand.

You're right about their beings unknowns, but because it's unknown we can't specify how life formed, therefore we can't specify it was a godly being.

We could give the name "god" to an anything we decide as unknown, but that doesn't mean we will later find out that it matches the characteristic of a god defined by christianity or any religion. Ancient cultures defined the sun as "god", yet we later realised it's a main-sequence G2 star and gave it the more suitable name.

The term "god particle" is used in physics for a yet undiscovered particle. It's just a name, and it could have been called the "new particle".

Therefore naming and assumptions are both irrelevant.

reply to post by ancientfuturist

But this all happened by accident?

Science doesn't claim anything happened by accident.

You using a false dichotomy by assuming that because we don't know, then it must be either by "accident" or by "god".

I found God not by blind faith, but through science itself.

Science isn't faith, so you found god by faith to fill in the blanks, and not science.

Those who believe in evolution are unaware of the implications of that religion.

This comment along with most of your post is a desperate attempt at spooky gibberish.

[edit on 25-3-2010 by john124]

God formed man from the dust of the ground and that is relevent.

Give me one example of a genetic mutation or even an evolutionary process
which can be shown to increase the information in the genome?
anybody?

A language even exists for the transfer of Information.

Whers does this information come from.

We don't have all the answers yet but.....

There is only one answer to that question.
I can guarantee the answer won't show up in a lab ,or a petri dish, or a flask.
I'm sure no one is stupid enough to be looking for that answer. Are they?

Religion is an expression of social cohesion. The French sociologist Émile Durkheim, for example, argued that religion functions predominantly to ensure social stability and integration, and that this is promoted and maintained within society by a shared devotion to certain specific phenomena, especially iconic objects, concepts, sacred persons, places, rituals and social roles.

This is the elementary aspect of how Durkheim's model of social structure operates: collective representations form the most fundamental level of the structure of society and indeed constitute the basis of social reality. These representations have the following features:

a) they compose the major cultural beliefs, moral values, symbols and ideas shared by the members of that society
b) they represent what the society shares in common
c) they represent the world meaningfully to members of the group
d) they are collectively produced, reproduced, transmitted and transformed
e) they operate like a language - they are not produced by individuals as a result of their own initiative, but are 'absorbed' by individuals through the process of socialisation

When you observe the functionality of religion, you may or not realise that it provides a meaning-context within which one can locate one's life, establish a personal identity and acquire a sense of destiny. In sociological definitions of religion, there is the notable omission of any reference to God or to other conceptions of the transcendent, the divine, or the supernatural, all of which are generally central features of most religions.

For instance, H. B. Earhart:

Religion can be defined as a distinctive set of beliefs, symbols, rituals, doctrines, institutions, and practices that enable the members of the tradition to establish, maintain and celebrate a meaningful world. As a distinctive pattern of human thought and action, religion is a tradition that is handed down, moving through time and manifesting a continuous identity along with a tendency to change and be transformed.

This definition is quite "this-worldly": it portrays religion as a product of human culture which functions to provide meaning. It fails to emphasise that religion may be "other-worldly", that it is a manifestation in this world of a transcendent realm beyond.

So basically, considering the concept that religion is a mechanism that manifests itself from the collective representations of a society and is not a phenomenon that is separate to society or even transcendent to it, religion in one way, shape or form is going to continue emerging within culture and society. This is due to the fact that from one generation to the next, individuals will eternally be searching to establish meaning and identity in their lives. This is an inescapable feature of the human psyche. While the collective opinions and beliefs of a society change, so too does its outlet for finding meaning. Do not be surprised, with the heavy emphasis being placed upon ecology and nature over recent decades, that this worldview manifests into a mainstream religion in a century or so. We are already seeing the effects with revivals of Paganism in various countries !

Religion is an inevitable, just as society is inevitable when individuals come together as a group. To this effect, the question is not of whether religion is a "necessary evil and/or element of life", as its existence is unavoidable.

The ultimate question lies in the intention and manner of humanity's exploitation of such an engrained aspect of society. The systematic abuse of such a thing is the cause of the prevalent perception that religion is widely evil and irrelevant in the modern world. This question, however, cannot be resolved swiftly nor with particular ease.

en.wikipedia.org... => Émile_Durkheim


[edit on 25/3/10 by pretty_vacant]

reply to post by randyvs

God formed man from the dust of the ground and that is relevent.

And how did he do that?

It's meaningless.

We don't have all the answers yet but.....

There is only one answer to that question.

False dichotomy again - there aren't only 1 or 2 answers, the potential answers are almost infinite.

You have to learn with uncertainty because you are probably never going to know everything. Everything logical has an uncertainty. The bus doesn't arrive at exactly the same time, so we plan accordingly for it. Do the same for everything else.

I can guarantee the answer won't show up in a lab ,or a petri dish, or a flask.

Probably not, but it won't turn up in a church either. We'll probably solve the questions of our origins with supercomputers.

I'm sure no one is stupid enough to be looking for that answer. Are they?

What answers? Are we supposed to keep looking at the dust forever until god makes another man out of it. You're really naive.

And how could you or anyone else for that mattter know the full potentials any scientific research? We keep searching, we keep investigating, we keep thinking of new ways to test theories... all until we find the evidence. That is looking for the answers, and how we've managed to understand concepts in Biology with DNA research.

Just because you don't like the results of the investigations it doesn't change what we've found out. Only the immature would live an a world of denial and worry that nobody else besides their own religious clan cares about our origins.

[edit on 25-3-2010 by john124]