Where would we be as a civilization if religion hadn't become doctrine?

The more interesting question would be:
At what point will we finally abandon organized religion to better our global society?

I was reading a FB post from my friends father about how he found interesting (approved of) the Japanese practices of basically discriminating against Muslims. Not sure if there was any truth to it but basically stated things like Muslims can't rent/own property, be visiting students, build mosques, etc...and I commented that if they could treat Christians and Jewish followers the same way I move there. Well, he was all up in arms about that idea

What? The WBC could live there but Muhammad Ali couldn't?

Any, back on topic - I think religion had its time and has done a lot to stabilize and grown humanity, but the separatism it promotes and inhuman behavior that is rooted in it makes it time for us to shed religion like an out of date fashion.

I usually don't defend religion but... Religion was probably not what it is now during its inception. I think if it had not been high-jacked back rich/elite/royals/warmongers... it would have had a better path today.

Who knows, we might have advanced in a path that is not technological.

Well it depends on what you consider religion. Buddhism does not require deitys yet it is still called a religion. The only religion you can't assign a war to at that.

Honestly I think the world would be a far better place without religions however philosophy would fill that nich without causeing the wars, pain, and suffering like Abraham religions do.

Confuscionism is pretty good as well. In fact fortune cookies gave me better advice than the bible ever did. So there you go it would have been a better world IMO.

Also someone said they thought it would be like Rome was, well they seem to have forgotten basic history when they said that because they were polytheistic and it was the monotheistic beliefs in Christianity that helped destroy that empire. Hell Romans practically invented Christianity. Hail Caesar for inventing such a destructive hatefull belief to controll the masses.

reply to post by RedParrotHead


The search for "god" is all important.

truthofnitrous
I'm asking because it's a question thats been on my mind for a really long time. Would we even be a type one civilization had there not been the dark ages and the supression of knowledge itself. I ask this out of simple curiosity and to see what people think. Plus there was a post on here about religious prophecy and the affect it has on the human psyche. fear for example if religion in itself had not used fear tactics. one such example are these so called after life ideas basically "if you dont worship my god, my god gonna tourture you for an eternity." Or "if your not a christian jesus isnt going to rapture you from the end times." We've seen the wars that stemed from religion (crusades anyone? this so called war in the mid east anyone?) it makes me wonder would the world be better off if there was no religion at all?

edit on 16-9-2013 by truthofnitrous because: (no reason given)

- you forget TN that this isnt about 'religion' as such
but about " mankind going through several awarenesses , through History"

..compare it to a child growing up - he also goes through several cycles.
This is the reason, so many 'religions' sprung up.
since its all about 'awareness' .

At present, theres the Materialistic/Scientific Religion.

who started its religion by murdering Millions in French revolution, communism and maoism.

and yes theres a Goal at the End - God's -
and yes there are a gazillion awarenesses trying to Stop that.


so
to say ' i throw out all of religion' , is but Condamning yourself.
see...?

Let's look at islam for example : the arabic language was developed largely in order to write down the quran and to express all its nuances with precision, and without that advancement in written language, the so called scientific golden age of islam would not have been possible. For centuries after that, the arabic language was the language of science. I don't think that this would have happened without the will of some people of that age to forge and keep and maintain something that they thought was the most important thing. That said, today I really think religions have lived waaaayyyy past their usefulness. I think it was an important step for human development, but today religions have become an obstacle for further development. That said again, if I had to give a mental age to the current human species, I would say 9 or 10 years old. The age at which a human being starts to understand and to question the existence of santa.

reply to post by onequestion


Care to expand on that? I think religious people think they already found him/her/it anyway. As for understanding their god - they pretty much rely on what the person in charge of their place of worship tells them. And that so called wisdom seems to change quite frequently.

How can anyone say that all religion was hijacked somewhere back in time? The original texts (doctrines) are full of vengeance, judgment, and punishment!

- i m sorry ; the last line i phrased poorly -

i suppose the line should be
"religion is but a Calcified aspect, of Real, existing Truths around us"

...okay

so yes, throw away religion - but DONT make the mistake, to throw with that all higher Dimensions away, as well

reply to post by truthofnitrous


Today (catholic) churches are going empty, less people will be informed and thought about moral standard...whats good...whats wrong. With that I do not mean the lessons the church its self is teaching us because that is filled with corruption and murder. No, lessons thought byJesus and some of the old testament stories.

If you look around you you can see where a world without religion is going. Let me tell you...not into the desired direction.

Grimpachi
Also someone said they thought it would be like Rome was, well they seem to have forgotten basic history when they said that because they were polytheistic and it was the monotheistic beliefs in Christianity that helped destroy that empire.

I would direct you to The City of God by St. Augustine (online here) for the philosophical and theological response to the pagans who claimed that Christianity "destroyed Rome" and if only they had continued worshipping the Roman gods, things would have been okay. It's a long series of books, but well worth the time to read.

reply to post by adjensen


Except America is 70% Christian with the majority of our politicians being Christian. Secular society has nothing to do with America supporting and aiding Israel, a historically religious institution. Secularism is being against religion in politics, and American politics constantly voting in favor of Israel shows that church and state is hardly separated.

Plus, Rome was not secular, they were pagan and they called certain gods their "state gods", so religion and politics were tightly knitted together in Rome. Sounds like America to me personally.

reply to post by gosseyn

if I had to give a mental age to the current human species, I would say 9 or 10 years old. The age at which a human being starts to understand and to question the existence of santa.

Hmmm. I think it'd be more like 6 or 7...the classic "age of reason".

Magical thinking peaks at about age 7, then "logical thinking" becomes prevalent.

Those who follow 'magical thinking' via religion (such as the myths of "hell" and "God as an old man keeping score") are less developed in wisdom/courage. In my opinion.

For adults, it's often a crutch and/or a cop-out.

I have no problem if people are actually comforted by their religious convictions; but when little kids are taught they will "go to hell" if they don't "believe" what they learn in Sunday school or at church, it is CHILD ABUSE.

Would the world be better off without it? IF that were possible, maybe. But so far, I don't see it becoming extinct as a viable possibility. Superstition and fear of the unknown are definitely instinctive "fear"-triggers. And those who lack the courage to face life head-on, but INSTEAD attribute bad things that happen to "punishment" or "failure to pray enough" or "accept Jesus Christ" seem, well, spiritually immature to me.

Bad sh!t happens. To ALL OF US, at one time or another. I, too, find comfort in believing in an afterlife (and I do NOT believe in "hell")....I, too, find assurance and stability in my chosen attitude/opinion...

but I'm aware that it's my CHOSEN belief, and not provable or disprovable...YET.

The problem, as I see it, is all the in-fighting among various "sects" of various "religions". The TRUTH is that NO ONE has an absolute handle on The Truth - including myself.

Scary? Yes....but it's human nature to have HOPE. That's how religion is helpful - it gives us hope, when we feel despair, uncertainty, weakness, failure, and overwhelming confusion. (No atheists in foxholes.)

If religion instead instills "behavior modification through fear", it is destructive and false, although for some who would otherwise behave with complete savage impunity, it is necessary. I guess.

reply to post by truthofnitrous


I don't know. What happened to Tengri? What happened to Wodin? What happened to all of those civilizations built on religion that was state doctrines?

Could our civilization end the same way as all the rest? We can trace what happened to theirs just by examining their morality. Rome imploded after years of moral laziness that led to hedonism. Vikings ended with a whimpered. How did the Greeks end again?

Without moral compass, every civilization is in danger of collapsing.

Good analysis everyone! I, for one, believe if religion were completely, or at least minimized dramatically, from the picture then we as a species would have further advancements. We would think of the survival of everyone not just the survival of our individual selves so we can be saved from "hell". I believe we could go far if we were united (obviously), however, like someone else mentioned, we are slowly getting there. Things have dramatically changed just from the 1950's alone. Imagine where we would be in 2050, or 2100... food for thought . . .

~Sovereign

reply to post by SovereignEve


I don't know Sovereign, it seems to me that the earliest man didn't have an organized religion and see the slow advancement? Should we go back to Neanderthal or forward to Artificial Intelligence?

Do you think religion would have a place in a word of AI?

reply to post by WarminIndy


Hi WarminIndy,

It depends how far back we are talking, you say "early man" -- how early? I'll assume you are bringing up ancient man... We had magnificent civilizations, one example is the Aztecs. Some of these early civilizations had a form of religion, yes. They were also very intelligent and far beyond their time. They weren't "savage" like most with a Eurocentric mind-set will have you believe; in fact, these civilizations had such complex and monolithic structures that we, today, can't even try to replicate. . . Bringing me to the main point, These peoples were unified under one rule. They didn't have multiple religions that caused wars and caused them to hold themselves back like we do today. We have a large amount of religions and everyone thinks they are right when it comes to their specific beliefs. In the present day, we would be better off if religion weren't so central -- which it isn't anymore! It's slowly NOT becoming the center point for humanity. I'm not saying to abandon religion completely because I respect people's freedom to follow whatever path they choose, but keeping it separate from our technological advancement as a species.. . If that makes any sense? (working with 4 hours of sleep, I'm sorry)

~Sovereign

SovereignEve
reply to post by WarminIndy

 

Bringing me to the main point, These peoples were unified under one rule. They didn't have multiple religions that caused wars and caused them to hold themselves back like we do today. We have a large amount of religions and everyone thinks they are right when it comes to their specific beliefs.

~Sovereign

It's ok for working with no sleep, you still made good points. I think it is generally accepted that Neanderthals might have had some type of spiritual beliefs, but most of those civilizations that were advanced also ended in the heights of their advancement.

They did have multiple religions in those civilizations. The Mayans ended up sacrificing people under the name of Quetzlcoatl, but no one could compare that to the Hawaiian and Polynesian religion of Pele. And certainly Sumer and Egypt had different religions, so they were not unified.

We know the Hittites also had a different religion that was concurrent with Egyptian, and the Hittites had the religion of Tengri, the sky god. If we accept that Gobekli Tepe was the oldest religious center, then it doesn't address the Vedic Age before Hinduism.

I think what you might be referring to as the unified rule is what we call The Golden Rule. But even at that, it wasn't administered fairly. The Code of Hammurabi was designed to treat the elites better than the lower class.

The truth about the most ancient civilizations, we just don't really know their religions. It seems organizations of religions began about the same time across the ancient world. But sure, they did have impressive civilizations. There certainly was a spark from something. But at the same time, there was a consistency and theme in all the religions. And I am also sure they also proposed they had the truth in their day as well. Nothing has changed, the world is still attacking each other over religion. There is nothing new under the sun, as the preacher says in Ecclesiastes.

I'm just glad that I don't live under Attila the Hun, that might have been a scary time for me as a woman. Those Huns were crazy.

reply to post by WarminIndy


Thanks for understanding, +1.

I agree with a lot of your post. All present religions teach peace, but none have yet to achieve it. It's sad really because we as a people are capable of so much. I won't contribute anymore until I get some much needed rest.

I'll be back

~Sovereign

I was thinking more about this today, I think a large part of how you answer the OP question is to ask yourself how do you view the human race? For instance if you believe people are naturally born good, then it is easy to believe the world would be peaceful and so on if there was no religion. On the other hand, if you are like me and believe people are naturally not good (I didn't say evil, I said not good) but rather I should say people are born naturally selfish. Then you would believe that the world would probably be further back than one might think.

It doesn't take much logic to really think about this. If there is no "religion" then there is nothing defining what is right or what is wrong, it would simply be some person saying so etc. So you might think it would be all peaceful, but all it takes is to watch two children play together to realize that we are naturally self serving, and this leads us to violence and all other manner of naughtiness to get what we want.

Reiterating my first post in here, I feel if there was no religion our society would become very much ape like, and whoever is strongest would win. We would have nothing at all inspiring us to look higher and become greater than ourselves, and nothing inspiring us to love or care about anybody else other than ourselves.

reply to post by honested3


That's very true. But real religion isn't about believing there could be a higher power, it's about experiencing that higher power.

People get high on drugs to experience something beyond themselves. That's why they claim to have epiphanies while on drugs. But it's all about experience, they want to feel something greater than themselves. They know it's out there and embrace the damage done to their minds and bodies, still looking for the greater experience.

It is part of the human to want to experience that greater than them. That's why people engage in intellectual activities on ATS, they want the feeling that comes from the experience of something greater to their minds. Animals don't engage in this way, they are happy to eat their food and poop and mate. Basically all animals are like that, but the human go think about not eating and makes a conscious effort to not eat. Humans also can have intellectual ideas about sex. We converse about it. We aren't just victims of random stimulation, because we do think about what we desire when it comes to sex. But pooping, ok, I'll say that is animalistic, we can't avoid that one, however, we also have an intellectual side when it comes to where we want to do it at and how clean we want our bathrooms.

We have philosophical discussions about what toilet is the best brand, what toilet saves the most water and what toilet paper we think is the best. We can't escape our inward nature of seeking something greater than ourselves. It's who we are as creation. Tell me the last time you saw an ape wonder about whether or not his toilet paper was two-ply.