DEBATE THREAD

Would the world be better place if religion never came about?

bump

Doubtful, it is and perhaps still is a necessity.
Without religion being able to unite people there are very little other things that can manage doing something similar.

A society that can't unite themselves under a common cause is one that will lead itself to destruction and infighting.

100% yes. all religion is cancer.
atheism is ridiculous.
agnostic is the only option if you're not completely insane.

less ass rape

Not religion as a whole, but Semites ones ? Definitly.
Imagine a world without Islam, Jews or Christianity. Even if the latter made great things in Europe, Roma wouldn't have been destroyed without it.

>A society that can't unite themselves under a common cause is one that will lead itself to destruction and infighting.

>what is Islam

>Would the world be better place if ((( Abrahamic ))) religion never came about?
Yes

Better if (((Semitic))) religions never came about.

>Islam
>united
Granted, the problem with religion is the fact there are countless interpretations of the same text which leads to countless wars among the different denominations, christianity was no different with the catholics and the protestants.

However if you manage to rule with one set of belief and subdue all opposing ones it becomes quite beneficial.

sounds like hell to me.
its just another form of collectivism that only serves to suppress progress and the individual.

if on the other hand a religion was provably true, I might feel differently but considering every religion we have to day is based on pure nonsense i think its one of the tragedies of the world.
once again, look at Islam. does that shit look healthy to you?

Religion always has and always will exist. It is driven by the "apex prey" complex, in which an apex being at the top of the food chain still fears becoming prey to a non-existent predator above itself. Without this drive, humans would not believe in aliens, ghosts, religion, etc. But we do believe these things largely by default and without outside influence, because of this deeply rooted instinct which helped carry us to advance beyond all other animals.

People who are philosophically enlightened, hyper rational, or the like, can train themselves away from this instinct that makes people inherently irrational. People born without the instinct will be like baser animals, which is a problem intelligence wise. The great human struggle is being born with this instinct and then overcoming it. A lot of us are scared of pure rationality however and want to find comfort in their religion.

thats a good point.
especially the last bit.

what ever religion you subscribe to, its a weakness and a burden that you can cure, with ease I might add.

Religion is really good to keep basic instincts and needs under control. The problem is that it becomes a snowball of madness and fanatism. aka actual mudslimes; past christianism

>collectivism that only serves to suppress progress and the individual
You sound like some sort of (((((progressive liberal)))) if you wish to speak about healthy look at all these atheistic countries who are openly inviting islam into their country in massive numbers, this is what individualism does this is what progressiveness does it makes you weak when encountering a collective.
The collective will grow like a tumor while the individual faced with said collective will either become one with it or die.
Atheism is tremendously weak for that very reason it doesn't have a collective message for people to unite under people become individuals and thus become weak to foreign threats as they clash with one another on different core beliefs on how to deal with the foreigners.

I hypothesize that most religions are actually very peaceful until fear sets in.

Logically, if you find comfort in religion but then feel like your way of life is threatened, your religion becomes violent because you can't turn to anything else. You have 2 options, leave religion and everything you know, or stay comfy and conform to the radicalism. Most people stay because their religion is their life and they feel unsafe without it.

I understand your point but Im trying to speak hypothetically as I realise there is no current alternative.

Im certainly not a progressive liberal I just think that there must be something that unites us other than some fucking sky daddy.

I realise that most of the planet is seriously thick and that religion can bridge that gap but in an ideal world we dont need it, there must be an alternative.

I completely agree with your points but I dont like it, I'm sure we could do better.
common sense and the law would be a good start.

>look at all these atheistic countries who are openly inviting islam into their country in massive numbers, this is what individualism does this is what progressiveness does it makes you weak when encountering a collective.

>correlation does not mean causation

What's happening in Europe isn't due to atheism, it's because of outside intervention pushing for these ideals. Look at Japan, they are incredibly dismissive of potential immigrants although they are hugely an atheistic nation.

>Atheism is tremendously weak for that very reason it doesn't have a collective message for people to unite under people become individuals and thus become weak to foreign threats as they clash with one another on different core beliefs on how to deal with the foreigners.

Agreed, but that's mainly because it isn't a religion or a political movement. We can still unite under different banners, race, continent, culture, which are far better than religion to which anyone can adhere.

I agree, "atheistic nation" is never a good argument. The Soviet Union was atheist and they committed atrocities with no excuses... pure human evil and not in the name of any God.

yes

this is true aswell.
but its still a huge failure of the mind, it has a snowball effects and claims children from birth.
doomed to thoughts and regimes that are completely unnecessary and usually very harmful.

and all this just to fit in with a particular group and not another?
lets face it, religion unites a few people (who could have united in other ways, ie. nationalism for e.g.) but then divides them from the rest of the planet.

Enlightenment was caused by Christianity. Many modern institutions and such are derivatives of Christianity. Christianity of which was influenced by other religions. So, no.

God is self revealing, whenever we are comfronted with an idiot who wants evidence, an idiot that's balsphemous and disrespectful we are being comfronted with a person who wants evidence (a personal invitation from God, as evidence would pretty much tell you you are His guest) while being a plague.

Such a person must be considered a troll and entirely dismissed for being a retard.

Depends.

The christians should've done a better job during the crusades.

could you maybe try and explain that a bit better please? you lost me
write it in Spanish if it will help, ill google translate

You're implying that without it we would've been stuck at a standstill. For instance, huge technological advances are made during war time that doesn't mean war is good.

Without Christianity the Enlightenment would have still happened while having a different trigger.

Basically: there is evidence to be had, but you must be a special snowflake for God for He to show it to you.

Entitlement and such by people who despise God no less.

Thus is life for fedoras.

One said piece of evidence would be self-revelation, which is what I received.

Oh, forgive me, did I hurt your feelings for being a guest while you were not? I guess you should go apeshit.

Or maybe search and earn a place.

Anyone who denies the role of religion in civilization is just denying the most basic aspects of sociology.

This literally isn't a debate.

hey, listen dude, you can do what you want, it dosent hurt my feelings at all and I wish you luck.
but I can't give you my respect.

Personal question, would you convert to another religion if one would persuade you to do so?

>This literally isn't a debate.

>100000000

Freedom is terrifying because it offers no guidance, feedback, or support. Religion offers such feedback, for better or for worse, which makes it so comforting. It is a man-made instrument of judgment, just like modern social media.

The declining prevailance of religion in modern era seems to directly correlate with the increase in decadence and degeracy
Really makes one wonder

would you swap your religion for a one world government?

Yes.

this also seems to be true, unfortunately.

user, I can only convert to something else if demonized or drugged, I believe because God revealed Himself to me.

If we could force everyone to take some kind of ethics course throughout all of schooling and instill strict cultural and moral values in our society, we might not need religion. But religion just makes all that so much easier.

which god are you talking about?
Jesus or Mo ?

Not true, religious resurgence happened in the late 70s, the world was considerably more secular in the postwar period than it is today.

Most (>90%) problems of degeneracy stem from the erosion of all non-market values to be replaced with Jewish consumerism and materialism. Religion is no more effective than other institutions at resisting this change, and in the whole accelerates it.

>But religion just makes all that so much easier.

but at what cost?

I'd rather do the judging for myself instead of letting someone else's instrument do it for me.

Very little difference exists between government and religion.

Lewd

>I believe because God revealed Himself to me.

So you're not willing to convert to another religion, which makes you on par with "fedoras".

You say you believe because god revealed himself to you. Did you not believe before? Also why should "fedoras" believe if god hasn't revealed himself to them? You see the flaw in your reasoning, right?

LARPing this hard will make people question your mental faculties.

No.

It would still sucks and people would still be hooked on irrational bullshit

A large one. Imagining a whole society in your head is a fun exercise, but it's exhausting. All the best theoretical societies assume a populace with a decently high IQ. If your society actually has a bunch of idiots, the smartest idiot will fight the establishment with shitty arguments of perceived injustice. Religion does a lot of the dirty work of culling the masses, but it also gets disastrous when people get fanatical.

Religious retards define non-members as degenerate and decadent, so obviously more non-members leads to more decadence.

No

Protostant work ethic is good for America, as well as having something to believe in. Knowing there is something after this life is a comforting feeling, I don't care if it's not true.

That and have you SEEN gothic architecture? Shits insane! 10/10 would want to build more

Remind me again how well the Sunnis and Shias get along

The problem is that both the wrong religions are spreading, and that people who aren't capable of making moral decisions without some hope for reward or threat of punishment.

If people who are capable of making morally positive decisions on their own aren't deists then there's no problem.

It'd be best right now for deism, materialistic pantheism, loose nature based religions like shintoism, or vague moral philosophies like Buddhism to be popular for the less capable.

The funny thing is, Cultural Marxism has anything what a religion has.
>Messianic "time will come" savior talk
>Guidance how to act and behave
>Ideals and taboos
>fatalistic
>Being created by Jews

kek. like a mosque on fire.

>i dont care about truth, i just want to LARP
Off to the ovens with you, genetrash.

>Knowing there is something after this life is a comforting feeling, I don't care if it's not true.

is that even possible?

It's in a better place because of religion. Imagine if it was only human sacrificing religions that are dominant today...
I'd say it depends on the theology/belief system/knowledge/ideology of that said religion.

Dunno

kill me and I'll find out. Doesn't really affect my day to day life, but it feels right to believe. I'm far from a religious nut, I just like having a belief for something better.

You probably would still shit on the street , we all would

No, the premise is, world without religion, not world without contemporary, popular religion. Your human sacrifice example would never happen in this scenario.

Freedom isn't terrifying unless you are a coward or inept.

fair play. I'm not here to criticise anyone.
I just think your only a hair away from being an agnostic, thats all.
good luck all the same

No.
People are completely irrational. Nearly everything we do is irrational. We're able to abstract ideas and forget important ideas in order justify irrational behavior.

Religion is just another way of hedging this.

Also many traditional organizations are very good at research and preserving text. We would know a lot less about the world without the Vatican archives

OP: Would the world be better place if religion never came about?

My argument: It's in a better place because of religion.

Nothing about contemporary or popular religion.

you're implying its the only option though.

and the vatican has a lot of books because it has been a dominant force in history.
if for example knowledge (tai lopez) or even books them selves were the important factor at the time we'd have a lot more of them.
and while the vatican has some books,
didn't Islam burn a fuck tonne of them at the great library?
tl:dr its not an argument. something would have replaced it, same with the architecture

You made a nonsensical point about human sacrifice.

No. see deity beleif is either simply an artifact of our sapience and the way our brains deal with a chaotic world or God's intrinsic interaction with the chemical makeup of our minds and, get this, it is actually irrelevant which of the two is true.

Agnostic Atheist here who hates other atheists and views Christianity as superior.
I love God; the fact of whether he exists or not is irrelevant to me.America and by extension all of Western culture is the result of 3 ingredients. The greatness of America essentially boils down to 3 things and it doesn't matter if you're an atheist or not, I'm strictly talking of formula; ingredients in a pot. Those 3 are thus:
Judeo-Christian Morality
Greco-Roman Philosophy ~and
Anglo-Saxon Law
I find that the humility to admit that I do indeed lack (because it is a lack) the faith is a personal flaw within my own heart. Even IF God definitely doesn't exist this is true. It is healthy for a society to have this ever present intrinsic judge in ones mind. I always felt something... off about popular atheism and it was only after I got into politics, and later Bill Whittle, that I discovered why. Christianity, at the end of the day, gets shit done. And has historically.This "holds people back" line every hipster leftist likes to regurgitate is pure untruth.
Frankly, I'm at a point where I think I could defeat Richard Dawkins in a debate. (famous last words) I detect in the man an earnestness if, admittedly, also an arrogance that is so endemic in us atheists. As a millennial I certainly possessed it.

>Kike puppet loves the bbc
More news @ 11

I don't know whether this would be possible in the first place.

If you asked me 'Would the world be a better place without people ever being wrong on anything', the answer would be no, since getting things wrong is the only way to learn something.

Also, to me it's not religion that's the problem, it's universalist religion that is the problem. If religion wants to have a future, it should localize

Excuse me fag?

That would be a fair assessment. But I just can't think that there isn't something else in the universe. Maybe not the Sistine Chapel depiction but something

>It is healthy for a society to have this ever present intrinsic judge in ones mind

youre gonna love the new world order, kid.

kek, seriously though. this is a very interesting position to hold. I can see what you are getting at but I like to think we can do better than that. hell, some of us are already doing it.

looking forward to your debate with dawkins, as i said originally atheism is ridiculous.

>you're implying its the only option though.

No, but I'm also not saying that what could arisen instead would have been any better than religion. There is no way of knowing that people would have just focused on objective study without religion.

>didn't Islam burn a fuck tonne of them at the great library?
Caesar accidentally burnt it down when invading Alexandria
And even Islam has had influential philosophy and science when they actually had their religion under control. The organizational systems religions form are a net benefit.

>tl:dr its not an argument. something would have replaced it, same with the architecture
It is an argument you fucking moron. Don't start a thread with a prompt and dismiss answers you don't like.

i might of misunderstood your comment but thats what agnostic is.
there IS something its just not called Jesus, Alah or Alfie.
I dunno, maybe thats the problem. people dont like the unknown where as I fucken love it

im not OP you prick.
and you definitely just contradicted yourself.
>There is no way of knowing that people would have just focused on objective study without religion.

what are we doing right fucking now?

all I'm saying is that if this world had started out differently, we would be in a different place yes but we would still be here. religion is not the glue that holds this place together.
it might of been in the past and maybe again in the future. all I'm saying/asking is. does it have to be?

I think it's useful for enforcing norms. The last bastion of social conservatism is Protestant Christianity in the US. There are some outliers (myself included) but unfortunately without dogma most people will turn to decadence, liberalism and degeneracy.

If everyone was Christian (and lived by the bible):

>no more murders, no theft, no crime whatsoever
>no degeneracy, no rape, no gay couples marrying and adopting children
>no homeless, no armies, no wars

The list goes on and on.

>looking forward to your debate with dawkins
Kek. Like I said "famous last words". The man lives for debate, I'd likely spaghetti all over myself in trying to get my point across

true but after the degeneracy has eaten all it can hopefully people will start to look up to one another, the good people in society, heroes, achievers, builders, carers etc etc and learn what it is to lead a good life. in theory anyway

That religion is a literal circus

fuckign KEK'D at that pic

Exactly right. Which is why when argueing with fellow atheists, after outlining ,
I point out that atheism does not tend toward morality but -nihilism-. And when you really think about it; why wouldn't it?

...

>religion is not the glue that holds this place together
Right, but what we are saying is that it IS the whetstone that keeps us an excellen, exceptional civilization

all I can do is respectfully disagree.

in this guys world, maybe but not in ours

Nope.

No I'm def a christian, I'm just being vague for the sake of keeping it brief and my hand hurts a bit when I type lol

We'd be run-of-the-mill apes without religion.

fair play, lad.