Would no religion really benefit anyone?

Sure there are religious wackos, terrorists, god driven mass murderers, and delusional religious freaks.  I'm not talking about those.  I'm talking about the everyday citizen of any given country who happens to believe in their god.  They have some faith, some hope that believing in this god will benefit them later, regardless of whether or not this is a valid belief.  Like believing that "if you're good this year, Santa will bring you more presents" or "if you tip the waitress you'll have good karma brought to you" or "if you work really hard for the company, you'll have an excellent retirement package  and won't get laid off."  In other words, hope is the driving factor behind many of our actions.  To eliminate religion would eliminate people's day to day hope. 

Even if their beleifs are "scienticifally incorrect," think of all the people in the US that cling to God to get through their own lives.  Look at black churches that have joyous singing and dancing.  The Bible typically refers to its followers as sheep, and that's what they are.  But isn't it better than being convinced that there is no god?  To actually KNOW or have it forced upon them that no god can possibly exist?  You'd have people with no hope, purpose, or reason to differentiate right from wrong.  Sure, some people can act morally on their own, but others can't.  They need a reason to not steal or kill or cheat on their wives, and with no moral or spiritual "penalty," what do people have to lose?  Do you really want a completely atheist society?  Religion makes an excellent behavior control system, just like government laws, accepted behaviors, popular beliefs and opinions, TV advertisements, and political statements from our current political leader.  The validity of these systems may be wrong in some instances, but at least they offer some kind of order.   

Also, religion can add emotional and psychological support to those having a hard time in life.  Without that, some may be able to find a sense of hope on their own. 

Religion is also used in taking up people's free time.  People need to dedicate themselves to something, whether its sports or school or a career or sitting and watching TV for the rest of their lives.  With no religion, you've just given millions of people the opportunity to find something else to do, no matter how pointless.  Someone once said that humans are infinitely bored.  Yet some people have nothing better to do than dedicate themselves to religion.  Once they have nothing to do, with no hope of an afterlife to cling to, what then?  Would they just sit and rot with no purpose?

>They have some faith

the fact that there is a built-in place for 'faith' in the human consciousness may hint at the method in which consciousness was designed

others will argue its simply social conditioning that causes this reflectively positive human reaction to unquestioned collective belief or 'faith'
the active element in religion is very social even if one never actually meets another person with the same belief, one feels a part of that larger  mass... something like an omnipresent posse
regardless of 'faith' in what, true 'faith' has been documented to have a reflexive effect within the individual, a positive one..

from a psychological vantage anyway..

scientifically disproving god is as impossible as proving god

And for the alternate view, here's H. L. Mencken.

I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind - that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking.

I believe that no discovery of fact, however trivial, can be wholly useless to the race, and that no trumpeting of falsehood, however virtuous in intent, can be anything but vicious.

I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war upon liberty...

I believe that the evidence for immortality is no better than the evidence of witches, and deserves no more respect.

I believe in the complete freedom of thought and speech...

I believe in the capacity of man to conquer his world, and to find out what it is made of, and how it is run.

I believe in the reality of progress.

I - But the whole thing, after all, may be put very simply. I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant.

>And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant.

there is a limit to what can be known in our lifetimes

there is no limit to what can be known by progressive human culture, provided it continues for many thousands of years

We can guess the existence of God in the harmony of the universe. Who or what is the creator of our universe? By contingency or something beyond our understanding? Like this, we can, to some extent, have a rational approach to the existence of God. But that's all we can guess. We cannot make a decision on which religion is scientifically best.

To have faith is very significant. Most people are not so strong as to endure every hardship. If we can have the right faith, we should make our world peaceful. But the most regrettable thing is that there are always wars and battles among religious nations in the Middle East. It's very hard to believe that very religious people are always fighting and killing a lot of people. What is worse, they are saying that they are doing such things for God. 

If we believe everything completely without doubt a religious group says, it would be dangerous, and we would be, to some extent, brainwashed. But even if we are brainwashed if we feel happy, it would be meaningful at least for ourselves. We tend to cling to something. Some cling to religion, some to their company, some to their hobby, and others to the Internet. We all have the right to do anything we want as long as we don't destroy others' happiness.
But what is it that we have to distinguish?  Brainwash and right faith? It's impossible.
What we have to keep in mind is whether the religion which we want to believe in violate the law or not.

my views:
religion is stupid, it has no benifits whatsover to society and is so incredibly farfetched it has to be the worlds largest running-joke.
all 'benefits' of religion can be kept by bringing up children to respect social morals, with the added benefit of them not denouncing pretty much proven scientific theories over what an obviously ficticious religious book says~
science tries to find out how things work. religion tries to disprove science by using the standard 'catch-all' argument of 'god/random diety that we cannot see/hear or prove the existence of did it' which sounds more likey to be right to you?
'god did it' is just the stupid answer, science says either 'heres the evidence that supports this theory' or 'we don't understand yet but we're still looking' which answer do you prefer?

Mencken > U

Thank you.  That is all.

If everyone was truly convinced that god didn't exist, then some might not be able to live with the truth.  They'd resort to being depressed, mumbling "what's the point," not having the effort to get anything done if there's no great christmas present in the sky awaiting them.  Others might find it easier to steal or kill when there's no judge of character other than their own selves.

>the fact that there is a built-in place for 'faith' in the
>human consciousness may hint at the method in which
>consciousness was designed

This is circular logic.  You can't start off with the premise that the brain was designed if you're trying to suggest that it was designed.  Remember, rational & educated people don't believe that animals are designed.

As Mencken said, religion teaches people that it's ok to not think rationally - that you don't have to think at all if you believe something.  Even if some people don't let it affect them much, it's a bad way to have your mind working.

>>9
I don't think this is a situation where religion suddenly vanishes from society, but a society that has been built from the ground up without it.  If a society didn't have religion, there would be some other social ideas for what the point of living is, why you shouldn't hurt people, etc etc.  I'm totally without religious beliefs (including atheism), and since I've been that way, I have been able to pretty much easily deal with every aspect of my life, while also still believing that I should be good to other people... it CAN work.

Mencken can easily be wrong, quoting him does not automatically "win"

..and why bother with Mencken, go straight to Nietzsche.. who can  be wrong just as easily

>>11

Hint:  an argument contains actual statements of actual fact and actual reasoning.

>>12

Protip: an argument about god's existence has nothing "actual" about it, it is conjecture on either side.

the difference between animal consciousness and human consciousness is comprehension of the 4th dimension - time.
animals can be conditioned or trained, see pavolv, but they do not have a forward-thinking consciousness that introspects.

mtheory is mathematically sound, and predicts 10 spatial dimensions plus 1 dimension of time.
once we are able to truly comprehend more than the 3 visual spatial dimensions, we may be on the road to understanding in the least what the hell we are talking about.

a child within their formative years is exponentially more receptive to concepts and understanding, you can teach a 5 year old multiple languages and they absorb it almost immediately.
this critical time in the development of human consciousness is when multi-dimensional thinking should be taught, trying to obtain this ability as an adult is near impossible... it must come as second nature to truly achieve breakthroughs in this field

the only problem is, the multi-dimensional concepts currently being exercised by the greatest minds on earth... need to be condensed and analogized into something a child can comprehend, we need proper methods for this and we are very far off from codifying such methods at the moment. then there is always the ethical question of drilling a child to become a multi-dimensional thinking machine, but we will likely get over that as the millennia go by... in this long process it is more than likely that certain physical changes in the human brain will take place to facilitate this kind of thinking

we already have a candidate theory for explaining the 'big bang'
mtheory states our entire universe is contained within a d-brane and collided with another d-brane creating the 'big bang' the question remains who created the higher level multi-dimensional space in which these d-branes exist, how could it have always existed... the further we go scientifically.. higher or lower in scale.. the same question of origin remains

cern's particle collider in switzerland is currently working to experimentally verify this theory by viewing the escape of a graviton, a particle of gravity, a multi-dimensional particle that can pass through the boundaries of our common 3 dimensions

the question then arises, if there is one multi-dimensional particle, are there others? and how sure are we when we refute the multi-dimensional aspects of "the universe"

for our lifetimes it comes down to extrapolation based on current scientific theory and in the end, intuition

i am fully confident we will scientifically understand all dimensions to the last... eventually. but for today.. living arrogantly as if we can understand and refute everything posed to us is not logically sound.

>>14
I might mention that this topic is not about the existence/non-existence of god, but about whether the religion is a help or a hindrance to society.  Regardless of whether there is a god or not, believing that there is one for irrational reasons is still irrational.

>>15
there is nothing irrational about stating our current level of understanding of a much more complex "universe" than is currently provable, there is also nothing irrational about extrapolating from current theory and forming a personal belief based on that extrapolation

what IS irrational is refuting out of hand the fact that nothing  exists beyond our current comprehension, which you seem to argue constantly

>>16

You are pulling lint out of your navel and presenting it as pearls of wisdom.  Random conjecture about the unknowable has no place in science.

The scientific method is gathering facts and drawing conclusions from those facts.  You are presenting a conclusion and casting about aimlessly for facts to support it.

Don't make me get out the steamroller.

back to your steamroller huh,
you really cant think beyond your nose can you

>random conjecture. unknowable.
what is scientific theory i ask you? what is mathematical verification of theory? what is then observable experimentation of theory?

we are past the mathematical verification stage on mtheory, a theory which proves a realm of INVISIBLE PINK UNICORNS.. lets call them gravitons for a second

gravity has been the one hitch in unified theory, we can unify the other 3 forces of nature... because they are essentially the same force

we study the particle only to understand the force

gravity is far too weak to be a permutation of the same force, but what if gravity is only at 'full quantification' if you account for it existing in multiple dimensions of space(11)... and we are therefore only seeing the fractional part visible within the dimension in which we can perform experiment

but alas the mathematics works... and predicts these particles do exist, with a large enough particle collider we may crash a few quarks fast enough to see one release

once we have that, the theory is experimentally verified... it is being worked on as we speak. submitting to the "unknowable" is the one thing humankind has not done...

once there is proof of multiple dimensions evidenced by the existence of a graviton, a whole new plane of science has begun

it is the paradigm shift everyone has been working towards...
of magnitude greater than when einstein shifted it some by proving the 4th dimension of time

we stand on shoulders to build knowledge

if multiple dimensions are proven to exist, reasonable people must then rethink their conceptions of "absolute truth" in the handful of dimensions currently perceptible to us

the conclusions you draw from the new paradigm are purely your own

Sage for "paradigm shift."  Sage for "multiple dimensions."  Sage for gratuitous Einstein reference.  Sage for being unaware that M-theory is empirically untestable at this point in time.  Sage for not knowing that theories of gravitation involving gravitons make exactly the same predictions under empirically testable conditions as the General Theory of Relativity.  Sage for being unaware that, according to the Standard Model of particle physics, quarks are by definition unable to exist alone.  WRYYYYYY

Now, what did any of that have to do with religion?  You have yet to refute even one of Mencken's arguments, from many poasts ago.  WRYYYYYY

the standard model is primitive.
WE DONT UNDERSTAND THE FULL PICTURE YET, hello anyone home

in 2006 the large hadron collider in switzerland will be colliding protons instead of electrons/positrons, individual collisions between quarks shall yield ~2 TeV in energy

on the other front linear colliders are being constructed to experimentally verify the existence of the theorized higgs particle to further explain the higgs mechanism of imparting mass to particles

the larger goal is to prove the entire supersymmetrical plane of particle physics... we will be at the cusp of planck scale extrapolation once this level of understanding is achieved. this is known as a paradigm shift.

this is all very real and currently ongoing research.

with a quantum supersymmetrical level of understanding, gravitons can be experimentally verified and reconciled in quantum field terms instead of by cheating with the special theory of relativity.. combining general relativity with quantum field theory has always given nonsensical infinities between gravitons

mtheory will be next, can check in a thousand years when we are capable of experimenting on that scale. the best we can do for now is use the mathematical framework k-theory provides to scrutinize the development of mtheory, it is quite accurate and utilizes minimal assumptions.

mencken is a philosopher, not a scientist

what he conjectures about the non-existence of the "invisible"is about as valid as what i conjecture about the implications of multidimensional supersymmetry - the difference is multidimensional supersymmetry is a purely scientific non-philosophical theory with droves of credentialed subscribers

read this paper if you doubt the rigor of scrutiny in which multidimensional supersymmetry is processed
http//scitation.aip.org/...

as for mencken, i'm glad he doesn't take himself as seriously as nietzsche did, being the father of his belief system and all.. or should i say non-belief system

"Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all others are jackasses. He usually proves it, and I should add that he also usually proves that he is one himself."
  --  Henry Mencken

i think that means WRYYYYYYY....
so i wont comment further on your philosopher du jour

>>16
>what IS irrational is refuting out of hand the fact that
>nothing exists beyond our current comprehension, which you
>seem to argue constantly
If it seems to you that I'm arguing that, then that's your problem, not mine.  There's a big difference between not making a positive assertion about something and making a negative one ("I do not believe that Sarah does have a cat." VS "I do believe Sarah does not have a cat.")  In that last one, if you have no idea whether Sarah has a cat other than your "intuition", the first statement would be rational - the second statement would be irrational.  So would saying that she surely does have one.  Can you see the analogy?  If you can't, that just proves my point about losing the ability to think rationally.

I had never even heard of Mencken before, but I suppose he does make a claim about the "falsehood" of religion.

>>21
This individual likes to set up strawmen bearing no resemblance whatsoever to his opponents, when he isn't going off on surreal tangents, the main gist of which seems to be "nyah nyah, you can't disprove this."  Which misses the point entirely.  I can't disprove a claim that there is a Starbuck's on Mars, either, but surely I can't be expected to take such a claim seriously.  After all, a claim that can't be disproven can't be tested--and if it can't be tested, it is a meaningless noise that tells us nothing, net information content:  null.

I am not sure whether he's refusing to debate honestly or whether he doesn't understand what debate is, but either way, I've parked a steamroller on top of him again, and am once again standing atop it striking dramatic poses and shouting "WRYYYYYY"

Do I sense a lolocaust?

>>22 you are a silly little man

you quote mencken, a philosopher. science is not philosophy, science will lead to the truth see >>20

but we wont see it happen in our lifetime, so in the meantime(your one lifetime - all that matters to you).. believe what you want. this has nothing to do with organized religion.
with the knowledge that the ultimate answer exists at some future date you can extrapolate a belief based on current theory.. it is the best pragmatic attempt to live a positive honestly-non-nihilistic life

>>24
If Mencken were alive to hear you say that, he'd spit in your face for calling him a "philosopher."  He was a newspaper reporter and a man of letters.  He despised both philosophy and philosophers.

But I do want to thank you for admitting that this has nothing to do with religion--and religion is the topic of this thread, is it not?  Your evasions are noted, and laughed at.  WRYYYYYY

>>23

do i sense a trolling WRYYYYing mod

Nope. It's just that the general 4chan population is rather stupid, with very few notable exceptions.

WRYYYYYYYYYY?

evasions? what planet are you on... is this combat for you, am i dancing to your liking? or am i evading now...

i have nothing TO evade

i simply condensed the non-scientific elements of the same "modus vivendi" belief through pragmatic extrapolation point ive been making since the creationism vs evolution thread >>24

oh and in the words of your hero mencken:
"It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull." --Mencken, H. L.

theory is where all scientific progress begins. if we didn't start we would never get anywhere. your view seems to be a truly worthless one in that every question worth asking is seemingly a moot point. lets just live like simple animals and feel good, lets simply exploit the knowledge we already have the answers for and forget the rest... we'll just write it off as "unknowable" further, lets browbeat despair into anyone attempting to work hard via trial and error to refine these theories down to verifiable truth

what a sad way to live

>>28
I'm not even sure if you're trying to argue for or against faith based spiritual beliefs anymore... not to even mention religion.

religion is faith for those who are too weak to have faith in themselves.

>>1
You answered your own question.  What if there was no religion?  Instead of waiting for the devine to help them, they'd help themselves.  Instead of praying to somebody, they'd actually think about their own problems and how to deal with it.  Meaning in life?  They'll find a meaning for their life if they just look; accepting some pre-packaged meaning is silly.  If all the effort people have put into religion had gone into science or art, imageing the things would could have today.  Some conjecture that due to western religion's influence, the world was set back by between 100 and 500 years.  Instead of discovering America, Columbus may have been the first to step on the moon, instead.

Indeed.  Many people--religious people, that is--seem to believe that without their comforting pet superstition to impose limits on behavior, everyone everywhere will just go berserk.  In other words, scratch a Christian, find a nihilist.

I believe that people in general are stronger than they are given credit for, and can adapt to looking at the world in a new way.  Even if this were not so, saying "but many people will be unable to live without some kind of religion to give them meaning" is the logical fallacy of Argument from Adverse Consequences--which is to say, two and two make four regardless of whether someone personally has a problem with that fact.

Why do people think that superstition gives their lives meaning in the first place, or makes people better than their inclinations?  Are human beings not capable of creating their own meaning?  And isn't someone who only refrains from harming others because he fears Hell-fire and brimstone really a callow monster?

It goes without saying that nobody can decide whether God exists or not. To have a faith is a personal matter. Nobody can deny your faith. If you feel happier when you can believe in God, it would be better to have a faith. But if not, you should not have a faith. 

No.

There are also lots of atheist wackos out there, and lots of works of literature with great insights about it all. For example (one out of many), read: The Man Who Loved Children, by Christina Stead. (http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=238)

Not to mention Lenine, Staline, Mao, etc.

Also, atheism isn't weird in Japan, although they sure are (buddhism and shintoism aren't quite like western religions -- you can be a buddhist and an atheist, or a buddhist and a christian, for example).



"religion is faith for those who are too weak to have faith in themselves."

Satanism is just replacing a fake god by another (yourself). Or better, hedonism with heavy mysticism and bullshit thrown into the mix. Vice-versa the phrase and it makes just as much sense.

Satanists have had their ideas protected from attack long enough due to ignorance of what they really are, so get informed -- http://www.dpjs.co.uk/criticism/index.html , the main page has info on Satanism.



By the way, I'm an atheist, even though that's irrational (I have faith that there isn't a God).

>>33
So, your argument boils down to that if something makes you happy, you should just do it?

>>34
Kewl! A work of fiction containing a ridiculous caricature of the opposing point of view is now an acceptable argument, eh? You will excuse me, I hope, if I call that casuistry.

Stalin et al opposed the church because they saw it as a rival for power. I would be astonished by credible evidence that any of them gave a tinker's damn about truth and lies, given that the governments they headed were themselves so completely built on falsehood that they inspired Orwell, once a dedicated Socialist, to write "1984."

Satanists are as ridiculous as Christians, and I have the same contempt for them.

And there is nothing irrational about atheism. The religious have utterly failed to prove their claims about gods and angels and magic and evil spirits, so there is nothing whatsoeve irrational about laughing at them.

>>33
I'm not sure what he's saying at this point. His reasoning (if that is quite the word I want) grows more convoluted by the day. He has taken sophistry to positively Jesuitical levels, but when you cut through the sprawling weedy verbiage, there's nothing much there except "but it will make people feel bad," as if that were ever an argument against the truth.

>>36
>as if that were ever an argument against the truth.

you dont know the truth. the fact that you claim to know makes you just as laughable as any of the other views expressed herein

>And there is nothing irrational about atheism. The religious
>have utterly failed to prove their claims about gods and
>angels and magic and evil spirits, so there is nothing
>whatsoeve irrational about laughing at them.

If athiesm were merely a lack of thiestic beliefs, this would apply.  However, athiesm is itself a positive thiestic belief.  Athiesm is a positive assertion of the lack of any god or gods.  You can't prove/disprove that one any more than you can prove/disprove christianity.  Look it up.

What I wanna know, then, is what the word is for a lack of any religious/thiestic beliefs.

Lenine, Staline

LOL

>>38
agnostic, belief in only what can be proven

a narrow way to live in that much exists that is yet to be proven