Imagine no religion - living life in peace?

by jws 12 Replies latest jw friends

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  jws

  A lot of people have pointed out that a LOT of the world's problems have religion at their core. Religion's crimes are VAST. From crusades to inquisitions to genocides to our current wars. The list could go on and on.

  What if there was no religion?

  Would life be any better? Or is it just our nature to fight and dominate? Would we find other reasons to justify the same horrible acts?

  And what about the good parts of religion? Would we adopt and follow behavioral standards (don't kill, don't steal, etc.) on our own?
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  FlyingHighNow

  Would life be any better? Or is it just our nature to fight and dominate? Would we find other reasons to justify the same horrible acts?

  I doubt it. People fight. With all the cumulative knowledge we have, humankind still has a long, long way to go in knowing the ways of peace.

  And what about the good parts of religion? Would we adopt and follow behavioral standards (don't kill, don't steal, etc.) on our own?

  To a point, the decency of the basic human spirit would help in this direction. I believe man will always set up some kind of belief structure, just as they have done in North Korea. There they are forced to worship their leader, not so unlike ancient Egypt where it was taught that the pharaoh was God.
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  Quirky1

  John Lennon said the same thing....
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  FlyingHighNow

  To get rid of religious divisions, as in the song Imagine, would not necessarily need to get rid of beliefs.
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  poppers

  Most religion has the idea of separation built into it, so getting rid of religion would be a good first step in man living a life of peace. But unless mankind's level of consciousness doesn't evolve beyond the belief in separation nothing will change. The concept of separation creates a need to "self defend" because "other" will be viewed with suspicion and fear, and that's when the seed of violence is sown.
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  FlyingHighNow

  And the need to divide unfortunately has little to do with religion, yet a lot to do with the need for control.
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  Kinjiro

  It would not stop the fighting and bickering that in inherent to humankind... but it will take away over 90% of the excuses for it... At least humans will have to accept the fighting and all the rest of the issues are their fault and doing, without the blame shifting to da devil or the blessing, authorization and permission to commit the heinous acts coming directly from the so called sacred books written by the so called gods..

  It would also help the environmental issues.. and here is why: If you accept the creation myth it implies that you ARE the crown of creation... with god-given authority to basically do whatever you want whenever you want to the planet and the rest of the 'lesser' inhabitants... You do it cause 'god' made you in his image and gave you his blessings...

  If religion is gone, then all of the planets inhabitants are equally important and have their role and responsability to maintain the ecosystem's balance... in other words humans would behave like humans instead of behaving like a virus would...

  NO religon? I, for that matter, would have a family again...
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  jaguarbass

  I think someone is in control.

  And the controllers find it easier to yank the chain of the controllees with a mechanism such as religion.

  Christian vs. Moslem, vs. Communism..

  Basically religion is an organized system of thoughts.

  People are pattern orientated, and birds of a feather like to flock together.

  So if you had a magic wand and could make religion dissappear without changing anything else about mankinds wiring.

  New religions would take the place of the old religion. It could start out everyone who looks one way vs. those who look another way, and then it would evolve and become more elaborate and complicated and geographically orientated.

  Till we get back to where we are today, which is where we have been ever since man started recording his history, writting it down.

  Which makes me think we either have a design flaw or its not a flaw and its a chain, an intended mechanism which the creator, game players can easily yank and manipulate.

  Because the people in power, savor get off on getting the pawns to go to battle, you can see Chaney and Bush lick their lips and see the twinkle in their eye when they talk of war.
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  DoomVoyager

  War is part of us. It will never cease.

  However, I may paraphrase a quote, the author of which escapes me at this time:
  "If there were no religion, good people would do good things and evil people would do evil things. But for good people to do evil things - that takes religion."
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  Kinjiro

  DoomVoyager... I just love that quote.. that was said by

  Steven Weinberg (born May 3, 1933) is an Americanphysicist, and Nobel laureate in Physics for his contributions with Abdus Salam and Sheldon Glashow to the unification of the weak force and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles.

  I also love these Thomas Jefferson quotes:

  Shake off all fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God, because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.

  We are afraid of the known and afraid of the unknown. That is our daily life and in that there is no hope, and therefore every form of philosophy, every form of theological concept, is merely an escape from the actual reality of what is. All outward forms of change brought about by wars, revolutions, reformations, laws and ideologies have failed completely to change the basic nature of man and therefore of society.