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Those hateful atheists who think that "religion poisons everything" (one of their mantras which I have come across dozens of times on this site!) have a problem : they cannot explain how humanity ever made it from the stage of "clever ape" (with simple tools, maybe language and some singing and dancing) to the stage of full civilisation (think of ancient Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt, Greece, China...), with all its arts, architecture, administration, political entities, writing systems, technological inventions, metallurgy, sophisticated irrigation systems etc....

. After all, this long cultural (!) evolution from the Stone Age to civilisation happened in societies which were steeped in, suffused by, and dominated by religions. ALL of them. Between Göbekli Tepe and Athens, Rome, Alexandria, Tenochtitlan... up to the 20th century, there has not been a single non-religious, secular society. Everything we take for granted today when we think of civilisation originated and came to fruition in a religious society.

. Therefore, if religion really was such a deleterious force, if it really poisened everything it touches, all timid efforts of H.sapiens to make it beyond the most simple stages of culture would have been nipped in the bud by this omnipresent and pervasive poison.
Or does anybody believe that a baby would reach toddlerhood, let alone adulthood, if it were fed with poisoned milk?

Matias 8 July 1
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14 comments

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1

I disagree with the bulk of what you are saying.

Curiosity, empathy, compassion, communication, cooperation, family roles and establishing roles in the community, creating a civil code of behavior and laws, a way of life that benefits society for each geographical location, methods of raising children to be positive contributors to society, education and healthy competition, a striving for excellence... All those things have evolved in communities aided with stories, myths, tales of heroism, lessons learned from history, good and bad, without the need for believing in a particular story or myth as truth. In fact, in my opinion, the abstract of learning something through metaphor, and what has happened to others in various circumstances, helps us learn how to problem solve and think critically.

Religion destroys all that.

My thought is that the guidance has been there all along, evolving through societies, within various cultures, and grows or diminishes by natural consequences and lessons learned. Some societies thrived while others withered.

Religion is often used, with evil intent, as a tool or vehicle to get many people to leave their curiosity, empathy, compassion, etc., behind, or at least outside the door of the church, so they can be enticed into doing evil things, following their religion rather than their own common sense of fairness. To me, this is dangerous.

A religion that is used as PART of a culture, is one thing, but a religion that is used to make people do unthinkable things, is quite another.

Can a religion be good? I'd say it CAN be, but what we have going on right now is not good, in my opinion, and a better solution is needed. Maybe not a religion where people need to believe in something unreal, supernatural, as being true.

Architecture, communication, art, irrigation systems? All that has been done without religion. We have an ancient irrigation ditch on my little island, created by the first inhabitants, well before the overtaking of the islands by the missionaries. The original inhabitants had engineering skills born out of a need to survive and support the community.

Once the missionaries came, they forbade the islanders to use their own language, customs and history, which was recalled by melodic chanting accompanied by descriptive dancing (hula) so they LOST their culture and had to adapt to the missionaries way of land ownership, learning to read and speak English using the bible, not feeling a connection to their land and ways, so they felt lost.

Lost people are prime targets for missionaries. Yes, they were taught European history, mathematics, language, but they were not taught their own history. The islander ways (ho'oponopono, etc.) were lost and replaced by Christian thinking, which for many of us feel may not have been an improvement.

There was a time in island history where the islanders would have accepted a better way of life, a new mythos, but I feel sad that Christianity was all they got. Still, a resurgence of a more loving community where everyone lends a helping hand, and problems are resolved respectfully is creeping back into the culture here. Without religion, or alongside it for those who are so indoctrinated they can't let it go.

Depends a lot on how one defines religion. Seems to me your definition of religion resembles Christian fundamentalism more than what most scientists are talking about when they use the word religion. And the problem isn't helped by the fact that even the scientists can't agree on a succinct definition. But theirs is generally broader than the currently infamous right wing "Christian" zealotry. I am reminded that scholars like Karen Armstrong, in her survey of world religions, says that the single most common feature of all religions is the promotion of compassion.

@skado I don't see a lot of compassion in the religions of today. My definition of religion likely differs from yours. Even the "10 commandments" don't say anything about compassion, maybe honor in a few, but the rest is piffle, in my opinion. Civil laws can handle the important stuff that many want to give credit to religion.

For me, a religion would be a way we consider ourselves linked to our source of creation, which is largely unknown, though I have my personal thoughts on that. Beyond that initial link, we might also imagine a code of ethics or way of life that is true to that creative source and intention.

Most of us would like to see positive growth and harmony with our surroundings, with the use of knowledge, wisdom, reason and doing what's best for ourselves, our loved ones, and the larger community, in somewhat equal measures.

Lots of ways to think about a personal religion, not all of us want to be a part of an organized tool of oppression. I see that as destructive. I was understanding the original post to be crediting religion with the strides earthlings have made, where I feel it has stifled it instead, in many ways.

Could there be a better way? Yes, I think so, but what we've got controlling a large part of the world is not working to make humanity better, in my opinion.

Are there caring people who are religious? Yes. Are there caring people who are not religious? Yes. Are the religious taught to fear and distrust the non-religious? At this point yes.

@Julie808
😁 Pretty much everybody’s definition of religion differs from mine. 😁

1

absolutely. some get pissy about stuff they don't like and can't change. apathetically challenged.

5

Maybe it is as simple as this:

A man discovers a turd. He finds uses for it: painting his face with it to scare people away and flinging it at his enemies to keep them away. His family and friends are impressed. He encases it in gold, it shines, and his family and friends are more impressed. He bejewels it with precious jewels and now his family, friends and even his enemies are impressed. He makes up stories about the great exploits of his turd: his family, friends, and his enemies that believe are now cowed by the turd. He declares it holy and puts it on a pedestal to worship. He invents doctrines and establishes a moral code that benefits his turd and him. He uses it to manipulate those around him and fight for what the turd commands, which he defines: destroy anyone that doesn’t accept his turd's commands and anyone who is believing in counterfeit or false turds. He has a temple built to idolize his turd, and a city and government to protect his turd and its laws. He establishes a High Court to guarantee that his turd’s laws will never be affected negatively. Little did he realize how nasty his turd really was, that it carried disease and was slowly killing everything that it came in contact with.

I think the real questions that you should ask yourself are:

Why do you think religion is important? Why do you think religion should continue? Do you think people cannot be moral or kind without religion? Do you have a particular religion that you think should be the primary religion? Should everyone be forced to participate or respect that religion? Who will maintain allegiance to that religion? I notice that you call atheists hateful, is that because they reject religion or because you reject them?

Yep, no matter how much you polish a turd and even put sugar sprinkles on it, it's still a turd. Religion is human made - so only humans can improve upon it. But if we give credit to an imaginary god as the creator of the religion only that god can edit it... so here we sit waiting. The next religion will have to be created by humans with the ability to adapt and change, evolving as human needs change.

@Julie808 Or get rid of religion completely.

5

Seeing as how we DON'T have a sample of society that WASN'T developed WITHOUT RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE...we have no way to compare the two which makes your argument INVALID...what we DO HAVE are families that raise their children based on an ATHIEST or AGNOSTIC foundation and guess what...?...these families and children are NOT THE SAVAGES IN THE NEWS CALLING FOR DISCRIMINATION AGAINST EVERYONE WHO DOESN'T BOW DOWN TO THEIR SKYGOD...Religion is a CANCER.

Well we DO have examples of societies formed without a religion and worsened once religion was introduced.

I became very interested in the culture and society in Hawaii before the missionaries came and brought religion to the islanders. Much of the history of pre-missionary times is told through the eyes of the missionaries, so the islanders are portrayed as "savages, immodest and unclean" which skews the record. But they had in fact built a civilization that worked for them. Were some of the practices barbaric? Like the threat of death for some crimes? Perhaps in our modern view, but they did what was necessary to keep the society working in a way that was best for the whole. Western notions crept in and things changed. Some for better, some for worse. Put people to death for heinous crimes, or introduce guns, knives and murder?

For a society where a child is born to a woman, and that child is looked after by the village, with not only mom, but aunties and uncles, and they might not know who fathered the child, but that wasn't important in their way of life. Genders were separate but equal. When male dominated religion was introduced, it upset that balance and life changed.

The islanders had a mythology and many stories to share that recorded history and taught values. Could that mythology be called a religion, yes, I suppose, but it was a living breathing thing, all around them, not a dusty old book that can't adapt to changes or be questioned. The kapu system was dictated by the chief and could be changed by the chief/chieffess later as king/queen.

Hawaiian royalty had no notions of palaces and such until learning how the Christian world did things. The only palace in America is in Hawaii, built before the overthrow of the government by the missionaries/businessmen who wanted Hawaii for their country's strategic military post.

@Julie808 actually the Hawaiians did have their own religion before Christianity so in the purest sense we do not have any societies that weren't influenced by religion. I will admit that Hawaiian Society was much more content and homogeneous but Human sacrifice was unfortunately part of their makeup. Incest as we all know was part of their divine belief...isnt that strange that two societies separated by half a world would walk down that same road...smfh

@phoenixone1 I will disagree with your thoughts on that. It's hard to find books on the mythologies of the pre-Christian Hawaii that weren't written by Christians with a disdain for the previous way of life, but from what I've read and have learned from others in talking with historians, I wouldn't call it a religion in the sense of the word where it was believed literally, but metaphorically as myths are meant to be.

My thoughts are that there was no "divine belief" or "religion" that encouraged incest, but a misguided wish to keep the bloodlines pure for the ruling class, as far as marrying within the family, which is something other nations have done within their religions, if I'm not mistaken. The bible includes some incestuous relationships, without condemning them, though does condemn others. Many religions allow marriage between first cousins, and though many states in America currently forbid it, marriage between cousins is still legal in Hawaii.

5

Always it was and is a POISON, without any doubt! Today we feel the pain just because of today's civilization and values, but the pain was there before!
Religion came from culture, Not the opposite!
Art, philosophy, science, ...etc, all came from kingdoms and Humanity. Religion had Nothing to do with that, even suppressed it in many ways.
Your argument fallacy is mixing Kingdoms and Power, Human curiosity harvests with religions! Religion fruit was DEATH.
With kingdoms and empires you can find Culture, civilization, and arts. and of course religions! Why? because one of the religion's main functions was/is controlling system.

as a simple example, just check and compare the Ancient Persian civilization/arts with Arabs!
Islam came from Arabs land but you CANT find any piece of art or any civilization sign there! but in Persia! you Can, Even Before the Islam age, even before Christianity and Judaism, before Zoroastrianism, even before Mithraism... go on!

Diaco Level 7 July 1, 2022
1

aliens might of helped, or maybe a time traveler. I agree the progress seems a bit drastic. religion was enormously important in our development in any case.

1

Correlation does not equal causation.

5

People bust their asses at work everyday. People work hard to learn their trades and professions. People labor to conjure up laws for the protection and advancement of their societies. People struggle to hunt, farm and fish to feed their families.

It has has always been this way.
And it has almost always been this way: At the end of the day, or week, they give the credit for what they have accomplished to a deity they have never met.

Kinda weird to say the least

twill Level 7 July 1, 2022
2

There is no relationship between humans having false beliefs and progress. As such there is no need to even try to explain same.

@Matias No difference.

5

You have several fundamental problems here:

  1. You can't know if in the absence of religion something else wouldn't have successfully filled that role in an equivalent or even superior way i.e. you can't know religion was necessary only sufficient to produce our current state. This also means it's possible vwe could be much further advanced as a species were it not for religion. Your theory is similar to that of religious people who think the Earth is the exact right distance from the sun to create the perfect climate for humans to exist or a puddle thinking the hole it's in must have been made for it because it fits him so well. You imagine the outcome we're at is so perfect that religion was the perfect thing for humanity and that nothing else before would have worked or been better.

  2. The fact that religion was sufficient (or even necessary) to get us to this point is not mutually exclusive with religion currently being a poison to almost everything. "Past performance is no guarantee of future results" if you will.

  3. I've mentioned these clear and obvious objections to your apologetics before, but you haven't answered them or changed your stance, so obviously you're not interested in learning or even having a fruitful discussion. You are obviously only interested in defending religion.

@Matias
I’m somewhat relieved to finally learn I’m not the only one against whom the term “apologetics” is being used, on this site on which nearly everyone is an apologist for something. 🤣

4

As a sociologist, we have asked this question many times.
Religion and oranised society go hand in hand with each other. There have been and are a few secular societies, but none are currently of any significant size or influence.
Religion has given humanity organisation and structure allowing us to evolve beyond our immediate needs of living until the next sun rise.
There have also been many many throughout human history who have grown to realise that there are no gods and probably never more than now.
The question is, can humanity get rid of religion? As a professional in this field my answer is no. Beliefs involving strange invisible sky faeries distributing tablets of stone to random men on mountains can be overthrown, but they will get replaced with something else to worship and take our minds off being dead on day. Look to the rise of Fascism turning Hitler into a 'god' as a single example.
In a nutshell, religion and beliefs are instilled in the primary socialisation stage of life from birth until around the age of three to five, then reinforced by external agents from then until death in our secondary stage.

3

Religion gives false hope and security. It may unite people but it is following a false hope telling you about pie in the sky and an afterlife. Mankind has such a fear of death but it seems they worship death. This is not for me. Can I pinpoint when we left the "clever ape" stage? No more than I can present your ever present god.

5

Of course religion has had many benefits, especially in the past, I doubt you will find anyone to dispute that, that is a strawman argument.

In part because, in the ancient past, religion was simply the same thing as culture, the Roman word "religio" even meant exactly that, to some, because the modern word culture did not then exist. But the world moves on, and soon, as knowledge grew, and morality became more refined, people added new words to represent more nuanced ideas, starting with philosophy way back in ancient Greece and China, then politics, then the arts, then science, then secularism, then culture, humanism and environmentalism etc. in this century. And as new ideas carved out new areas for themselves, the world of thought became more complete and nuanced, and so did the language that modeled it. And wisdom and understanding is always about the greater nuance.

Religion was probably mainly harmless, even beneficial, ( Though I doubt it. ) when it was the same as all of human culture. But eventually the word came to mean just that small corner of human life and thought, where we still deploy fake authority and little else, which was never a good idea at any time. But then when the smaller more specific ideals, we call religion today, found that they had rivals, in the arts, sciences etc. they compounded their failing by lashing out at the better thoughts, and became at last mainly the refuge of the anti-social who wanted that, to escape and battle mainstream culture. Which makes it very toxic today even if it still confers a few benefits here and there.

Human culture has moved on, and now it is simply time for people to move on with it.

I always feel smarter, and learn so much after reading your post’s on this subject! Thank you! 😉

@Redheadedgammy Yeah, he's brilliant. I can always tell it's his even before I've scrolled enough to see his name.

@ChestRockfield Yes me too! I really learn so much from Fernapple!! I always get a kick out of Matias’s passive aggressive post’s. 😉

@ChestRockfield same 🙌🙌🙌

@Matias No my last was only about the present and future. I made no mention of the past. Really, if that is the kind of silly joke argument that you think is worth making, it is time to consider the damage to the personality that long term contact with religious appologetics may be doing. It is I know, common place in theist circles to use that sort of misdirection, but they never seem to realize that outside in the open air that is only going to make them look silly.

Quotes, it only took seconds to run these down, and there are lots more.

"And of course we can retain a sentimental loyalty to the cultural traditions of, say, Judaism, Anglicanism or Islam, and even participate in religious rituals such as marriages and funerals " "It is time to face up to the important role that God plays in consoling us; and the humanitarian challenge , if he does not exist." Both R. Dawkins.

@Matias, @Redheadedgammy I try my best, it is nice to know that people find value in it.

@Matias, @Redheadedgammy, @ChestRockfield You two will make me blush.

@Matias I would think that it would get quite a high return of yes votes, and there would be some justification in that. In part because everything poisons everything, there is nothing in human experience that does not have a cost and a down side, whatever the benefits. Simple dualism s belong to religious thinking and sadly that can infect other ideologies as well, especially those who are most engaged with relgion even in oposition.

@Matias No I do not think that anyone would assume that, no mention of a time period, meant all time periods, but would rather assume that the present tense was implied by default. However since this is a broad and liberal site, some members may not be all that intelligent or diligent readers, and it is possible that I could have misled them, for which I stand corrected. It is always good to be very careful what you write because of that, but sometimes it is needful to take risks in order to keep things short enough.

As to why and how religion switched sides, that did not take place at any one time but was a gradual process, in which the definition of the word itself was forced to change to match growing understanding. Which history was the main part of my comment here. So that I will quote it again.

"In part because, in the ancient past, religion was simply the same thing as culture, the Roman word "religio" even meant exactly that, because the modern word culture did not then exist. But the world moves on, and soon, as knowledge grew, and morality became more refined, people added new words to represent more nuanced ideas, starting with philosophy way back in ancient Greece and China, then politics, then the arts, then science, then secularism, then at last culture, humanism and environmentalism etc. in this century. And as new ideas carved out new areas for themselves, the world of thought became more complete and more nuanced, and so did the language that modelled it. And wisdom and understanding is always about the greater nuance.

Religion was probably mainly harmless, even beneficial, ( Though I doubt it. ) when it was the same as all of human culture. But eventually the word came to mean just that small corner of human life and thought, where we still deploy fake authority and little else."

The word religion simply does not mean the same thing today that it did in the past, and that is not just a label swap but represents real changes in society and thinking.

And I am sorry to say that the simplistic demand for a stated single time when the change occured, ignoring the fact that changes may be gradual. Is just another example of apologitics style pseudo-logic, the sort of low trick which I was talking about, which may be forgivable in people infected with apologetics, where low standards are the norm, because it usually only involves preaching to a converted audience who will nod along to anything. But it hardly belongs in real debates between adults.

5

It may have been useful in the control of society (how do you convince an illiterate peasant in arid countryside to expend precious fuel on thoroughly cooking pork? - You tell them that it has been declared "unclean" by "The Gods".)
Unfortunately, different religions clash, internal power struggles cause strife, and religions outlive their usefulness - but having become ultra-affluent businesses they refuse to die out.

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