Can Someone Tell Me What's the point of Religion?

Hope the mods don't ban this...this is not a troll attempt. I'm genuinely curious and would want to be convinced by someone who believes religion is something positive.

Whereever you look and as long as I remember, religion has done NOTHING but to cause poverty, wars, blood, hatred, and unrest.

We would have been better off without it...of all kinds.

Really? What in this world have us humans accomplished that is result of religion ?

Nada.

As long as it stays civil in here, we will allow it.

Also, I would try to be more open about the positives of Religion if you would really like to learn about it.

Finally, as an agnostic. I found myself believe in God when I was younger because I was scared.
Scared of the unknown, scared of death, scared of not existing after death.

Religion is very comforting as it says that there is something after this life and that, as long as you're a good person, you'll be rewarded.

I think this is the case for a lot of people.

Kick wrote:As long as it stays civil in here, we will allow it.

Also, I would try to be more open about the positives of Religion if you would really like to learn about it.

Finally, as an agnostic. I found myself believe in God when I was younger because I was scared.
Scared of the unknown, scared of death, scared of not existing after death.

Religion is very comforting as it says that there is something after this life and that, as long as you're a good person, you'll be rewarded.

I think this is the case for a lot of people.

I agree with this.

People are much more comfortable believing in a God and religion and possibly getting reward after death, than not believing in a God nor religion and getting punished after death.

I recently read about a study that religion might actually be an evolutionary survival mechanism of humans as it seems to be somewhat built-in from childhood on. There were interesting scientific  experiments with very small kids who showed a kind of 'magickal belief' already very early (there was no religion per se involved in those tests - the kids were just told not to do something because some invisible person/fairy/whatever was watching them and it was evident that they reacted as if that imaginary person was actually there).

I'd have to check whether I find an English online article about this (I read it in a recent issue of "Spektrum der Wissenschaft", the German print version of Scientific American).

Actually it is easier to rally people who have a common belief and if they are promised some rewards in the afterlife, they are more willing to accept hardships and even death in the here and now, so these groups of people are possibly better in eradicating others who are more careful with their here and now.

Another point that was made in the article is that religious people usually have a greater anount of offspring. The reason for that is assumed both through the "divine command" of multiplying forth plus the fact that people who have a belief in some higher power might feel more secure (aka "God will look after us...") and thus feel safer to procreate more.

As for agnostics (I'm one, too, btw) - this is a system that usually comes up with later time when people are able to reflect more about how logical the assumptions that stand behind the religious beliefs are.

umm, i mean this as no disrespect, but unless in the context of football/sports, I don't see how this topic is of any relevance to the forum. I mean, what's next, we'll start discussing politics and other controversial matters outside footy? anyways, just to add to the discussion (even though i don't approve of the topic), i think its more personal than a general point of importance...for me its more about my personal faith (christian/catholic) and the importance in my personal life (don't know how to explain that)....and regardless as long as humanity is around there will always be violence and people using religion, race, ethnicity, creed, sex, class, nationality and so on, to justify some sort of war or violence.....even if we were all practicing the same religion, or we were all atheists, as long as there are resources to enrich ourselves with we would still have something to fight about......sad but that's how it is.
Now back to footy, before this balloons into something out of control or we start seeing topics discussing tv shows and the likes

@Titosantil, this is the off topic section in the forum where we do discuss other things beyond football.

But since you brought it up let me ask you this, what constitutes religion?

I'll tell you what my religion is, it's football. Football is the definition of a religion for me.

Sit there and tell me the difference between religion and cult first and I'll explain to you why sport is the new millennia religion.

@ don't call me james, i didn't realize there was an "off topic thread", i usually post in my club's (real madrid) related thread or reply to any post that's not associated with a particular club, i only noticed the thread header afterwards...i'm not in the position to say what religion should mean to you or anyone (besides my wife n kids lol)...i feel its more of a personal than anything else. however the group or worship aspect that comes with it, yields a symbol of togetherness and support than anything else imo....originally, the 'group' was there to assist in times of emotional or personal crisis, when the group however overrides ones life, actions and personal conscience from a negative standpoint then it leans more towards cultism....don't quote me on that, its just a layman's definition I formed....

70% of the things that are wrong in my country can be traced back to religion. That's probably because we have all the religions of the world within a country.

I just don't get how you can slaughter 1000s of innocent women and children with swords because one or a few guys did something against your religion.

There are two interesting points, by the way. What is religion and the possible need for security.

In the past, many rulers (Egyptian Pharaohs, Chinese Emperors etc) made their subjects worship them more or less as Gods, so the ruling system was more or less a religious hierarchy in the first place and made it easier to establish the rule and hold onto power.

The separation between religion and ruling power like in "secular" governments appears to be more recent.

It is interesting that with quite some people there seems to be a need for having a religion-based rule nonetheless, otherwise the call for "God states" would be completely inexplicable.

Maybe people prefer to believe in higher powers as that way they don't need to take responsibility for things that go on in their lives? They can then blame it to some inexplicable divine plan and don't really need to look at themselves.

The same is for people who prefer to follow (totalitarian) leaders - that way the higher ups in the command chain take the responsibility and the rest of the people can simply follow without having to think much for themselves (and responsibilty for actions can be put on the higher-ups, too).

rwo power wrote:
Maybe people prefer to believe in higher powers as that way they don't need to take responsibility for things that go on in their lives? They can then blame it to some inexplicable divine plan and don't really need to look at themselves.

Yes people who take time out of their lives to discipline themselves and set a variety of rules and values that they have to or should strive to live to by, are really scared of responsibility? Oh my. Then you suggest religious people are mindless, can't think for themselve s, religion is in itself something that stimulates contemplation and philosophical outlooks on life. Whether everyone has that personality is another question but they are not more likely to be a dimwitted drone who doesn't think than an average secular person is.

Nice question Sepi. I'd like to leave my two cents.

A bit of background, I was born into a religious family (but on the liberal end of religious). I grew up following the belief. I always had a curiosity and would question a lot of things. In University, I did business, however I decided to minor in philosophy. I took a number of religious philosophy courses. Now that I am out, I am still firm in my belief and consider myself a theist.

Asking what the "point" of religion is, is a bit of a misguided question in truth. That's like asking, "whats the point in believing the sky is blue?" Well the answer is...people follow religion because they believe it to be true. The point is, that they don't want to live a lie. If I believe the sky is blue, and you ask me what the point is for believing that, I will tell you, well because it is true. Why would I believe in something I don't think is true?

I could go into why I believe religion to be true, but that's not the main point of this thread. Logically, I couldn't find any reason to give up my beliefs, in fact I found reasons to support my beliefs.

I think it is an unfair - and frankly, inaccurate - statement to say that what comes from religion is hatred, bigotry, war, etc. If you truly reflect on the history of the world, religion has been there through the majority of it. It is true, religions lead to war (such as the crusades), terrible events (Spanish Inquisition, Religious terrorism), however, I recall reading a thread where someone looked through all the wars throughout history, religion accounted for a total of 8%. Wars, for the most part, are caused by greed and hatred/politics. (I apologize, I don't have the citation ready). Wars, and hatred, are not caused by religion but by people and their desires. I will submit, that religion is an excellent way to drive people towards a certain cause, as previously mentioned in this thread. So if someone wanted to go to war, using religion would be a good way to get people to go along. I think that fact speaks volume of the power of religion, and should be seen as a good thing rather than a bad thing - that so many people can come together, regardless of background, for one determined cause.

I would also argue that religion is the foundation of morality in humanity. I don't believe we would have had morals without it. And we are so civilized now that we feel morality is innate and we don't need religion to teach us right from wrong. While I agree that is true now, I don't think it was always like that, and it is only thanks to religion that we came to this point.

To sum up my points
1) people believe in religion because they think its true
2) religion doesn't necessarily lead to evil
3) I believe morality came from religion

Cheers

A group of 6 friends are all bad because 1 person did something bad.

Football is not positive because there's racism and violence.

Liverpool are a bad club because Suarez bit someone.

QPR are a bad club because Barton punched Aguero.

Real Madrid are bad club because Pepe kicked and punched someone.

Moral of the story - Just because certain people use misconceptions about their religion to start wars, doesn't make the entire religion bad.

El Gunner wrote:I rather disagree om arabprince's point that morality stems from religion.
IMO, it's in every human being's nature to be able to differentiate good from bad. I watched a nice piece on youtube sometime ago in which explains the point that I just made, I'll see if I can find it and share it with you guys.

What you think is good, won't necessarily be the same for someone else. Hitler considered having an Aryan race good. We know that was bad, but many of his generals and him didn't think so. Same goes to hundreds of other accounts over the history till to this date.

If humans could differentiate good from bad then we wouldn't be living in a world of war, poverty and chaos.


PS: This point has nothing to do with religion btw.

Religion has caused a lot of shit, more specifically people who take religious views to the extreme

But it's obvious what positives people take from Religion, what more of a positive can you get if you're afraid of dying and afraid of losing your family and friends only to be told that you can see them again in an eternal paradise.

Yohan Modric wrote:A group of 6 friends are all bad because 1 person did something bad.

Football is not positive because there's racism and violence.

Liverpool are a bad club because Suarez bit someone.

QPR are a bad club because Barton punched Aguero.

Real Madrid are bad club because Pepe kicked and punched someone.

Moral of the story - Just because certain people use misconceptions about their religion to start wars, doesn't make the entire religion bad.

agreed 100 percent....hitler, stalin, mao, and many more dictators of their kind responsible for genocides and crimes against humanity were NOT religious either, doesn't mean all people who aren't are evil.....human beings will always look for a means to take advantage of ignorant and aggravated people to work for their cause, its sad but that's just the way things are

Thanks a lot for your responses everyone.

I think arabprince pointed it out well, maybe the thread title is misleading....I am not saying religion is BAD, because it has been a cause of so much war/blood/hatred...

I'm asking. Imagine no religion ever existed. Would we have been better off as human beings?

Do you think if there was no religion, people would rape each other endlessly, steal 24/7, kill, and be pricks? To what extent do you think it's RELIGION that has held people back from being over aggressive with those behaviours? Do you not believe maybe natural human good faith could have done that ??

Was it really necessary that its good outweighs its bad ??

I have lived in a religious country for a bit over a decade of my life, and I've seen people with strong beliefs. I have seen it's effective...but those nations haven't really done well in world-scheme compared to more secular ones, have they ?

Wouldn't religion be better if it just asked for humans to respect the basic rights or good faith and dignity, and didn't go into so much details about every aspect of people's lives that is causing so much trouble in large scale now ?

Bad people will do bad things regardless of their beliefs.

The world wouldn't be all that different in the grand scheme of things. There would still be bad people trying to control other people and abusing power, there would still be war and there would still be crime.

Some food for thought:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13983-religion-is-a-product-of-evolution-software-suggests.html

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129528196

Sepi, I see what you are saying. However, I would argue that morality came from religion. I would say (my made up history of the world) that religion came and with it, the fear of punishment (hell) helped keep people civilized. Eventually this led to governments being formed and these laws from religion became "laws" where the government punishes its citizens for such. And now, we come to the present. So while maybe religion isn't needed anymore as we figured out laws from a secular perspective, I would say that it was integral in the formation of our current system.

I definitely would say that the legal system in this day and age is what keeps us from committing crime. I wouldn't say we would rape 24/7, but it is what keeps people civilized. I don't think we are all that "moral", even though we like to think we are. Louis CK explains it better.

El Gunner wrote:

RealGunner wrote:

El Gunner wrote:I rather disagree om arabprince's point that morality stems from religion.
IMO, it's in every human being's nature to be able to differentiate good from bad. I watched a nice piece on youtube sometime ago in which explains the point that I just made, I'll see if I can find it and share it with you guys.

What you think is good, won't necessarily be the same for someone else. Hitler considered having an Aryan race good. We know that was bad, but many of his generals and him didn't think so. Same goes to hundreds of other accounts over the history till to this date.

If humans could differentiate good from bad then we wouldn't be living in a world of war, poverty and chaos.


PS: This point has nothing to do with religion btw.

But we will always get people that are just plain bad. Like Hitler and his generasl. How they've come to be bad, we don't know? And we can't do anything about that.

All I'm saying is each person has the ability of logical reasoning (bar if you're psychologically ill) and making good choices comes from logical reasoning.
I agree though, that what I view as good might not be on the same level as good for you/or it might just slightly be bad in your eyes. I know this from first hand experience from the people that I encounter everyday, because my opinions on what level something is right or wrong differs from theirs. But I don't think the difference in opinion will ever be too huge, unless you're just plain bad like I said above.

Not really, there is a concept called moral relativism, and cultural relativism. Why do you think there were such hostilities between the native American and white settlers? The white men thought the native Americans were pure evil for their torture practices, which in the native culture was not deemed evil and not preformed out of sadism or hate. But the white were simply horrified of it and subsequently felt justified in their actions. There are many more examples throughout history about two different cultures clashing over moral issues.

The widespread ideas about morality today largely stem from doctrines of the abrahamic religions.