Should we abandon religion?

I have always maintained the civilization would be a whole
lot better off without religion… it has created far more wars,
conflicts, riots and deaths, then anything else ever created or found…
and not just between rival religions, but the wars between the same faith…
in fact, given all the wars between rival and competing religions, I would
say that the wars of religions has caused the death of millions and for what?
to say, my god is better then your god…in the name of religion, man
has killed, tortured, maimed, burned down whole cities, killed men, women
and children in the name of _________ pick the name of whatever deity you
are fighting for today…in the name of my god is better then your god, men have
said, I am better then you, creating an “us vs them” attitude that separates
one from another…religion doesn’t create unity, it creates disunity and hate
and discord in the name of god…nothing good comes from religion… because
at its heart is the separation that divides us and makes us less then what we would be
without religion…abandon religion and we shall be much closer to peace and
human happiness then ever before…don’t replace religion with something else,
remove religion in all its forms and we shall see a new golden age of peace…

Kropotkin

We are not far enough removed from primal needs, fears, desires and instinct to be able to abandon religions.

Venture,

Religion can give a sense of purpose - a positive one.
It gives one or some the sense that there IS something somewhere more worthy of being worshipped than ourselves, something which transcends us, something to give our hearts, minds and souls to at times.

Well worth reading. He was wonderful.

We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls.

The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.

Shivers…

I’m agnostic but I am not afraid of religion. I do realize though that organized religion has as much capacity to destroy as it does to build up where the right individuals are concerned.
I cannot know, we cannot know, but I can still experience and intuit - ergo, I am agnostic.
The word comes from the Latin religare (?) which means to bind. That binding can be as wonderful as it can be destructive.
We all need something to bind us up, to hold us in the grasp of the great beauty of the world, to where our imaginations can go, to what inspires us and yet at the same time that being “bound up” causes us to experience real freedom because of its capacity to bind us to these things.

… and Man-ipulations.

Yes, we should abandon religion. You didn’t phrase it as a simple question, but the simple answer is given nonetheless.

If God created Himself, in some way, then the death of God, through His Son, represented by the birth of unbelief, when Jesus was asked on the Cross, why His Father could not save him-the only evolved answer, at all credible still : is: If God does not exist, surely He would need to be created.

Perhaps the evolution of man, requires a God, even as a pure concept, to enable Man, to attain Paradise.
Perhaps, Manhood could never be attained except for going through the Pugatory, the cleansing to a purity necessary for It. That purity, may be the validation of God’s intentionality to find reason to live, for civilization to go on.

Otherwise, come chaos and again the beginning. For I believe, there are infinite chances of Man to redeem him selves in the eyes of God.

Why? A "Why makes it less simple.

Sometimes it’s a good thing to add the word “necessarily”.
I wonder, what would the world become without some form of good morality and ethics. Religion is capable of achieving this, depending on who the individuals are.
Is religion so antiquated and without validity?

Anyway,he forgot the word “organized” religion.

There are too many reasons for a simple why to be phrased and any phrasing of the why becomes too convoluted to do so correctly. The reasons to abandon religion outweigh the reasons to keep it, the why can always be figured out and worked out after the fact. Action is often what is needed.

If it isn’t organized, it is erased by Government persecution.

You will either bow to a dictatorial Government or a Religion. Moses was the liberator from the ancient Pharaoh government. Judaism and Christianity from the Roman government. And currently Israel from the Global government.

Without one, you WILL have the other.

Just a word, most social species follow taboos and social directives through breeding or experience taught to young. Social creatures manipulate their young.

Religion is scary because it turns people into brainwashed agents. Once they are infected with the disease they can never be cured. Religion is the most dangerous disease of all.

Maybe for brainwashed idiots, but not me. I bow to noone except my hot lesbian dominatrix.

I think James needs a good slapping like in one of those classic action movies. He needs to soldier up and stop panicking like a scared greenshoe.

It’s not religion, per se. Religion does/can have a place in society…plays an important and “sane” part. A sense of community and shared values is important for people. It’s just when certain individuals take it to the max and different directions that it can take on the demonic within. It’s the particular individual and his idiosyncrasies and neurotic and psychotic behavior and thought which turn religion into something negative and destructive.

A truly religious and spiritual person can be a great positive in the world. Religion is a tool.

Do we throw away all of our tools simple because they may find their way into the wrong hands?

These so-called brainwashed agents might have become such through other means as well.

The scope and degree of the manipulation is the problem.
“No reach of authority should ever exceed its reach of awareness.”

James,

That would necessarily depend on what “kind” of awareness. You left out the positives which would have to go with that. There are all kinds of awareness which are peculiar though not helpful and that do not shine like beacons.
That awareness which you mentioned just might be egotistical, narcissistic, pathological et cetera.

You asked, indirectly in the title, and explicitly in your post, what is the use of religion.

Oh, and by the way, for someone who asks “Should we abandon religion” you do a one-eighty in your last sentence.

One thing I got from my religion for dummies book is that religion can be divided into three core aspects: belief, ethics, and ritual.

Beliefs is what keeps the religion together. Beliefs give people a sense and purpose over doubtful nihilism. Religious ethics, or morality, shapes people to do good. Rituals tell people what to do to symbolize their presence inside a religion. All three work together to give a meaningful and purposeful life.

There are some religions, like Islam, that takes all of this to an extreme. Having to do multiple practices every day, pray a certain way, etc, is crucial for entire devotion to the cause. Other religions, like Unitarian Universalism, virtually has no belief, ethic, or ritual structure and people are meant to find meaning in things themselves. Of course, UUism is geared towards political, social, and religious liberalism, but that topic shall be debated in another post.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Oe6HUgrRlQ[/youtube]

I’m sure a lot of you have seen this video. This TED talk discusses how atheism can learn from religion. Although this sounds unlikely, I see the future of religion and atheism to come together, to learn from each other and to become less superstitious and less nihilist and materialistic.

This is already happening - many people don’t take the Bible literally anymore, but atheists still have holidays, sometimes exclusively for them (Carl Sagan’s birthday, perhaps?). Recently secular holidays have been flooding the gates. “National Talk Like a Pirate Day”, etc. These events are going to separate people more until every family has their own holidays.

I see the future like this: people won’t debate Christianity VS Islam anymore, people will debate Super-Sting Theory VS Loop Quantum Gravity. A race of super-intelligent lifeforms will argue for and against things like genetic and epigenetic alternations, the use of the computational singularity, etc. The nature of our planet, of our star, of our galaxy, local cluster, Universe, and beyond - will be discovered. We are the ancestors of divine beings.

The more narrow the awareness, the more narrow the authority.

Religion is a crutch and drug where forcibly trying to get people to give it up in enforcement will never work or materialize.I’m an atheist but not a militant one and people are going to continue on believing in what they want to as they’ve always done. Also, government is a different kind of religion and lots of luck of that ever going away anytime soon.

I agree but, the only species that can do that would have to be far removed from primal drives and instincts. We are not there yet … if ever