I agree with the basic statement and the established sciences behind your arguement. Another person on the site said: if you are an atheist, where do you get your morals from. I think you should have provided a link to the south park episode when cartman eats through his butt and excretes out his mouth. that deals with the morality in atheism and the true nature and, to be honest need for religion not exactly a god for human developement. tony the tiger was a good analogy but you can’t beat father maxi running through a forest in arcade game style to change vatican law. you have to see it.
One of my closest friends is a devout catholic and constantly say’s to me:you have to believe in something. I didn’t know what he meant until that episode. If I hadn’t seen that episode your post would have done the job.
P.S statistics don’t take up much space you know.
It’s a fact that 95% of people with agree with you if you just quote statistics.
P.S I just looked through a few religion posts and they seem to miss the point of religious stories and folklore. Perhaps it is because of the fact that I subscribe with the darwinistic view you posted but they have to read it and watch that SP episode, but seriously I don’t think they see the part religion plays as a scaffold for human progression and not a blind man’s walking stick upon which all of humanities weight is placed. Change: Adaptive God–to-- We Have Punch And Pie or something to get their attention. SP joke. you have probably seen it yourself.
The homogenuity is more a matter of effect of culture supported by the largest ethnic base, would be my premise.
Whoa ~ slow down there Tex. I was with you all the way, but if you think you can “extinguish global conflict” of any sort, by objective truth … you just swallowed a whole canister of Blue Pills.
Belief is indestructible, it can only be subverted for short periods, then it will return, most often even uglier and less rational than before.
The world populace is primarily composed of followers, and they do not take to having their “reality” unceremoniously changed. They would simply implode without an object defined as “greater than I, greater than thou” to hold onto as the center of their existence.
Although Nero would love you, he’s long since dead. You are just asking to become a target.
Mastriani - I think he was illustrating the fact that a religion without a god is a fallacy, not wanting to found a new world utopian order on the basis of the finer points of-- Your Inner Giant: How To Be The Big Fish In Business. Nobody is that deluded except perhaps the author of said publication and all it’s readers
All this dancing around… I think I’ll go all the way out on the limb. We are now beginning to find, through scientific research, that humans would invent a god whether there was one or not. To have a god and the attendant religion/dogmas is socially beneficial. At this point, the research only indicates. It doesn’t “prove” anything - yet. But the path seems worthy of further exploration.
The threat to theists is that it calls into question the one-behind-many all powerful, all knowing creator of the universe. What we are learning from the scientific research studies is that it is not only possible, but is beginning to seem likely, that we made it all up. For very good reasons of course, but made up from our imagination nonetheless. That this calls into question our belief systems may be uncomfortable, but the genie is out of the bottle, and further research seems very likely to confirm a new understanding.
It may be a long way from a completely convincing accumulation of acceptable evidence at this point, but the plodding of scientific investigation will eventually catch up, just as happened with the “theory” of evolution.
I doubt that, with even the most sweeping mapping of social memes, we will ever completely penetrate the mysteries of our spiritual nature, and I’d rather not if you don’t mind. But the need for religion to either shed its mystical externalism or be replaced by who knows what will grow stronger as we know more and more about brain function, and how socialization affects phenotypes. We are discovering new bits and pieces, and when the mapping creates a clearer image, religion will either evolve into a new and more complete understanding or it will disappear.
I have to agree (hesitantly) with Mas, that the need for belief will never go away, whether supported by religion or some other mythic form. But the external idolatrized God is dead. What belief system(s) we will enjoy in the future is an unkown, but religion as it exists today will have to change and change drastically.
I think that most religious individuals think of the Church as a human construction and that much of its good deeds are through human agents. For example, most religions deal heavily in charity – clearly humans helping humans. There are other examples as well, where the focus of religion seems to be about learning to love other humans though god, but even if that intermediary were removed, the essence remains the same. I mean, aside from radical Islamists, Nazis, and the wackiest branches of Christian Fundamentalism, nobody uses the “God’s Chosen” stueck to justify their actions. They will say that since they are [insert religion here] they are moral individuals, and from that moral basis they are sure that what they are about to do is acceptable in the eyes of their god, but again, this deals with humans interacting with humans and using god as a sort of intermediary.
I really do think that you are chasing a bugaboo that isn’t there.
Furthermore, with respect to conflict, I don’t even see religious conflict as religiously motivated. I mean, look at the history of these so-called religious conflicts, there is always something else going on and religion is used as the excuse. I think a lot of what you are talking about was discussed in the thread Division Causes War and my stance is unchanged from that time. Here is my take on some of the so-called religious conflicts of history:
I have to disagree. Today’s religions move forward on the implied concept that they are supported by an (untouchable) all powerful god. “God is on our side.” is a powerful motivator. The suicide bomber isn’t going to paradise because of the charitable work of friends and family. Take away his all powerful God, his golden ticket into paradise, and things change and change rapidly.
It may seem a small part of religious activitity, but it is the most powerful part.
Society does not grow without a focus. Can not. Will not.
The many foci of roman society for instance were coinage:The latin inscription, the emperors bust were symbols of rome and a point of focus culture: the legions and citizenship, the baths and gladitorial games. in the modern context the architecture of a society defines it, national flags, borders, sports teams, government figureheads, culture, music, national dress, in the modern west, established companies: coca-cola, mcdonalds, the inumerous clothing companies. The ultimate current example is however, Europe. In order to compete with russia, USA, China, they are trying to unify europe. The euro is a symbol the EU is a symbol. The foci of society are abundant and it seems to you to be vulgar and obese.
To say any society has no focus is ludicrous. when religion is not an option as in empires, the many symbols listed above are the conglomerate focus of said society. Look around and try to refute this
P.S I sympathise with you as societies’ growth being bad, individual cultures are lost and who wants to be united under the banner of COCA-COLA.
Of course it does! It is saying that there is no external creator. The God(s) of religion are man created. God didn’t create man, man created God. That isn’t just a niggly difference, it is the difference that MAKES a difference. More importantly we are beginning to see the ‘science’ that gives credence to that statement. It isn’t disputing the necessity of a God, Tab freely acknowledged that social evolution dictated the need for a god. BUT, it is the source or origin of that god that creates a quandry for the theists of current religion.
Tab’s argument is that we have A which, through human enterprise gives rise to B. Because we have A and B, there is no God.
The problem is that a religionist’s argument is that we have A and through God’s actions, B arises. Because we have A and B, there is a God. Neither serves as a terribly convincing proof and, at the end of the day, this argument doesn’t really show anything. As I’ve said before, talking at crossed purposes.
Religion is such a personal thing that the debate is quite endless. There isn’t a sufficient “one answer” that will satisfy everyone, there are, however, a myriad of answers that satisfy different groups. To quantify these answers as “good/bad” or “right/wrong” is the equivalent to ‘Neener neener nee’ IMHO.
No one person has ever been able to adequately answer the question of “Why?”, and I think that is the answer most people seek through religion, not “How?”, or even “Who?”.
Asking the question of theology is highly arbitrary and opens a box of poo.
Though I’m not sure I agree with the notion of religion as being “personal”. That is a very recent development – throughout most of history, religion has almost exclusively been a societal practice and it still pretty much continues to be so. I’m not denying the personal component, but I don’t think that it is the most important, nor the driving component of religion.
I Don’t agree either. I am fascinated by humanity and an undeniably prominent chunk of that is religion. While religion does have it’s bottomless endless pits of questions and those who enjoy perversely asking them and arguing them, it is too varied and diverse(same thing) to white wash it with an all out I hate it. Until two months ago I had the same point of view as you. What changed my mind? Nothing!.. Perhaps time, but nothing else.
What is being claimed is that social evolution is no different than genetic evolution and may in fact, come from the same root. The difference is that this is in no way a metaphysical argument. If there is any cross talk, it would only come from those who wish to side-step the issues being proposed to make it a metaphysical argument. Of course, one can always do that. There is always another behind the behind the behind, but that wasn’t the thrust of the OP.
Until two months ago I had the same point of view as you. What changed my mind? 
Nothing!.. 
Perhaps time, but nothing else.