saltfish

I know I may rattle a few cages... ...though I think I will pique the interests of an overwhelming majority of this group by asking...


...Speaking of this present time...

...with all of the scientific, medical and social advancements, what need other than traditional does religion fill?

As a society, do you beleive that we could live without religion/spirituality?

Could a nation be civilized if populated by a majority of non-spiritual inhabitants?

Could strong religious beliefs be a hinderance to living a full life?

-----

I have my own answers, though I would like to hear what those around me think. It is very difficult to carry on this type of conversation in person, it tends to rarely ever become an organized discussion.


Thank you for your time, you've been a wonderful audience!



-SF

Mojo_PeiPei

I don't know if a nation can be moral or just without God. Europe is becoming secular, but at least religious moral principles are infused within them. Look at places like Africa that are Godless, not nice places to live. Life is cheap to them. Also I don't think it matters if we have science or medicine, it doesn't explain everything.

__________________
To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

Jasmar

Bullshit, Europe had religion during the feudal times and life wasn't exactly worth a lot, there was wanton violence and war everywhere for hundreds of years. The middle east is very religous and look how peaceful things are there. Religion exists because people are afriad to die and because it sets up a relativly stable society with basic rules for people to live by for fear of dieing and spending an eternity burning.

Kyo

By asking whether religion is needed or not, you are implicitly making the assumption that religions are false, because if religion were, in fact, correct, then the question of whether it is necessary or not becomes irrelevant. After all, if God exists then he exists regardless of whether humans believe it necessary that he exist.

Assume we play your game, however, and say that religion is incorrect. I believe religion to be necessary, regardless. My first reason for this is simple - and I think hard to argue with: if it were not necessary, it would not exist; certainly not in the form it does. Religion, if you consider it false, is a way of life. If you strip away the validity of its dieties and supernatural phenomena, then you are left with its teachings: a set of rules by which the faithful choose to live their lives. A false religion is no better or no worse, no more useful or less useful, than the set of morals and secular beliefs that we aetheists choose to abide by.

Some religions can be considered a crutch, as they attempt to explain and euphemize many of the misfortunes that have a perverse tendency to fall upon us mere mortals. It is easier for a child (or really anyone, I suppose) to swallow death, in all its forms, when they believe it a one-way trip to eternal paradise and salvation. We could designate religion as a device to prevent humans from becoming preoccupied with things beyond our control.

__________________
Sure I have a heart; it's floating in a jar in my closet, along with my tonsils, my appendix, and all of the other useless organs I ripped out.

chavos

Wtf? Africa? Godless? You have GOT to be shitting me. Both conservative Islam and conservative Christianity have extensive followings. I realize this will sound harsh, but your ignorance, and willingness to speak brashly is staggering. If you consider animist faiths to be godless, you have still professed a complete negation of the extensive monotheistic traditions of the continent. Seriously...for your own good, go back and edit.

To me...the necessity of religion is to understand the why, not the how. I understand my faith as the process of listening to the inbreaking of love, mercy and justice in to this world...something that science doesn't seek to address. I don't ask religion to tell me why the sky is blue. I don't ask science to tell me if love and mercy or separation and distrust will have the last word of this world. Use the right tool for the job, no?

Killconey

If religion is truly the opium of the masses, some people simply need to spend their lives fucked up. We all need something to believe in, whether that person is ourself, a neighbor or a god. Religion fills our need to be part of something bigger than ourselves.

__________________
Look out for numbers two and up and they'll look out for you.

Jadey

Because I am not a religious person I often try to understand what it is that draws people to have such an unwavering faith in something that, to me, seems so illogical. It seems that to many people religion is a crutch. They use thier belief in a "higher power" to justify the happenings in their lives when they cannot otherwise do so.

Can we live without religion/spirituality? I don't think so. I believe that there is such a thing as spirituality without religious belief (what?) For example, I don't believe in any particular religion, but I do believe that there is a higher power of some sort. I'm not saying there is a god, but that there is some type of "order" to the universe. Just as there are laws of physics there is a law to the universe, so to speak. It may not be understood, but that does not mean it does not exist. One has to have faith in something. Even if they believe that there is no one abiding force in the universe and they are the master of their own lives, they have to have "faith" in that belief.

Based on that I do not beleive that a nation could be civilized if populated by a majority of non-spiritual people.

Lastly, I whole-heartedly believe that religion can and is a hindrance to living a full life. Though, I would guess that the majority of religious people would argue that they are then rewarded elsewhere (in the afterlife, another life, or something else)


SO that's whatt I think. Hopefully that makes some sense to someone other than me.

CSflim

The majority of people are weak, and need something to hold on to.
They will willingly delude themselves into believing in something looking down on them, loving them always. They will believe that they will never die, but will live forever in eternal bliss.
It is a comfortable notion, no doubt about that.

For many people, the notion of living in a godless world is too depressing.

I have been thinking about this a lot. Would the world be a better place without religion?

"Religion is the opiate of the masses."

Perhaps this opiate is needed to encourage social order?

__________________

lurkette

I think there's a difference between religion and spirituality, and each serves a different purpose.

Religion is an institution, and as such it is a method of social control. It keeps people in a community and reinforces that community's norms and mores. It serves its purpose, but other institutions can do the same thing. Some people choose to seek out those other institutions, while some are drawn to religion for whatever reason.

Spirituality, in whatever form, helps people find meaning in their lives. Again, some people find meaning elsewhere, but some people are drawn to spiritual explanations for things.

Science can tell us "how" but we still always want to know "why". Why are we born alone and why do we die alone? What happens to us when we're gone? How do you live a meaningful life? What's the point? Science and spirituality can both be tools for trying to answer those questions, and I don't see any reason why the need to be in opposition. Some people choose to seek the answers on their own, and others need guidance, answers, support, community - hence religion.

__________________
"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

chavos

why knock religion so much? is it so hard to beleive that sometimes religion is simply a group of spiritual people that have gathered in intentional community?

Social control? Lurkette...i have the greatest respect for you, but i think you've overstepped your case in this instance. Religion, as many people experience is NOT about social control. I know churches that are about the pecking order, and enforcing taboos and norms. But i'm also familiar with many that are simply about getting together once in a while to celebrate something we share. so...while you might want to claim that "many religions have a theme of social control" or "many forms of religious expression coincide with social control"....to claim that religion is by definition a method of social control is really i think a gross overgeneralization.

Kyo

Exactly what I was saying - religion from a practical standpoint is a system of government (theocracy, kekeke).

I suppose the truly faithful stay away from discussions like this, because I have yet to see a single comment that takes religion seriously. We all begin from the assumption that religion is simply a mental construct or self-delusion and work from there. To its followers, a religion is not a method, a tool, or a construct. Looking at religion from a practical standpoint is similar to looking at paintings from a practical standpoint - yes, they have their 'uses' but painters don't paint 'useful' paintings, they paint what they feel, in such a way that others might know a bit of the feeling also.

I suppose I'm being hypocritical, since I'm not a follower of any religion myself, but this all feels very one-sided and it doesn't seem like it should.

lurkette

There's a difference between individuals' personal experiences of religion, and religion's de facto function in society. I think regardless of the intention behind it, religion like all social institutions (government, family, education, etc.) serves a function of social control. Maybe "control" is a bit strong...cohesion? They serve to stabilize society, and the flip side of that stability is the subtle enforcement of social norms. I think if you look at the anthropological roots of religion, it had two functions: 1. to explain unexplainable phenomena (birth, death, weather, natural disasters), 2. to enforce social norms to keep the tribe functioning (dietary restrictions, restrictions on behavior, health practices that kept the group healthy, etc.). I don't think the function of religion is that much different today. It just has a lot of other institutions to compete/cooperate with.

P.S. That religion is an institution of social control is pretty commonly accepted. It's elementary sociology.

__________________
"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

Darkblack

I am pretty much an atheist although I practice Buddhism with my wife. She believes in god and the main reason is because of fear of death and death being the end all of everything. She would rather think there is something else after death, which makes life easier to deal with.

cartmen34

Agreed. The simpletons need some reason why we are all here. "God" satisfies that need. Problem solved.

In case you couldn't tell, I am not a religious person at all.

__________________
"The problem with quick and dirty, as some people have said, is that the dirty remains long after the quick has been forgotten" - Steve McConnell

Jasmar

You may not see it as control but it does help keep people in line and it does promote stable communitys whether thats the purpose it was made for or not every single religion does it

Kyo

Regardless of your opinions of religion, such blatant disdain for the most important aspect of many people's lives does not improve others' opinions of you.

Rubyee

Religion and spirituality give people hope. Thus, to the people who are religious and/or spiritual (I say and/or because I do recognize that they are two different things, but can easily be the same), it is necessary. It gives them hope and something to feel good about.

__________________
You don't know from fun.

Xenomorph

I like religion. I'm a practicing Catholic, and even though I falter from my own convictions every day, I find them worth keeping. Shoot me.

Typically, some sort of religious or spiritual belief forces us to answer to ourselves. Call it "promoting order" or "ensuring stability" or whatever you want...I believe in a divinely engineered moral code that helps me become a better person while it improves the people I interact with's quality of life.

The large number of highly intelligent religious people in my life forces me to dismiss the claim that religion is for fools that need to be herded as bunk.

Religion is what you make of it. People that merely see it as an escape from Hell or a promise of Heaven live pretty empty spiritual lives, and probably find it easy to fall away.

__________________
The facehugger is short-lived outside the egg which normally protects it. Armed with a long grasping tail, a spray of highly-concentrated acid and the single-minded desire to impregnate a single selected prey using its extending probe, it will fearlessly pursue and attack a single selected target until it has succeeded in attachment or it or its target is dead

CSflim

hmmmm....even *I* wouldn't go so far as to call all theists simpletons. It simply isn't true.
But I can understand why you get that impression, sadly the most vocal, tend to be the most ignorant.

Plenty of theists on the boards here that are FAR from simpletons.

__________________

CSflim

Do you think that the world would be a better place without religion?
If you could snap your fingers and make religion instantly disappear into some hazy disatnt memory, would you?

I can't figure this one out.
Religion causes a lot of damage to the world. Hypocracy, the promotion of irrational thought, etc. etc.

But it also does good.
Many people would not act in a moral way without the idea of them being "rewarded" for their actions. Without religion, why should they act moraly? What's in it for them?
Secondly, many people would simply not be able to stand the idea of a pointless, finite existence. Would we find vast potions of our society slipping into depression ridden nihilism?

Perhaps religion is a basic human need to a lot of people?

By no means am I in doubt about the falsity of religion, but I most definately am in two minds about its worth to society.

(with regards to the assumption of the falsity of religion, I think that for the puposes of this thread we would do well to avoid any discussion of this matter. Religion should, in this context, be only talked about in "practical" terms, i.e. assume its falsity for the purpose of this argument, regardless of your actual beliefs outside of this thread)

__________________

filtherton

I wouldn't characterize all religious people as needing of crutches. I know many christians who are a lot stronger in mind and heart then the average. Furthermore, i've seen attitudes in athiests that i could only attribute to using their athiesm as a crutch to help them feel some sort of moral superiority. People who need crutches find crutches, whether religious of not. Anyone who has no doubt that their way is the best and lacks any respect for any other's way needs to take a step back and try to understand why ethnocentrism is such a big part of who they are.
Religion is a very powerful institution, and whether it has a positive effect on society depends on who is in charge of it. It is a huge oversimplification to write off all religion as unnecessary and invalid.

chavos

lurk...

I'll take your word on it...i've never studied sociology. But i don't believe that's completely getting to teh core of the question. If family and government are doing the same thing according to this theory...i question how accurate it is on teh details to give it such breadth of scope.

If all community, and all human relation is social control and cohesion...then organized science is about social control and cohesion. That, i don't buy.

filtherton...you make a very good observation. complete confidence or alligience to any idea can be a crutch.

OFKU0

I'm non religious, don't believe in God of any sort or heaven and hell and I am a great person. Ask anyone.

Everybody has their thing and I choose to live my life by my own doctrine rather than being told how to live because some think it is more morally acceptable if it is attached to some religion.

Some of the biggest assholes I've met were religiously based in their belief system rather than those who were areligious.

__________________
" In Canada, you can tell the most blatant lie in a calm voice, and people will believe you over someone who's a little passionate about the truth." David Warren, Western Standard.

Kyo

I suppose you are correct about the necessity of the assumption - this discussion would be irrelevant otherwise.

As for snapping your fingers and making religion disappear - I think it brings up something to consider: would any such change be permanent? 'Religion,' in its many forms are at their core a way of life coupled with an rationalization/explanation of things unexplainable. I think regardless of how many times you wipe the memory of religion from the world, religion will always resurface. Religion would not exist today if there were not a need or desire for it. There is very little other than religion that can offer what the faithful think religion offers - that is what makes them unique.

bonbonbox

...with all of the scientific, medical and social advancements, what need other than traditional does religion fill?

Gives people a crutch to lean on. A hope when they are hopeless. A way to control the people, not the best way, but a way.

As a society, do you beleive that we could live without religion/spirituality?

Yes.

Could a nation be civilized if populated by a majority of non-spiritual inhabitants?

Yes.

Could strong religious beliefs be a hinderance to living a full life?

No.

lurkette

They're not necessarily doing the same exact things - but think about it. In order to live with other people, we need to learn how to behave, right? Family lays the framework for that - teach kids to say please and thank you, to share, not to pick your nose in public, etc. Teach them the basic rules of the game. Education teaches them practical skills and knowledge but also how to get along with other people, frameworks of competition and cooperation, etc. Now what happens when you're free of those family and education system constraints? To some extent, people internalize the rules they've learned. But you've still got a good 60 years to go, and what keeps people in line? Government passes and enforces laws that keep us from killing and stealing from each other. If you start your own family, you're re-inserted into that structure and its constraints. Religion is another way of keeping people in line, so to speak: one, it sets down the rules for how to treat other people, but it also provides a deeply internalized constraint on how to behave - your eternal soul is on the line. It's not just about your relationship to other people (although you are in a community whose purpose is to support you in following certain precepts), it's about a relationship to a higher power. What better authority to keep people in line than a deity who can see your actions all the time, and can see into your very soul and knows not just what you do but what you feel and think? I'm not trying to be cynical, I'm just saying that religion does in fact serve a purpose of social control.

Quote:

If all community, and all human relation is social control and cohesion...then organized science is about social control and cohesion. That, i don't buy.

Why don't you buy it? Think about the peer review process, the system of conferences and other methods for sharing scientific work. It at least works as a measure of social control for scientists. In terms of social control for the larger society, sometimes science is relevant and sometimes it's not.

__________________
"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

chavos

Whoa...i think we may be missing something here.

I understand that hellfire and damnation is one way of looking at religion...but i think you overlook the way that many people view the divine. First, there are many non-theistic faiths that would eschew the idea of hell. Not all religion is carrot and stick. I don't know how to explain that more, but i think its very important to this discussion.

Certainly, Carrot/Stick models represent some religious activity...but not all. and it is not a fair representation to state that religion is about a divine "No!" It's not all about that... Frankly, i think it's about the divine "yes," but that's another thread.

As for science....I don't buy it becase there is something else going on than the surface mechanisms of control....they're doing what they do out of an impulse to know more, to explain things etc...and the social control is just the thin icing on that process. Much like i think about religion, at least personally. I don't go on sunday to be told how to behave. I go because i want to know more, to explore this part of life that is so powerful to me. Simplfying down to say that religion's purpose is social control is to ignore it's intrinsic value....which i suppose you can assume for the purpose of discussion. in which case, i suggest you try to analyze the value of science in society, assuming that all the work it produces is based on a falsehood/delusion.

Point being, you're first assuming that there is no function related to faciliating human conversations with the divine...and focusing only on the byproducts of that process. If you only looked at what science did assuming there is no real conversation with the physical universe and it's complexity, you might deduce that science's role is to provide a social setting for nerds, and to consume paper, and make lots of books with weird symbols in them.

lurkette

Chavos -

I think our misunderstanding stems from my poor communication.

I didn't mean that religion and spirituality are mutually exclusive (but not necessarily mutually inclusive, either), nor that social control was the ONLY function of religion. I think that religion stripped of personal spirituality, though (spirituality = what I referred to as people seeking meaning in their lives, or what you described as exploration - I'd describe myself as a spiritual but not a religous person)...where was I?...religion stripped of spirituality (people who go to church because it's expected, or for social reasons, or to reinforce their existing social beliefs with others who think as they do) is a social institution, and I'll stand by what I've said about social institutions. So, I didn't mean to say that religion's only purpose is social control, but I can see how it looked like that.

I'll see if I can find some good sources that might be able to explain "Institutions and Social Control" theory better than I'm doing. I think there are some essays by Max Weber but I'm not sure where. Anyhow, here's a brief article that covers these ideas very shallowly: <a href="http://library.thinkquest.org/18802/usrelig.htm?tqskip1=1&tqtime=1017">http://library.thinkquest.org/18802/...=1&tqtime=1017</a>. Keep in mind that I'm speaking of religion as a social institution, not as a personal experience, which I would refer to more as spirituality.

__________________
"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

chavos

*hmm...

I think i see what you're saying, and i think i agree with it more. That said, I'm not sure it's wise to totally bifurcate religion and spirituality. For many, they are one and the same...

toxic515

I posted a rather long post under "why I am a Buddhist"... In fact, I had intended to put it into "what turned you against religion" but since this post is here, I am going to copy and paste it with only very slight editing. Those of you who've dealt with my rants before, please forgive me, as I have a tendancy to be rather verbose on these subjects so as not to present an ambiguous position. :-)

The fast answer, for those of you who prefer to cut to the chase: In my opinion and the reasoning that I follow, religion for me is irrelevant other than to understand why other people act the way they do. I intend no ill will towards those whose REASONING has led them down a path, so long as they understand what they believe. I think it is possible to be a spiritual realist.

" Man cannot escape from the need for philosophy; his only alternative is whether the philosophy guiding him is to be chosen by his mind or by chance" -Ayn Rand

• Religion is a primitive form of philosophy. It attempts to provide a theory of the nature of man, man’s place in the universe, and a guide to human action. But religion (in and of itself) admittedly has no rational basis, meaning: no basis at all. “Faith” is merely someone’s assertion (without evidence) that something is true. As a “guide” to life it couldn’t be more dangerous. And it is becoming an increasing danger to Americans as the 22nd century opens. The religious right’s efforts to enforce religion and destroy our rights is all around us: laws preventing abortion and assisted suicide, censorship, laws against homosexuality.

I'm not at all opposed to allowing others to worship as they see fit. I encourage everyone to perceive reality. I am an ordained minister, rather well educated in Christianity and it's various forms, as well as Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, and wiccan. I have not turned my back on ANY of them as a codified system of behaviour. The issue here is to perceive REALITY.

• Instead of turning to reason and reality many are turning to what they think is an alternative: religion. It is easier, they think, or worse, they FEEL.

In today’s industrial civilization, people normally recognize the difference between the secular and the religious. Even those who believe in the Bible, for example, would generally not proclaim Scripture to be science — any more than those who faithfully read their horoscopes would declare astrology to be part of astronomy.

That being the case, I often wonder exactly why we become so mired in the clutches of DOGMA. I have turned my back on DOGMA. I find that I was lied to in many ways. Not lied to with malice, but lied to in ignorance. Lied to by people who never had the courage or conviction to examine their thought process, their belief system.

• Faith and reason represent antithetical philosophies. The advocates of faith declare that we must accept as true that which is unknowable to the rational mind — that we must believe the pronouncements of some “higher” authority in the absence of any objective evidence, or in outright contradiction to the evidence. That's sadly true of each of the religions I have studied. By that statement, I mean the DOGMA. The tenants of each of those are something more, something different. Love, peace, spiritual development, and honesty are at the core, and those values any man of any faith can embrace wholeheartedly, and with the full power of REASON. It can be done without the metaphysical trappings of religion. Man grasps a concept and a truth solely by a process of reason, which is based on data provided by the senses.

At any moment, and across any lifetime, the choice is always either/or: either follow your reasoning mind, or abandon it and place something above it. There is no “middle-of-the-road.”
• ANY dogma presented as a pure truth, without evidence, is an insidious attack on reason, and on the human capacity — and the human right — to live by means of one’s rational thinking.

You needn't turn your back on anything directly, but be certain you understand what you believe. Base it on empirical evidence, sensory input.

If mystical faith is the basis of knowledge, logic and persuasion are irrelevant. There is only the brute assertion: “Well, that’s what I feel like believing — and I believe that you better believe it too.” There is no recourse but force.
• Throughout history, wherever religion has dominated, freedom has disappeared. From the Catholic Inquisition’s persecution of Galileo for accepting the evidence of his mind, to the Iranian Ayatollahs’ sentencing of Salman Rushdie to death for expressing his views about Islam, to the current attacks on abortion clinics in the name of religion, and America's victimization on Sept. 11... — the only way mysticism has been implemented is by force.

There is an urgent need to defend reason. But let the battle lines be clear. The war is between those who subordinate reason to other considerations — whether subjective whims or supernatural dogmas — and those who intransigently uphold it.

__________________
Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies
like a banana.

DownwardSpiral

Could people live without religion? Yes, I think they could. That being said I would have to agree with lurkette here, she brings up good points.

__________________
"So Keep on Pretending.
Our Heavens Worth the Waiting.
Keep on Pretending.
It's Alright."

-- H.I.M., "Pretending"

papermachesatan

Religion is a crutch.

filtherton

Well played old chap! Perhaps you'll join me in cleaning up these oilly rags before they turn into rats.

Maybe you could elaborate on that before you come across like a rebellious teenager.

papermachesatan

Gladly.

Religion = crutch because religion represents man's laziness and refusal to think for himself, man's inability to self-govern himself, man's inability to take charge over his destiny. God is a projection of the superego.

Now granted it's probably an overgeneralization to claim that everyone uses it as a crutch but most people need religion. When I came to the realization that there was no God, I felt like a safety blanket had been ripped from me. It took a little bit for me to get over that insecurity.

filtherton

This person seems to think all of religion occured in ye olde catholic church or ye salem witch burnings. All this is is a bunch of one-sided innaccurate generalizations.
Religion, or anything else for that matter, is only a crutch when people use it in that manner. There are people who worship rush limbaugh or micheal moore like a god, is politics a crutch too? For some people it probably is. However, religion, like politics, isn't a crutch by nature. The people who use it as a crutch use it as a crutch because they need a crutch. If crutch needing people didn't have religion to use they'd just find something else. People use athiesm or "straight edge" status as a crutch too. I'm know plenty of straight edgers use their sobriety to put themselves on a pedestal over their peers. Seemingly for no other reason than just wanting to feel superior. They use sobriety as a crutch to lift up their low self esteem and percieved lack of control(or some other pop-psych nonsense) Does that mean it is appropriate to, in a general sense, write off all straight edgers as using their sobriety as a crutch to help them feel morally superior to their peers? Would you ever post
"Straight edge is a crutch"?
I hope not.

I wouldn't say that most people need religion any more than anybody needs any philosophy that they have held as truth for a long time. It is just that so many people have no problem being religious and see no reason to change themselves in that respect. It is always difficult to alter any longstanding deeply held beliefs. It would be equally difficult for a dyed in the wool communist to make the conversion to capitalism.

papermachesatan

They're examples. Point out the one-sided inaccurate generalizations.

When you allow them to think for you, absolutely.


True; and this also doesn't refute my argument at all. Having a crutch replace another crutch doesn't mean the first crutch isn't a crutch.

Argumentum Ad Hominem. You're describing one's self righteous actions; not the philosophy itself.


Ignorance is bliss.

filtherton

You can't have actions like this without a philosophy to motivate them. Besides aren't you doing the same thing? You speak of religion as if all religious people believe the exact same things. That is actually not the case.

You miss the point. Crutches are natural for people who need them. The fact that some people use religion as a crutch is irrelevant. If it weren't religion it woud be something else. What is your crutch?

Well, you're pal basically says all religion is the same.
He even brings up how religion encourages people to "burn the jews". I'm sure most jews would find it ironic that their religion is supposedly telling them to burn themselves. Think of religion as having many different variations because it does. Now think of your buddy only looking at the worst of these variations. Seems innacurate and one-sided to me. You might also be surprised that many witches also practice a form of religion called wicca. Maybe they burned themselves at the incitement of this broad word "religion" that you just throw around.

chavos

paper...using extreme examples, that are unrepresntative of the whole, is an example of a generalization.

Frankly, you're going to put religion at a disadvantage because it has history. If we judged political systems, say democracy by their original incarnations: Male, property owner led near oligarchies in hellenistic city states, it wouldn't paint a very rosy pictures. Or, you could find current examples that weren't doing so well-such as the challenged democracy of indonesia. But what you would be ignoring is the sucesses and counter examples to those instances that you raised. Over-selectivity is a logical fallacy. Mmkay?

ForgottenKnight

Hope. Religion gives one hope in a society where it is hard to find hope in anything. Never underestimate the power of hope. As a society, we can only live without religion if there is another great source of hope. Yes a nation can be civilized without being spiritual, as long as the laws of the nation are founded upon being civilized and good, and as long as there is another great source of hope. Can strong religious beliefs be a hinderance to living a full life? No. Only if the religious beliefs are taken out of context, and only if the person has closed their mind to outside ideals, will it be a hinderance. If a person closes their mind and doesn't respect others who believe differently than oneself, then that person is causing the hinderance living their full life. Not the religion. The problem is too many people blame the religion for the belief and attitude of the person, when it is the person that is at fault. This is obviously assuming that by religion, one is talking about the root believes of the religion, and that the religion is not a cult, or cult-like offspring of the religion that although claiming to be a part of a major religion, belives nothing that the real religion believes. I say root of the religion because many religions, including my own, catholicism, are corrupted by people in different parts of the world, causing many to believe in something which goes against the core of the religion. It is many of these false beliefs that make good religions look bad, and are a root cause of false generalizations. Don't generalize religion by what you hear from others or see others do. Instead look at what the people are suppost to be believing in, the core of the religion. Just because a person says that their religion believes something, even if that person is a priest or preacher, it doesn't mean that it's true. One must look deeper into the text(s) of the religion if they are to find the truth.

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"People say I'm strange, does that make me a stranger?"

Jadey

I think you pretty much summarized my feelings on this whole thing. As I said before I think many people use their religion as a crutch. Though I do not mean that in a bad way necessarily. Many people need to believe in something to explain the unexplainable and to help give them a sense of meaning and belonging. As you said without that sense of belonging this is usually an overwhelming feeling of despair and hopelessness. So, hope is a VERY big part of it, as you and Rubyee said above.