Would the World be Better off Without Religion?

You seem to be saying that if we were to take religion out of people’s lives that they would just normally act in a reasonable (whatever that is) manner due to some innate goodness. Do you really believe that? Reasonable? According to whom?

You seem to be saying that to be religious you must abandon all science and reason. Do you really believe that? I have found that not to be true.
Would you say that it is reasonable to deny someone else the right to believe in religion because you have deemed it illogical?

Religion, all religions, can be taken to extremes. One extreme is strict adherence to God's laws/ commandments. We need the law. Without the law we fall into lawlessness and chaos. We also need a just God because without that there is no strength in the law.

Christians believe that only God is perfect. Because people are not perfect they cannot hope to live up to the perfection of religions that require strict adherence to the law. Islamic fanatics believe in strict adherence to the law. Like Islam, Christianity has the law, but Christianity also has forgiveness in the person of Jesus.

Christians are told not to judge. Because only God is perfect, when we judge ourselves righteous and condemn another for being sinful we have become self righteous. How can people ever be righteous if they are not perfect? If people are not perfect then it would follow that we must all be sinners. Interestingly enough this makes us all equal in the eyes of God. When we condemn another for their sinful behavior we agree with the law that says sinners are deserving of condemnation, but at the same time aren't we also condemning ourselves because we, like them, are not perfect and therefore also sinners? When we do something wrong that is deserving of punishment don't we hope for leniency and mercy for ourselves? Knowing that, should we not then show this same love and forgiveness toward others that we wish for ourselves?

The end result of christianity is love. The bible gives us two commandments under the covenant forged by Jesus. That we love God and that we love our neighbors as ourselves. Even if we don't know or understand the law as presented to us in the commandments most everyone can understand what it means to be loved. We also have the person of Christ who is our perfect example and embodies these two commandments in all that he does.

Religious extremists often demand strict adherence to the law. Their law does not allow for forgiveness. Religious extremists that only have the law use their religious laws to justify their right to condemn another and because people are not perfect a reason can always be found to judge others as less righteous and therefore worthy of punishment under the law. Those who are condemned may very well be guilty of having broken the law -in large part because people are not perfect.

Religious extremists who try to follow the law may seek to prove themselves righteous, yet being imperfect and therefore also falling short of the perfection the law demands; they can never find righteousness through the law. They are then apt to seek self righteousness by pointing out the faults of others and meting out punishment. They are always looking for faults in others to condemn so they can feel righteous. In Christianity Jesus is the forgiveness for an imperfect world. Born of God and not of man he was perfect/righteous. He died. He did not deserve to die under the law. He died in our place to fulfill what was required of the law that we might live not under the law, but under grace, God's love and forgiveness.

Was it self righteousness that drove Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to kill an eight year old boy, three young college girls and a security guard with their homemade bomb?

Religious extremists, in their zeal to obtain righteousness for themselves under the law, can exact their punishment for misdeeds at any time. People are not perfect, only God is perfect. There can be no sense of peace only a fear that religious extremists may turn their judgment on you next.

You can find religious extremists in all religions. I follow Jesus. He is my peace. I find it truly amazing the way God, through his son, has set up his plan of forgiveness, love and peace.

The recent arrest of Crawford and Feight, who wanted to kill muslims with radiation, shows just another example of self righteousness. You can find extremists in followers of all beliefs. Regardless of their beliefs there will be people who will judge others as undesirable, and worthy of punishment and/or death. You don’t necessarily need religion in that respect .

Ask your self why are the prison full of people who believe in god?
How has their belief worked for them?

b]Your simple minded correlation is not enough to entertain less alone to deserve any more then a vague reply.[/b]

.follow up cliché expected...keep grasping at straws, bye bye ! Wink

It does nothing more than create division among mankind and tells him that faith is greater than reason which is the biggest crime any organization can commit.

It is likely that there are a lot of evil people out there who refrain from being a scumbag because they fear having to answer to God when they die. If we were to remove religion, such people would likely begin making the world a more unpleasant place."

Human rights, to a great or smaller extent, are REAL social needs if you want to have a Social background working at all.

It is likely that there are a lot of evil people out there who refrain from being a scumbag because they fear having to answer to God when they die. If we were to remove religion, such people would likely begin making the world a more unpleasant place."

That is one of the most terrifying aspects of religion. Those who profess that religion is the core of their morals are saying that the only thing that separates them from Ted Bundy is a flimsy superstition. I'm a good person because it's right. Not because I'm scared of what will happen when I die.

Quote:

Human rights, to a great or smaller extent, are REAL social needs if you want to have a Social background working at all.

I think that is demonstrably false. Humanity developed, raised families, built societies, made music, wrote literature, created art and thrived for thousands of years without anything close to our modern concept of "human rights". We invented our modern understanding of human rights in the past 100 years (a fairly short time in the 200,000 years of the existence of modern humans).

I use the word "invention" very deliberately. There are no human rights to discover.

We made them up.

Setting this aside is patently true that no society can perform or simply exist if a set of laws that keeps peace and predictability is not in place. People either see an advantage on gathering together or they go away.