Would the World be Better off Without Religion?

@reasoning logic,

reasoning logic wrote:

Quote:
the ancients knew the control it would have on the , uneducated

True it is a problem with being uneducated but the biggest lesson I think they were missing is the same lesson many of us are missing today and that is when you have empathy you can be so naïve to the point where you cant imagine people being as evil as someone with very high traits of cluster B personality disorder or being at the far end of that spectrum.

cluster B personality disorder or the far end of the spectrum ?

what do you mean ?

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@north,

http://www.nature.com/news/complex-societies-evolved-without-belief-in-all-powerful-deity-1.17040

My personal opinion is based on my observation with my own family members. I have always maintained that religion is an accident of birth. In other words, most children follow the religion of their parents. Our mother converted to christianity from buddhism, and I'm the only atheist in our family.

That's the reason why you find christians in Europe, and buddhists in Asia. In some old cultures, the king claimed to be their god. The history of Egypt is a good example.

Quote:

Ancient Egypt. The Ancient Egyptian pharaohs were, throughout ancient Egyptian history, believed to be incarnations of the god Horus; thereby derived by being the son of Osiris, the afterlife deity, and Isis, goddess of marriage.
Imperial cult - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_cult

I also believe that religion was developed to control the masses. That's the reason most religions were created many centuries after man inhabited this planet.

When I visited the Vatican, I asked myself, why all this investment in a building when so many Catholics in this world are starving. I saw a temple in India with a gold dome. Why?

Religion is also a good way to learn about most cultures. I think religion was inevitable to humans.

Religion has been responsible for many atrocities; contrary to what most believe religion should be. You would have to arrive at your own conclusion whether the world would have been better off without religion.

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@north,

It would be best if you studied it for a while to come to your own understanding. I will look for a short video on 1 of the 4 cluster b disorders to share with you. 3 are very bad and 1 is not as bad for society in my opinion. The one I think is not as bad is Histrionic.

In my opinion this man may be the most informed about what he is sharing.

He claims to be a cerebral Narcissist. Strange thing that all psychologist I know say men can get better but not cured but women can not be helped at all. This idea is shared by both men and women psychologist.

This man has many videos on this subject. He is not given much credit by some in the psychologist community but keep in mind these disorders are not prejudice to professions.

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@north,

This is Sam's introduction.

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@reasoning logic,

what has these videos got to with religion though ?

and or the OP ( original post ) .

don't understand the connection .

1 Reply

@north,

Quote:

what has these videos got to with religion though ?

and or the OP ( original post ) .

don't understand the connection .

I originally brought cluster B personalities into this discussion when you made the statement below.

Quote:

the ancients knew the control it would have on the , uneducated

Trying to control people by making up stories is what Narcissists do best. The more times you practice something the more skilled you become in what you are attempting to do.

We have studies by groups of many professions that show members of clergy score very high on The Hare Psychopathy Checklist.

You know the saying "It takes one to know one" Well the man in the video claims he too has a cluster B personality disorder

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@reasoning logic,

Reasoning logic ;

The Hare Psychopathy checklist ? Hare ?

How does the man in the video claim he is a psychopath ?

1 Reply

@north,

Quote:

How does the man in the video claim he is a psychopath ?

He claims to be a Narcissist in one of his videos but I could not find the video.
I did find the below link in the short time I had to look.

http://www.drpsychmom.com/2014/09/08/interview-narcissist-dr-sam-vaknin-deigns-interviewed/#

Q. How and when did you realize you were a narcissist?
A: I didn’t “realize” it (sorry!); I was diagnosed with it (twice). On both occasions I have hit rock bottom and was forced into a therapeutic-diagnostic setting: first by my then fiancée and then by the prison authorities. (Let’s leave that one alone.)

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@argome321,

How could we know unless we experienced a world without religion?
We already know the violence of a world with religion.

1 Reply

@nipigon1,

I think religion may have exacerbated wars, but I'm not so sure there would have been less wars without religion. I believe humans are war mongers.

1 Reply

The thread should have focused on a world without belief systems, which immediately clarifies an unthinkable proposition to start debating the topic. Focusing in Religion as if it were something distinct from an organised belief system is a gross mistake. Social common cultural belief systems are intrinsically bind to the human condition in the world when lacking absolute certainty in regards to the most meaningful questions regarding our existential paradigm. Again the very idea that Religion can be set aside as a particular "disease" unrelated to our general proneness to risk opinion without certainty is missguiding and dangerous. An intromission on cultural specifity, freedom of opinion, and social creative group dynamics. By the way, let me make clear for those new to the forum that I myself am by most common standards considered an atheist. Nonetheless when I face nonsensical frames of reasoning I step up independently of my sympathetic pov in relation to the entity, organization in question.

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@reasoning logic,

Watched some of the 'narcissism' videos and the guy definitely knows his subject. He explained a couple of mysteries about a person with NPD I knew for many years. I knew they had NPD but still didn't understand a lot of the way it presents. Sam explained it perfectly. I guess you can only understand it from the inside out. NPD's can be the most charming people you ever met, some of the time.

You're right though, most will never perceive that there is anything wrong with them.

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

I think religion may have exacerbated wars, but I'm not so sure there would have been less wars without religion. I believe humans are war mongers.

Disagree ;

HUMANS IN POWER are war mongers , not the general populace.

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@north,

Although I would toss in the success of major computer game brands, in which war and violence are embraced wholeheartedly by the general populace

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@Smileyrius,

Smileyrius wrote:

Although I would toss in the success of major computer game brands, in which war and violence are embraced wholeheartedly by the general populace

by the young .

It is the young that go to war .

1 Reply

I don't see a problem with Religion per se, but rather, a problem with cultural dead ends from which a certain form of being Religious can be a reflection of. That is to mean that "cultural failure" in a society will have immediate impact on those institutions that are build upon belief systems more prone to be affected by cultural failed social experiments. Natural selection takes care of cultural failures but not necessarily of Religion as a whole. For better or for worse Religion is a mere reflex of the natural human condition of being prone to seek a meaningful experiencing of life often through belief systems imbibed in the cultural background. In the US in particular more then anywhere else there is this confusion of faulting Religion instead of faulting the prevalent cultural medium...in that sense, new atheism keeps making an error of judgement in diagnosing Religion as the problem instead addressing the cultural and economical failure of their policy at large. Convenient simplification to say the least. (mind you that I am for all intents and purposes an atheist myself, at least in the classical perception of what atheism entails at a fundamental level.)

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@north,

I always believed the young to be the forecast of the future old

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Quote:

Would the World be Better off Without Religion?

That would be a world without homo sapiens sapiens. I doubt the planet would be better off under the circumstances that would result in that outcome.

1 Reply

@Smileyrius,

Smileyrius wrote:

I always believed the young to be the forecast of the future old

Could be ; the thing is , the young are easily manipulated ; hence why most soldiers are the young .

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@nacredambition,

Some around look at Religion as having a fully independent ontological status when Religion is the tip of the iceberg of human behaviour in regards to cultural structuring and natural belief systems working as tools for simplefying the coping with extremely big data complex systems. Demolishing Religion is demolishing the social instruments for coping with our place in the world.

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Would the World be Better off Without Religion?

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