Would the World be Better off Without Religion?

@Smileyrius,

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

Uh- Oh, we're fucked..

but I guess that's nothing new

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@Fil Albuquerque,

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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.)

Nicely put Fil..

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@catbeasy,

I'm an atheist, but don't care what others believe or don't believe.

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@cicerone imposter,

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but don't care what others believe or don't believe.

Well, I think you ought to qualify what you mean by 'care'. There are a number of things this could refer to. You obviously care enough to post your views contra theirs. But if by care you mean that it doesn't disturb you emotionally, or you wouldn't take their right to their belief if you presumably could, that's another.

There's also an issue of circumstance. If someone in your neighborhood didn't care about pollution (that you thought deleterious to your community) because "Jesus is coming back soon anyway", then you might 'care' a bit more..?

Although I get that on a forum, I guess we can afford to "not care" because there doesn't seem to be anything affecting us directly. For me its not the belief per se, its the bad logic surrounding it..though I try to tell myself that I do nothing against anyone but myself when I 'care' about that!

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@catbeasy,

Good points, and I agree.
But I have no belief in god or gods.

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

Good points, and I agree.
But I have no belief in god or gods.

I do think religion has a few good points and one of those is keeping chaotic people in line so they play nice with others. It doesn't always work. For example I find it ironic when I see gang members wearing crosses and have tattoos of Jesus on their bodies even though they are in prison for murder. They believe a good will give them their golden ticket to heaven even though they have been assholes their whole life.

Without religion playing this game of the threat of eternal punishment, I think things would be far worse than they are. Some people clearly need this fear to behave civil towards others.

I don't know if we could or can solve human violence through secular means. I can speculate on solutions but they all have undesirable side effects. Such as making all drugs legal and prostitution. Allowing people to do things to their own body as long as it doesn't impact others against their wishes.

I thin AI will solve many human issues within the next hundred years, I'm just sad that I won't be alive to experience a world where all labor is handled by AI robots. The entire world will change when this happens and this change will be drastic. No more mundane boring tedious jobs that deplete your spirit and rob your life.

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@Krumple,

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No more mundane boring tedious jobs that deplete your spirit and rob your life.

The consequences of this could be less benign as well..! It is unknown..

As for the 'gangbangers' - the reason they can sleep at night I would imagine is that they have their own code and it works for many. They can sleep peacefully because the 'other guy' 'deserved' it. We have gangbangers like that in our politics as well..

As for solving our problems. There's a weird irony here. Prior to our becoming 'civilized' (especially since formalized science) we did pretty well on cutting down on intra-tribal violence (though prolly not so much inter-tribal). Since science and civilization, we have developed the means and the understanding to cut out a lot of the problems. But science created a whole group of people that created a whole slew of problems and a side effect. That side effect is over-population. Its pretty damn hard to cater to so many differences..

But the other thing is capitalism (and I count what folks call communism under this as well since communism is capitalism run by the state as opposed to being privatized) which created the potentials of our salvation and destruction. All the cool stuff and all the bad stuff. Capitalism probably was responsible for quantum mechanics, hence the bomb and machines capable of depleting our resources with an alacrity!

But also, our ability to better assess how to deal with ourselves, solving problems like a 'bad' asteroid, the potential to get off the planet if it went side ways (assuming we didn't do it), the potential to know how to better distribute our resources, control our populations etc..

We can never get Eden, but it is tantalizing because we know pretty much what to do to get close. But while we have humans who live in abject poverty created by our own systems that allow insane riches, we'll never get a lick at Eden.

btw, I'm not prescribing any particular solution or political ideal. I don't know what that looks like except that it better take everyone into account and not include war for monetary gain. And it will need to be flexible so as to make modifications as it goes along..

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@catbeasy,

Monetary gain is what makes capitalism the best economic system. It continues to provide better quality products at better prices.

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

Monetary gain is what makes capitalism the best economic system. It continues to provide better quality products at better prices.

Not only that but capitalism drives innovation and inventions. You don't get inventors if there is nothing to gain from hard work in research and development. The idea of getting rich off an idea is what drives technology. No other system has this kind of incentive.

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@Krumple,

All fair n true but we don't live in a capitalist system right now. We bail out banks instead of letting natural selection screw the idiots when they **** up.

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@Krumple,

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Not only that but capitalism drives innovation and inventions. You don't get inventors if there is nothing to gain from hard work in research and development. The idea of getting rich off an idea is what drives technology. No other system has this kind of incentive.

I'm not sure if I understand you correctly but often when I hear the word capitalism it is often compared to the word socialism and other so called socialist countries.

http://denmark.dk/en/meet-the-danes/famous-danish-inventions

http://www.thelocal.se/20081110/15578

http://www.iamexpat.nl/read-and-discuss/lifestyle/articles/10-important-dutch-inventions

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@reasoning logic,

Why?

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@cicerone imposter,

Capitalism also has its downside. There's no 'tomorrow'. There's only the bottom line. The shareholders must be appeased. That drive for profit has made a wreck of many areas of our planet, is largely what drives our political system and when not mitigated by state intervention destroys economies..

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@Fil Albuquerque,

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We bail out banks instead of letting natural selection screw the idiots when they **** up.

In places where there is no state intervention and capitalism is more or less 'pure', the system is devastating to the economies of those countries. Mostly third world countries where there is essentially an aristocracy that runs the runs country through some dictator.

If we are to have the system we have now, the kind of capitalism we currently employ, we need state intervention. Our country could not survive without it. It would be more than the banks failing. The gov't has always subsidized big business whether directly, through favourable interest rates or huge tax breaks. Our farming system would certainly be dead without it. GE and a total of 67% of corporations pay no taxes at all. IBM gets subsidized through the pentagon essentially getting free R&D money which we pay for and which they don't share the profits as a result of..

We are far more socialist than we'd like to believe here in America, but it is mostly in the form of corporate welfare than anything. Social welfare (minus medicare) is a pittance and a joke, is terrible because they won't put enough money and proper resources into it to make it effective. I don't think they want to. Can you imagine if they truly wanted to help everyone get back on their feet, get educated, get a job? They know how to do this properly, but its likely there isn't enough economical infrastructure to support 'everyone' working and even if there was, I don't deem it desirable for gov't to do so as it would empower people too much and threaten their power.

There's an ideal state for the powers that be to keep this country's people in. The dems and repubs differ exactly on the numbers, but the general shape, there is agreement on..

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@catbeasy,

No economic system is perfect, but capitalism is by far the best because it's based on competition.

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@cicerone imposter,

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but capitalism is by far the best because it's based on competition.

I don't know what system is 'best'. But when you say capitalism is best, I presume you refer to the US system or systems like what the US has? If so, then it is hard to say because we are not a purely capitalistic society. The state intervenes on multiple levels to keep that capitalism from destroying things.

So, capitalism, left to its own devices will destroy an economy. This is what we see in our system as a cyclical process that the state has to, from time to time, intervene in to prevent state bankruptcy. So, the Great Depression was one, multiple recessions from then on culminating in the crash of mid 2000's.

In these cases, especially the most recent ones, the crashes occur when the state removes itself from oversight and to the degree that it does is the degree we court and find financial disaster. The corporate 'nanny' state then steps in an provides necessary relief, the absence of which would devastate the economy - that translates to working families whose lives are ruined..

The reason are complex, but have to do with a fight for limited resources, lack of foresight and not the least the greed instantiated by the competition of capitalism (there is also the tacit understanding that no matter how stupid and greedy they are, they can rely on a compliant gov't to provide welfare 'bail-outs - there is thus no incentive to be smart with that funny money). There may be good stewards employing capitalism, but not enough. The analyses I present is what is observed on the whole, statistically. There are also issues with limited markets that drive a stake into capitalism's economic heart (and is the current reason why corporations have been and are bogarting out of the US at record rates for foreign shores)

So, it is possible that a limited capitalism such as we have may be the best economic system, I don't know. I don't know enough about other possible systems to make a good argument for something else.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

All fair n true but we don't live in a capitalist system right now. We bail out banks instead of letting natural selection screw the idiots when they **** up.

I'm well aware and its due to keynesian economics the US has adopted. It's a terrible system. I agree banks and corporations should not be propped up by the government.

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@Krumple,

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banks and corporations should not be propped up by the government.

That's the problem, they are the government..

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@catbeasy,

catbeasy wrote:

Capitalism also has its downside. There's no 'tomorrow'. There's only the bottom line. The shareholders must be appeased. That drive for profit has made a wreck of many areas of our planet, is largely what drives our political system and when not mitigated by state intervention destroys economies..

You are lumping the stock market into capitalism. They are separate. You don't need a stock market in a capitalist economy. I agree the stock market is a bad idea. It provides no goods or services nor does it provide labor. All it does is invent nonexistent wealth with no trade benefit. It forces corporations to constantly improve and consume. This is not a fault of capitalism.

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@Krumple,

There's no guarantee that stocks always make money for its investors. Do you know what happened during the Great Depression? Even 2008-2009 were bad years for the stock market.
Not all companies listed on the stock exchange survive. Also, there's no way to predict economic performance for the future. None.
Those who invest for the long term usually make out very well, because "our" economy continues to grow. That's saying something when our country represents less than 5% of the world population, but we are the "richest" country in the world with our GDP exceeding $17 trillion dollars.
Consumption makes up 70% of our economy, and unemployment is below 5% which are good signs for us in this country.

1 Reply

Would the World be Better off Without Religion?

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