What good does religion offer the world today?

@neologist,

There's a difference between everyone having a moral sense and the existence of a universal morality. There is no single moral code that every society accepts, much less every person in every society. And it's no secret that morals often evaporate under certain kinds of duress: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ik_people#The_Mountain_People

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@Kolyo,

Quote:

If you're being serious, then you might actually have a case that your morality isn't very Christian.

hmm,That explains a lot. It's like when immigrants come to the USA and say that they learned English by watching American TV

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@FBM,

Nearly all parents nurture their children.
Murder and rape are generally taboo
A few other things . . .

But the kicker is that many societies or subsocieties find reasons to discard these internal directives.

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@neologist,

neologist wrote:

Nearly all parents nurture their children.
Murder and rape are generally taboo
A few other things . . .

But the kicker is that many societies or subsocieties find reasons to discard these internal directives.

Evolutionary biology explains infant nurture. Animals do it. Otherwise there would be no (or very few) animals, including humans. Murder: capital punishment, wars. Rape: look around the world a little more closely. Particularly among the more religiously fundamentalist societies, including some in the US. Religions constitute one of the main reasons that these internal directives are conveniently forgotten.

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@FBM,

FBM wrote:

. . . . Religions constitute one of the main reasons that these internal directives are conveniently forgotten.

Noted.

Reminding myself of recent conversation with Chumly:
I mentioned other "authorities". That seemed offensive to him.
But nationalism is another force akin to religion.
There are others, I'd say.

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@neologist,

There are plenty, I'd say. I'm not saying that I know for sure that we'd be better off without religions, but I'm not sure that we'd be any worse off without them, either. I suspect that human history may have evolved pretty much the same either way. Maybe people just use religions to justify doing what they are prone to do anyway. Seems you can justify pretty much anything given a particular religious text. I've already mentioned slavery, genocide, etc. On the other end of the spectrum, as far as I can tell, random acts of kindness, generosity, love, etc, occur in non-believers with about the same frequency as in believers. Not that I've done a study on it, mind you.

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It helps people go through their day, and once in a while it helps them take a good decision or two.

Where would South Africa be today without the undying faith of a Nelson Mandela? Where would America be without MLK? Where would India be without Gandhi?

To say that religion is bad bad bad and lack of religion is good good good, or vice versa, is for the simple-minded.

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@Olivier5,

In other words:

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

It helps people go through their day, and once in a while it helps them take a good decision or two.

Where would South Africa be today without the undying faith of a Nelson Mandela? Where would America be without MLK? Where would India be without Gandhi?

To say that religion is bad bad bad and lack of religion is good good good, or vice versa, is for the simple-minded.

Leibniz may have been right that we live in the best of all possible worlds. It may be that we'd be worse off if religions had never evolved, or it may be that we'd be better off. Nobody knows for sure, butterfly effect and all that. Speculating about what might have been is almost always slanted towards one or the other biased perspective, as far as I can tell. But I don't think that should stop us from pointing out problems and suggesting improvements for the future.

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@FBM,

Quote:

It may be that we'd be worse off if religions had never evolved, or it may be that we'd be better off. Nobody knows for sure, butterfly effect and all that. Speculating about what might have been is almost always slanted towards one or the other biased perspective, as far as I can tell.

The question has no real meaning. Religion developed EVERYWHERE... That can't be a coincidence. It HAD to bring some kind of advantage. I posit that it made the development of a set of social rules (i.e. moral, law) easier, and thus gave additional social cohesion and greater collaboration among tribe members in the groups that adopted some form of religion as compared to those who didn't.

So IMO it obviously played a positive role in civilization, up to a point. That much is acknowledged in the OP, since the issue is framed around the seeming obsolescence of religion TODAY. Not yesterday...

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@Olivier5,

Maybe a kind of proto-government. Seems plausible to me.

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@FBM,

The way I see it, it's more about the development of morals and values than just 'government'. A set of common values is needed by all societies, me think.

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@FBM,

Quote:

Maybe a kind of proto-government. Seems plausible to me.

I'm just asking for clarification. You want to go back to an earlier time? Do you think that there was an earlier period of time in human history that was better than today....morally speaking of course?

Wasn't the height of theocracy in Europe was during the middle ages after the fall of the roman Empire... Some refer to that period as the dark Ages I think?

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@Olivier5,

Could be. I wouldn't rule it out.

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@argome321,

Quote:

period of time in human history that was better than today...

I wasn't making a value judgement about it at all. Just conceding that that may well be how the history played out.

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https://scontent-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/11059925_437761239712495_2635220862368799926_n.jpg?oh=c8f889c8271e4fe03fe5eb68ef413b04&oe=55BD12CD

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@TheCobbler,

Looks like she might cause a great deal of that herself.

Don't progressives have a country to ruin? Wait, stupid people like that will.

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@neologist,

neologist wrote:

Nearly all parents nurture their children.
Murder and rape are generally taboo
A few other things . . .

But the kicker is that many societies or subsocieties find reasons to discard these internal directives.

These "directives" run counter to other directives centered around self-preservation and self-interest. Morality is a dynamic of conflicting directives.

What good does religion offer the world today?

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