Where would we be as a civilization if religion hadn't become doctrine?

I'm asking because it's a question thats been on my mind for a really long time. Would we even be a type one civilization had there not been the dark ages and the supression of knowledge itself. I ask this out of simple curiosity and to see what people think. Plus there was a post on here about religious prophecy and the affect it has on the human psyche. fear for example if religion in itself had not used fear tactics. one such example are these so called after life ideas basically "if you dont worship my god, my god gonna tourture you for an eternity." Or "if your not a christian jesus isnt going to rapture you from the end times." We've seen the wars that stemed from religion (crusades anyone? this so called war in the mid east anyone?) it makes me wonder would the world be better off if there was no religion at all?

I was just thinking about this today.

I became aware my decisions might be based on the belief in God. Even though I'm not religious. I'm on the fence but sway to either side once in awhile. I admit I do quite frequently look up to the imaginary deity in the hopes he is watching and will fix things. There are times when it works for smaller tasks. My faith will be restored for awhile until # happens and I'm back to thinking he isn't there, nobody is minding the shop. We're on our own.
He doesn't do big jobs I've noticed.


Society would be completely different. I don't know if it would be better or worse.

Somebody will give a more intelligent answer you are seeking.

ETA
In any case it's really bizarre some of us believe in religion. If we hadn't heard of him or the bible and a thread was started with the bible verses etc, it would be trolled to death, called bunk, you're crazy to believe that.

What is, "Further Along"?

A lot of smart people would have lived longer..

Sure, I believe in 'God'- however, we might need a new word with all the historic bias.

We need to remove the automatic personification from the word; 'God' is not A person/place/thing- IT is ALL persons/places/things (Native Americans and some other cultures seemed to have most of it right).

Some people should just watch, "What the #$*! Do We Know" - (a FEW times..)



This is all of my personal opinion. This is my personal belief and does not have to be yours..

Plus, everyone's belief is (correct) one way or another; in the very least within another universe.

reply to post by truthofnitrous

Heres the post
www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by truthofnitrous


Religion was and currently is apart of our evolution, we don't believe the exact same things we did 2000 years ago, or even 100 years ago. Our knowledge base as a species is growing by the minute. Religion does not stop good people from doing bad things.

So without religion, we would all kill ourselves off and be totally uncivilized? I don't believe that because like all creatures on this planet we have self preservation in our interests as well as the instincts to reproduce and flourish.

Religion is just another stage in our evolution as a civilization. 2000 years ago atheist were far and few, today you cant say God in a public school, 200 years from now we may not even have a concept of god.

Religion is one of the top conspiracies. The 'ten commandments' may have helped shape parts of the world. Although now, it is being used against us. We have become too gullible.

reply to post by truthofnitrous

I may be a bit picky, but I find your question a bit confusing. I'm guessing you're asking where would the world be without Christianity? Or, what effect did Christianity have on the world?

May I offer some preliminary information?

1. It was the Catholic church that was responsible for what has become known as the scientific revolution through its creation of the university system.

2.Catholic priests were pioneers in the fields of geology, Egyptology, astronomy, and atomic theory.

3.Medieval monasteries were responsible for either preserving from classical times (generally accepted as the era of the Greeks and Romans), or initiating on their own, significant advances in agriculture.

4.Medieval monasteries pioneered the use of water power, factories, and metallurgy.

5.The church was pivotal in the preservation of the written words of the ancients---perhaps even literacy itself.

6.Early Christian theology was the foundation of the Western legal system (the rule of law) as well as international law.

7.Christian philosophy led to challenges to slavery in both the Old and New Worlds.

8.And, of great import, the moral code of the West, including belief in the sanctity of human life and marriage, derived from Christian teachings. (Quoting Professor Thomas E. Woods.)

icemanike.blogspot.com...

And from our good friend Wiki, comes:

The Bible and Christian theology have also strongly influenced Western philosophers and political activists. The teachings of Jesus, such as the Parable of the Good Samaritan, are among the important sources for modern notions of Human Rights and the welfare measures commonly provided by governments in the West. Long held Christian teachings on sexuality and marriage have also been influential in family life.

Christianity played a role in ending practices such as human sacrifice, slavery, infanticide and polygamy. Christianity in general affected the status of women by condemning infanticide (female infants were more likely to be killed), divorce, incest, polygamy, birth control, abortion and marital infidelity. While official Church teaching considers women and men to be complementary

simple.wikipedia.org...

A world without Christianity would have been very dark indeed.

reply to post by truthofnitrous

dark ages and the supression of knowledge itself

Maybe it was a good path that this world followed when suppressing technology all those centuries ago.

Imagine if the suppression didn't happen and the 18th century was at the same level of technology as it is now.

Now imagine back to the day when the whole world electrical grid would have gone permanently offline thanks to that huge solar flare September 1–2, 1859

en.wikipedia.org...

September 1–2, 1859, the largest recorded geomagnetic storm occurred

The recent TV series Revolution springs to mind.

reply to post by truthofnitrous



Hard to say but consider the story of the tower of Babel. God scrambled their speech so to delay the development of humanity for thousands of years. So my guess would be that humanity would have developed too quickly. And eventually would have nuked themselves back to the stone age by now. Assuming anyone survived. Or if it had held together it's very possible it would have evolved into the Roman empire in space. Or the Star Trek mirror mirror episode. A highly advanced society but no morals or honor. Genocide and Euthanasia would be common. Imagine if Hitler had won WW2 and it was a thousand years later.

reply to post by truthofnitrous


I saw this quote once and it stuck with me..

"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." - Voltaire

I think it would be inevitable for humanity to come up with some sort of religion. Not only for control but for some sort of explanation why we're here. In a way, that could be the essence of our humanity; that there must be something bigger than us.

But I would like to know what it would've been like without it..

Just watch the movie Mad Maxx and that will answer your questions. May the greatest ape win.

It's very difficult to imagine a world without folk-lore.

I'm not overly impressed with religion, I mean, way up the pros and cons - has it been worth holding onto?
Sure, great good things have come of it, but so have great terrible things (and both continues).

But all in all, my thoughts? : It probably wouldn't matter one way or the other.

There are two «choices» (simplifying)
1. No religion/folk-belief
2. Religion/folk-belief

No matter which one, there is still one constant: human.
I think we've proved too many times that it matters not the creed we choose, we are «good» or «bad».

The real problem is not entirely a religious one, but an institutional one; religious, political, cultural, racial, ie the bonds that separate us (where personally, and I'm sure the majority would agree, we'd rather look past and rather embrace than damn each-other.).

So to simplify, the problem is; non-acceptance of those who are different than us.
This just leaves our approach to «true» morality, I guess (?). (think: stoning, jihad's, the gay and abortion issue, the issue of degrees of criminality, etc)

Oh ye can of worms! How shall we treat thee?

Science used to be called Magic.

Religion used to be called Country.



If one is asking where humanity would be now
if we never formed countries then the answer
is simple.

We would be following the herds of Bison for
food, with our Tents carried on our backs.

Mike

One of my earliest memories is of my grandmother (a teacher) who took me on a tour of her work one summer and stopped at a door. She said "This is kinder-garden. This is where you will be going to school next year." I remember looking at the door and imagining behind it a bunch of little garden rows. Of course you would start with gardening! Then when it is time to learn math we will already have something to add up. I can't tell you how disappointed I was the next year when all we did was a lot of paper work. I kept waiting for the day when the paperwork would finish and they would take us out to the garden.


Once my grandmother came over for a visit and we were playing army in the yard. She came running out of the house and said "Stop that! Don't you know what you play as children is what you will become when you grow up?" I had just been killed and was lying on the ground. I remember looking up and thinking I'll probably grow up to do paperwork.


All these different areas of knowledge. It is impossible for someone to be the renaissance ideal in the modern world. A person who is a doctor, lawyer, engineer, and scientist all rolled into one. What is it now? Eight hundred degrees just within the field of engineering alone. I was just formulating my thesis that only a tight group of people, a small community, could collectively equal the renaissance ideal when I heard about D&D.


School had all these different areas of knowledge but never brought them together. In role playing I found a use for all of my knowledge. In fact I started learning more. I was quickly surprised to find that no matter how much we learned, there was always more. My math grades started going up. In role playing I finally found a single use for all that school had to offer. Not only that, but a group to share it with. Role playing was the first thing I had ever seen where everyone would get up, turn off the TV, and the radio, sit down around a table and actually listen to each other.

I would also get to create gardens.

Mike

If there was no religion, then the same people who in the past used religion for control and suppression of information would simply have used another method to further their goals.

reply to post by ntech


If you read the bible, its more along the lines that the god in it was jealous that mankind was united and working together WITHOUT him, so he threw a hissy fit and put a stop to it. Which kind of sums up religion really. Divide and conquer.

Its obvious that christians and other religious people will claim the world will be worse off without it. But the fact is that not all wise words and laws came from organised religion, a lot of pagan, atheist and agnostic people have contributed positively both in word and deed throughout the ages. All religion ever did was package everything up in a form they could use to control the masses, and the elite used it as a tool to rule over all. And just like the god contained within, they kept all the credit for the good and refused to accept the bad.

Well, you could take a look at what past societies without our religion behaved like and draw an inference from that. Take pre-Christian Rome, for example. Bread and circuses, Gladiator games, killing those who opposed the state, brutal wars around the world, the over-extension of the Empire in the name of power and resource grabbing.

Kinda sounds like the increasingly secular America of the past 20 years, eh?

If the world didn't have organized religion surrounding christianity or islam or judaism ... it would have been a much more peaceful place and massive numbers of people wouldn't have been slaughtered in the name of 'God'.

Mysticism .... no problem. Organized religion .... that's the problem.

reply to post by truthofnitrous


It sounds like you are under the impression that the beginning of the crusades were attack on Islam by Catholics. And then it sounds like you think that we are in the Middle East for something besides oil. I could be wrong, but I think we are being lied to about our government's motives for conquest.

reply to post by AsarAlubat


Rather than saying everyone's view is correct, which can not logically be true, one might say that there is " some" truth in all beliefs. Conflicting beliefs can not both be true, but they can possess some aspects of truth.