So I'm doing a project on why we AS A SOCIETY need religion but heres the cath, it can't be psychological.

Can anyone give me 3 points based on why we need it?

Your project assumes that any society does need religion. It's flawed from the start.

"Need" for what? You don't "need" anything, really, unless you add an "if" statement.

Like, I need to eat food IF I want to live.

I personally agree but i find it more interesting than studying the the criminal mind or Eduction etc.

I've came up with two ideas...

To keep our morals healthy and lead us on a rightous path.

And to give us an identity and help us preserve our individuality.

quote:Originally posted by random_jew:

I personally agree but i find it more interesting than studying the the criminal mind or Eduction etc.

I've came up with two ideas...

To keep our morals healthy and lead us on a rightous path.

And to give us an identity and help us preserve our individuality.



Are you proposing that those to reasons you gave are actual reasons for a society's need for religion?

I, other atheists I know, and religious people I know don't get our morals from religion. I don't know many religious people that think we should kill homosexuals or not allow women to talk in church simply because the Bible tells them so. My identity and individuality is fine without religion and in a lot of ways is based on my lack of religion.

Are you proposing that those two reasons you gave are actual reasons for a society's need for religion, or do you not care and just want help doing your homework?

If you want a debate, list your beliefs and you'll get debate. If you're simply looking for supposed reasons religions are needed for homework help, take it to another forum.

Society needs religion to

1. Instill false hope in people who live shit lives. If they live under the pretense that some mystical figure is going to save them, they aren't as likely to give up.

2. Control the weak minded. Back in history to get people to follow the laws, there wasn't a better way then to make up some system where a higher power is going to judge how we live our lives (other than the state)

3. To make a buck. Do you know churches makes more money than most businesses? Hell I thought about starting a business once, but wanted to be successful and started a church. Now I sell salvation haha

Why society does NOT need religion

1. It isin't true. There isint too much harm in swallowing lies, but after a certain point it just gets out of hand.

2. Religion kills people. More people have been killed in the name of Jesus then any other cause. Jesus was a terrorist.

3. Religion makes people not assume responsibility. Why take care of the problems with our society and earth if everything is up to God? You see where im going with this, faith is dangerous.

4. Churches make excellent fires. If you are cold or feel like roasting some marshmellows that church thats built on every damn street is great kindling. A merry fire waiting to happen.

Horrible horrible reasons.

morals healthy? ROFL. Have you ever read the old testament? Isaac tempted into sacrificing his son for God's amusement. Moses slaughtering people again for God's amusement.

Give us an identity? It takes away from identity, having to believe the same bullshit as other people? Delusions are unhealthy.

Horrible horrible reasons.

morals healthy? ROFL. Have you ever read the old testament? Isaac tempted into sacrificing his son for God's amusement. Moses slaughtering people again for God's amusement.

Give us an identity? It takes away from identity, having to believe the same bullshit as other people? Delusions are unhealthy.

Once was a time when you could expect almost everyone to share the same religion, therefore they shared the same outlook on life and the same values. This made communication and community spirit much easier and made one feel "part of the crowd". With the advent of immigration and people of various religions living together, this community spirit collapsed, alienating man even more so than the "all equal under God" belief ever did.



PS, I'm not saying religion is right. I'm an atheist and personally think my argument can be used to instill fascism.

Excluding psychology takes all the fun out of your project. http://www.totse.com/bbs/frown.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/frown.gif)

Most of the above points are psychological. Though being petty most can be reduced to that.

I think it was Seneca the Younger who said:

"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful."

So, it's great for manipulating people. But that's psychological.

Hm... to please God? Wait, no, that's psychological too. Falls under the definition of clinical insanity.

you should probably ask people who aren't so closed minded about religion

as for points, you could metion all the great things that were carried out in gods name, like art and shit.

you could also mention that religious conflicts ushered in new eras like the reformation.

How about as a point;

Every society to date has had a religion?

quote:Originally posted by SAS25:

[B]

3. To make a buck. Do you know churches makes more money than most businesses? Hell I thought about starting a business once, but wanted to be successful and started a church. Now I sell salvation haha

Interesting, do you have a source for this? Good points, BTW.

quote:Originally posted by MongolianThroatCancer:

you should probably ask people who aren't so closed minded about religion

as for points, you could metion all the great things that were carried out in gods name, like art and shit.

Like ten million paintings of a Lord being strung up on a cross? Or more artistically sound ones, such as the last judgment... a brutal mural of the apocalypse, that Michaelangelo painted for years out of little more than complete fear that he would burn in the fires of hell for all eternity? And after such great a feat, the kind of art that accuses it's creator for "immorality", in reference to the exposed genitalia... that will later be painted over by some asshole artist who is scared of penises? So you're probly talking about those sort of paintings... right? The paintings used to instill fear in the common man, in order to keep him scared into following the values the church seeks to uphold? Or how about all of the great paintings that the church burned in the dark ages... along with books and classical knowledge and texts? Those probably weren't any good.



This sums up why I do not agree:

quote:

8 Toward a psychology of the artist. — If there is to be art, if there is to be any aesthetic doing and seeing, one physiological condition is indispensable: frenzy. Frenzy must first have enhanced the excitability of the whole machine; else there is no art. All kinds of frenzy, however diversely conditioned, have the strength to accomplish this: above all, the frenzy of sexual excitement, this most ancient and original form of frenzy. Also the frenzy that follows all great cravings, all strong affects; the frenzy of feasts, contests, feats of daring, victory, all extreme movement; the frenzy of cruelty; the frenzy in destruction, the frenzy under certain meteorological influences, as for example the frenzy of spring; or under the influence of narcotics; and finally the frenzy of will, the frenzy of an overcharged and swollen will. What is essential in such frenzy is the feeling of increased strength and fullness. Out of this feeling one lends to things, one forces them to accept from us, one violates them — this process is called idealizing. Let us get rid of a prejudice here: idealizing does not consist, as is commonly held, in subtracting or discounting the petty and inconsequential. What is decisive is rather a tremendous drive to bring out the main features so that the others disappear in the process.

9 In this state one enriches everything out of one's own fullness: whatever one sees, whatever one wills, is seen swelled, taut, strong, overloaded with strength. A man in this state transforms things until they mirror his power — until they are reflections of his perfection. This having to transform into perfection is — art. Even everything that he is not yet, becomes for him an occasion of joy in himself; in art man enjoys himself as perfection.

It would be permissible to imagine an opposite state, a specific anti-artistry by instinct — a mode of being which would impoverish all things, making them thin and consumptive. And, as a matter of fact, history is rich in such anti-artists, in such people who are starved by life and must of necessity grab things, eat them out, and make them more meager. This is, for example, the case of the genuine Christian — of Pascal, for example: a Christian who would at the same time be an artist simply does not occur. One should not be childish and object by naming Raphael or some homeopathic Christian of the nineteenth century: Raphael said Yes, Raphael did Yes; consequently, Raphael was no Christian.



-Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols.



quote:Originally posted by MongolianThroatCancer:

you could also mention that religious conflicts ushered in new eras like the reformation.

Son, I don't think you get it. The reformation was humanity finally getting on track after 1500 years of fucking up. When you look at how much was lost, and how long the church forced human progress to a complete stand still... movements such as the reformation don't seem to be a whole lot more than a big band-aid for past boo boos. Don't get me wrong... it's a great thing it happened. But without the wound, it never would have been needed in the first place.

OP, your essay is a crock of shit. We don't need religion at all... and unless you go to a any sort of religious affiliated school, and write that and go for out of the box points.



And lastly, Onewaymirror... "every society to date has had a religion?" Not only is this completely untrue (atheist Buddhists and Hindus in the ancient East)... what you suggest leaves no room for any sort of humanistic development what so ever. That's like saying "Man up to this day, has never walked on the moon." So? "Man up to this day, has never had a cure to cancer." So? Does that mean there isn't one? Does that mean it can't be done?

If it were me and at one of my schools i would have turned it around too, Why we need atheism.

I'm guessing you go to a fucken christian school then, and would probably get kicked out for soemthing like that.

quote:Originally posted by Kazz:



And lastly, Onewaymirror... "every society to date has had a religion?" Not only is this completely untrue (atheist Buddhists and Hindus in the ancient East)... what you suggest leaves no room for any sort of humanistic development what so ever. That's like saying "Man up to this day, has never walked on the moon." So? "Man up to this day, has never had a cure to cancer." So? Does that mean there isn't one? Does that mean it can't be done?

I'm sorry?

Do you actually know anything about buddhism at all?

I was merely stating that most people have too much time on their hands and like to think about things they'll never truly understand.

Kinda like this forum tbh.

EDIT: Buddhism was founded on the bloodshed of an earlier and similar religion called Bon, and believe me when i say it isn't 'Ancient'.

And btw, i wasn't actually expressing my personal experience, i was merely providing the OP with an arguement for his project.

What were you doing?



[This message has been edited by One_way_mirror (edited 03-25-2007).]

quote:Originally posted by Blades of Hate:

Horrible horrible reasons.

morals healthy? ROFL. Have you ever read the old testament? Isaac tempted into sacrificing his son for God's amusement. Moses slaughtering people again for God's amusement.

Give us an identity? It takes away from identity, having to believe the same bullshit as other people? Delusions are unhealthy.

We have something called the New Testament. You may argue its a cop-out, but it's still a pretty good source of morals.

And God didn't want Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, he was testing him, Isaac would have never been killed. God didn't just think about fucking with some dudes head, there was a purpose behind it.

Or you could regard it with a little more depth, maybe there's a moral behind it, or some kind of deeper point. Or maybe not.

I'll agree that delusions are unhealthy, but they aren't restricted to religious people. And I don't think sharing beliefs makes you less of an individual, if so we're all fucked.

quote:Originally posted by One_way_mirror:

I'm sorry?

Do you actually know anything about buddhism at all?

I was merely stating that most people have too much time on their hands and like to think about things they'll never truly understand.

Kinda like this forum tbh.

EDIT: Buddhism was founded on the bloodshed of an earlier and similar religion called Bon, and believe me when i say it isn't 'Ancient'.

And btw, i wasn't actually expressing my personal experience, i was merely providing the OP with an arguement for his project.

What were you doing?



Your argument is greatly flawed.

A) Even if the only fact I knew about Buddhism was that there were Buddhists in the ancient east that followed their philosophy without any sort of god... I would still be right. Attacking what I do and do not know about buddhism, or trying to give me some history lesson on the foundations of buddhism, by no means holds any sort of argumentative grounds.

B) Buddhism sprung about before a lot of mainstream ANCIENT grecco/roman thought. This therefore makes it, in my eyes, in fact, ancient. Even if I was wrong... why the fuck do you care? What does this have to do with my argument, saying that godless societies have in fact existed.

C) Believe you when you say... Why the fuck should I? Up to this point you've proved not only that you have the understanding of a six year old... but at the same time fail miserably at making a counter argument. Why the fuck should I "believe you when you say?"

D) You were merely stating that people don't have time to think about what they cannot understand? Then why the fuck didn't you say that?! You can't evade the responsibility for the words that you said, because all of a sudden you meant something else entirely.

quote:Originally posted by One_way_mirror:

I was merely stating that most people have too much time on their hands and like to think about things they'll never truly understand.

Kinda like this forum tbh.



Man, I'm glad Isaac Newton and Galileo and Albert Einstein and Charles Darwin and many others throughout history found the time to focus on the mysteries of life to make them not-so-mysterious for future generations.

I'm glad they didn't cop out with "We'll never understand it, let's just let it be."

quote:Originally posted by One_way_mirror:

How about as a point;

Every society to date has had a religion?

That doesn't exactly explain WHY it's needed though. Once you've made that statement you then need to go further and see what is it about religion that has caused every society to have one and if it's in fact necessary for religion to fill that need.

quote:Originally posted by TheMessiahComplex:

That doesn't exactly explain WHY it's needed though. Once you've made that statement you then need to go further and see what is it about religion that has caused every society to have one and if it's in fact necessary for religion to fill that need.

Thanks for the impartial perspective.

It was predictable for me to utter some pretense of knowing every single society in earth's history to have a religion, and i may have exaggerated to an extent.

It is true though however that most (if not all) dominant cultures (Roman, Egypt, American Indian, Aboriginal Australian, Arabic, Celtic, Viking - to name but a few) Have at some point or other shown that they believe in something other than what science can prove that exists on this earth.

Granted, it may have been easier in times when science wasn't forced down the throat of children as a means of passing what is known as a 'qualification' - which might also explain it's predominance over society - but that doesn't deter from the point that more often than not most societies have possessed within them individuals whom claim to be spiritually inclined.

quote:Originally posted by AngryFemme:

Man, I'm glad Isaac Newton and Galileo and Albert Einstein and Charles Darwin and many others throughout history found the time to focus on the mysteries of life to make them not-so-mysterious for future generations.

I'm glad they didn't cop out with "We'll never understand it, let's just let it be."



Nope... things are still pretty 'mysterious', even when you take science into account.

And Kazz - i was bringing up a point, thank you for taking me up on that.

quote:Originally posted by One_way_mirror:

It is true though however that most (if not all) dominant cultures (Roman, Egypt, American Indian, Aboriginal Australian, Arabic, Celtic, Viking - to name but a few) Have at some point or other shown that they believe in something other than what science can prove that exists on this earth.

Agreed.

Now I think for the purposes of a school project (like the OP said this is for) I think it would be good to take that information, then find out exactly what role religion played in some of these major cultures in terms of the daily lives of the people, their government, and their society.

From the role religion played in their lives, maybe you can find some common threads between different cultures and from that try to identify specifically what needs it satisfies.

Although that sounds like it could easily turn in to an entire book.

quote:Originally posted by One_way_mirror:

Nope... things are still pretty 'mysterious', even when you take science into account.

Nope? http://www.totse.com/bbs/confused.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/confused.gif)

My point was that mysteries of the past that seem unresolvable are not-so-mysterious today, due to the fact that people were intellectually diligent enough to make the time to think about that which seemed, at the time, mysterious beyond our scope of comprehension.

Sure, there are still mysteries to solve today in science. But I'd bet the farm that if you fast forwarded 100 years into our future, there will be advances made in science that will make some of the problems and mysteries of today seem miniscule and oh-so-obvious.

Sometimes I dislike positivism as much as I dislike theism.

Who is the active positivism pusher in this thread, Hare?

quote:Originally posted by AngryFemme:

Who is the active positivism pusher in this thread, Hare?

Remove "pusher" and I would say you're the positivist. I never said anything about being a pusher. I think positivism can be as unhealthy as theism. Science is practical, it's useful, but to expect it to actually answer everything is putting a lot of faith into science and pushing great aspects of life out of the way.

I think it was Nietzsche who pointed out that each generation realizes the arrogance of the former generation for thinking they had the truth, but then makes the exact same mistake. But instead of realizing this and saying reason is practical and useful, they proclaim it's self-correcting, but you have to have a lot of faith to think it's correct this time or will one day be absolute, since there are thousands upon thousands of questions out there and we're not going to be around forever.

So stop sucking science's dick, you make yourself look as bad as a theist.

[This message has been edited by Hare_Geist (edited 03-26-2007).]

Ok, had to be sure you were referring to me.

Although I feel that there is certain knowledge (like biology, physics, etc) that is best attained by studying and testing through strict scientific method, I am not of the belief that all human knowledge should be attained through science.

I'm more of a loose naturalist in this regard, vs. a positivist.

Just wanted to clarify my position.

Edit: Whoa! Now I'm a scientific cocksucker!

Who got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?!

[This message has been edited by AngryFemme (edited 03-26-2007).]

quote:Originally posted by AngryFemme:

Who got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?!

I did. http://www.totse.com/bbs/frown.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/frown.gif)

It happens to the best of us. Hope your afternoon goes better than your early a.m.

Anyway-

The only time you'll see me stroking the dick of science in here is when theists try to use science to help support their dogma.

Otherwise, the main reason I push a secular agenda is to "prove" that human beings can get along just fine, and in my opinion, maybe even a whole lot better, without a belief in a supernatural entity that promises an afterlife.

That's all.

quote:Originally posted by AngryFemme:

It happens to the best of us. Hope your afternoon goes better than your early a.m.

Anyway-

The only time you'll see me stroking the dick of science in here is when theists try to use science to help support their dogma.

Otherwise, the main reason I push a secular agenda is to "prove" that human beings can get along just fine, and in my opinion, maybe even a whole lot better, without a belief in a supernatural entity that promises an afterlife.

That's all.

My mistake for jumping to a conclusion then.

Sorry.

quote:Originally posted by JesuitArtiste:

We have something called the New Testament. You may argue its a cop-out, but it's still a pretty good source of morals.

And God didn't want Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, he was testing him, Isaac would have never been killed. God didn't just think about fucking with some dudes head, there was a purpose behind it.

Or you could regard it with a little more depth, maybe there's a moral behind it, or some kind of deeper point. Or maybe not.

I'll agree that delusions are unhealthy, but they aren't restricted to religious people. And I don't think sharing beliefs makes you less of an individual, if so we're all fucked.

regardless of what the new testament says, the bible is one big ol' book... so let's look at both ends of the spectrum.

Second, how did Isaac know it was God speaking to him? Not "the devil" sent to earth to trick humans.

Maybe Isaac suffered from psychosis or was having a temporal lobe epilepsy (most common example of religious experiences)

quote:Originally posted by Blades of Hate:

regardless of what the new testament says, the bible is one big ol' book... so let's look at both ends of the spectrum.

Second, how did Isaac know it was God speaking to him? Not "the devil" sent to earth to trick humans.

Maybe Isaac suffered from psychosis or was having a temporal lobe epilepsy (most common example of religious experiences)





Hate to sound like a dick, but it's Abraham that you're thinking of, Isaac was the son he was going to sacrifice.

The whole point is that it was the Bible that said this story, of course it was the voice of God. Besides the story needn't be true to show what it is showing: that Abraham had great faith, and we should strive to have as much faith as he did. Now this doesn't mean that we should take our sons to the top of a mountain and prepare to slit their throats and burn them, the story is saying that we should strive to have enough faith in God that we would be prepared to sacrifice our own flesh and blood and, most importantly, to have faith that God would save us.

I'd reccomend reading Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling on this, that's where I stole all my ideas from http://www.totse.com/bbs/tongue.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/tongue.gif)

But in anycase, let's suppose that Abraham was just some looney about to kill his son. Well... I guess it's just a bit fucked up. Nothing we can do aboutit, just gotta be thankful that some poor animal happened to be wondering around at the time and Abraham took it into his head to kill that instead. Even so, I'm assuming you're pointing to how can we know if God is speaking to us, or we're fucked in the head? Guess we can't.

Looks like we're all screwed.

I also understand the Bible is a big book, but any Christian is going to be quite interested in the words of Christ. Sure there is the Old testament, but just as most christians will ignore the bad parts of the OT and NT so will some anti-god people ignore the good of the NT and OT. No need to disagree with a single part and decide the rest is fucked, you can salvage some pretty good things from both of them.