I've been thinking about this lately, it might be a little utilitarian, but does religion benefit us more than it harms us (considering corruption and whatnot)? This is just my question, I'd like to hear what you guys think because I'm not sure if it's possible to even weigh it all out. But just for speculations sake.

Basically, you will almost always have extremists/blind-followers, oppressors, nonbelievers, dozens of groups who think that some of the ideas are right but that they should form a slightly different version, and others who are indifferent or don't know what to think.

It's almost always a big clusterfuck. You might as well use science as your religion, but even then many scientists feud over ideas, or try to hide certain discoveries for fame or money or whatever.

So, what the fuck am I saying? Ehh, just don't worry about it.

It's useful if it's you using it to your advantage

I think religion only benefits yourself. No one will ever be happy with the exact same religious beliefs as someone else.

Depends on the individual. Some can do without any of that stuff, some need a personal form of spiritualism, and others needs to belong to a religious social structure along with an "orthodox" belief system.

Religion creates division and prejudice over things that have no practical application, and no justification in modern society. It's useless beyond organising people and giving them false hope.

religion has been a basis of morals for millenia

i dont think humanity would have got as far as we have gone today without some sort of order and help for the little guy. it would just be a dog eat dog world.

sure theres the extremist fucks, but even without religion there are those who would still try to kill you anyway.

the thing thats important is to not let religion control your life completely.

I'd say ... to an extent.

In primitive groups of man there was ALWAYS at least one who in some sense was the religious one, the diviner, or the "shaman" so to speak.

Seeing death all around in the hunted and their brothers caused them to become uncertain of their life purpose since it seemed death trumped everything. The primitive animistic/shamanic religions were a way people coped with the hostility and unpredictability of life- they may die but the had a purpose of some sort.

So in early times religion most definitely helped man spread, love, and stabilize.

the problems come in this modern (by that I mean from thousands of years ago/onward) where government, and civilization and it's specialized tasks allowed people to live life in a lass primitive, more leisurely way.

Since they did not face such hardship constantly their religion became more of a symbolic posession or identity rather than necessity. When this happened it allowed people with different viewpoints extra time and effort to bicker amongst themselves and create war.

So my summary is this - Religion used to be ESSENTIAL for successful human survival, now it is unnecessary and a BURDEN!!

http://www.totse.com/bbs/eek.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/eek.gif)

http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

quote:Originally posted by smokemon:

I'd say ... to an extent.

In primitive groups of man there was ALWAYS at least one who in some sense was the religious one, the diviner, or the "shaman" so to speak.

Seeing death all around in the hunted and their brothers caused them to become uncertain of their life purpose since it seemed death trumped everything. The primitive animistic/shamanic religions were a way people coped with the hostility and unpredictability of life- they may die but the had a purpose of some sort.

So in early times religion most definitely helped man spread, love, and stabilize.

the problems come in this modern (by that I mean from thousands of years ago/onward) where government, and civilization and it's specialized tasks allowed people to live life in a lass primitive, more leisurely way.

Since they did not face such hardship constantly their religion became more of a symbolic posession or identity rather than necessity. When this happened it allowed people with different viewpoints extra time and effort to bicker amongst themselves and create war.

So my summary is this - Religion used to be ESSENTIAL for successful human survival, now it is unnecessary and a BURDEN!!

http://www.totse.com/bbs/eek.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/eek.gif)

http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

Good Fucking post, +1 for you man +1 for you.

Other points worth raising have to be that of creativity and abstract thought.

Neanderthals used the same stone tools for millenia, then around the time we start finding evidence of an explosion in innovation, like using different materials like bone and wood, making different tools like arrowheads and needles, we also find evidence of art and religious artifacts.

It's argued that art and music developed as a way of showing off the inner complexities of our brains for sexual selection. It's understandable that stories as an art form, and a weakness to good stories would be extremely beneficial to the process of breeding more intelligent humans.

It's one thing to have words for "pretty", "flower" and "daughter", but to have the kind of mind that can create a sentence like "my daughter is as pretty as a flower" is a huge step forward. Once you have abstract words like "why?", you can ask "why does the sun rise?" and "why does it rain?", mix this with the art of storytelling, the power of social manipulation and the need for tribal identity- religion becomes a key player in developing social behaviour in the human race. It played a huge part in our development and is hard-wired into us.

We may not need religious belief today, but it has been part of our identity for a very long time- we still need *something* to believe in, we still need to be part of a group, we still wonder why we are here, even atheists have this great sense of wonder and awe when thinking about the world (the emotion Christians would call God's love).

So in answer to the original question, do we need any one particular religion? I don't think so. Does it benefit us more than it harms us? I agree with smokemon, specific religions are a burden nowadays, but the parts of our brain that enable religious belief to thrive are still very beneficial, we should embrace it as part of our identity. After all, it's this "God's love" emotion that scientists feel for the scientific method.

religion benefits the priest, each Sunday give a boring lecture that u read about in the bible the night before then collect the $$, after you collect the "money for god" go have a feast with all your other scamming friends and do jack shit for the rest of the week.

If by religion, you mean the stuff organized by mankind in an attempt to dictate how people will commune with their god of choice, I'd say no. While there are those that do good works on behalf of their faith and some religions are benevolent, religion as a whole seems to invite fractiousness and conflict, to the point of blood-letting. That benefits nobody, unless you're looking for population reduction.

A good old dose of heavenly spirituality, on the other hand is good for anyone. Spirituality in the context of the individual communing with their god, nature, the great spirit, or wtf'ever to bring them stability and peace.

I think it boils down to people minding their own faith rather than that of others being the most beneficial.

quote:Originally posted by Diabolic acid:

You might as well use science as your religion, but even then many scientists feud over ideas, or try to hide certain discoveries for fame or money or whatever.

Quick note: It's not often heard of for scientists to kill or torture other scientists or people who don't subscribe to their theory. I think that's worth keeping in mind.

[Sorry if I'm making a big deal of a throwaway point, it's just that one of my pet peeves is for people to equate religious belief with scientific thought. Goes back to that whole faith/reason thing.]

To address the original question, it'd be really difficult to quantify any data on positive/negative impact religion has had on people's lives, simply because it's such a staggeringly huge area to study. As for qualitative benefits, that depends primarily on the individual themselves and how they interpret their particular scripture with regard to how they live their life.

I could venture the (completely unfounded and unsubstantiated) opinion that people who do good or bad things "because of" their religion had the predisposition to behave that way in any case, and religion is basically a catalyst, but that's pure speculation. http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)



[This message has been edited by Squakey (edited 04-04-2007).]