Is religion a necessity for society?

[Albrenia]

The worst and most genocidal regimes of the modern world have pretty much all be secular.

stalin, mao, vietnam, nazi germany(god took a back seat to the furhur), khmere rouge,

Even japan too an extent consideing the “emperor” was still a human with an massive cult of personality.

I can't help but notice that all of your examples of "secular" regimes tend to be not that secular, and incredibly cultish.

With some of them even declaring the start of a new calender, justifying their rule with ancient prophesy, printing "god is with us" on their stuff, engaging in heresy hunts, declaring miracles, and worshiping a living god.

I'd also slightly nitpick in that there's quite a difference between being outright anti-religious (like some Communist regimes have been) and being merely secular.

I'd also be rather surprised if anyone could actually call the worship of a God Emperor 'secular', or the weird shit that a lot of the Nazis believed in either.

[Insaanistan]

I'm not sure how to answer that. Islam hasn't demonstrated any physical evidence for the existence of their personal god (or the lackthereof)... because it's impossible to do so. The most it has done is to provide a weaker, less stable form of the same flawed and rebuked arguments that Christians have been using for about 600 years more and Jews for much much longer.

Pretty much the same stuff in three, somewhat destinctively altered, variations.

The Islamic belief is that all previous religions are corrupted versions of Islam, and that Islam is the one true message.

[Swindenland]

Pretty much the same stuff in three, somewhat destinctively altered, variations.

The Islamic belief is that all previous religions are corrupted versions of Islam, and that Islam is the one true message.

Except it is not, because just like all religions it claims many falsehoods, hence it is at best not entirely true, and it consists of non-falsifiable statements. If there was a God, how come there isn't even the smallest bit of evidence that he exists? In fact science is ever more converging to the conclusion that there is no God. That God exists is a conjecture, which you must prove. Until then you do not have the justification to force religion upon others.

[Insaanistan]

Absolutely not, religion does more hard than good. Certainly, if you have a religiously homogenous group of people such a society may feel good, because it isn't changing much - but that in my perspective is not a good thing.

Firstly religion suppresses any non-conformism, if you are an atheist in a highly religious neighbourhood get ready to be shunned. If a society is religiously heterogenous - i. e. Bosnia, Ireland and Lebanon - you will have serious conflicts. By mathematical logic, your religion is either true or false, hence every other religion is false if yours is true --> creates serious trouble. If it doesn't manifest in war then it manifests as discrimination. Religion has a terrible track record when it comes to liberties and rights, again because non-conformism and individually is shunned upon, more religious regions are typically having more restrictions (for example you have to wear Burkas if you're a woman in UAE, no abortions in Alabama or you risk your life if you eat beef in an Hindu neigbourhood) and why does nobody mention the 1200 years long theocratic dictatorship by the Vatican that we call the Middle Ages? Religion tries everything to halt human progress particularly scientific, but often also social progress. It justifies the existence of ruling classes and hierarchies, just look at India's caste system.

There is no proof that God exists and it seems like science is converging to the conclusion that God does not exist. All bold claims by religion have been falsified. Nowadays all remaining claims by the church are non-falsifiable and "spiritual", they do that because concrete claims can be either true or false, that way they avoid being proven wrong - which they have been since science was invented.

Religion is detrimental to society. Now, certainly I'm biased, because I'm an atheist and a secular humanist, but I belive the reason why modern multiculturalism does not work is religion. I do not blame only the immigrants, all religion is bad and equally false. We would not have trouble with integration, because if everyone was irreligious. If the natives and immigrants were all irreligious, there would be no reason for conflict, we would all seek to improve ourselves individually, accept inalienable rights and work towards progress, because nothing has emancipated more people than science and its many application.

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Also christianity and all other religions nowadays have two options:

Case 1: The bible or any other holy document is entirely correct:
---> It contains falsehoods. Since there exist false statements, the document as a whole is also false, hence your religion is false, because you claim it is entirely right. For example there is no evidence that there was a worldwide flood, where Noah rescued all the animals, hence if you claim the whole bible was correct, your statement is false.
Case 2: The bible or AOHD is not entirely correct:
---> Then all religious claims are unfalsifiable and cannot be logically assesed. By Karl Popper you can do two things:
Case 2.1: You claim you are factual ----> Then you are a pseudoscientist and liar,
Case 2.2: You do not claim you are factual ----> Then all religion is imagination and you force it irrationally on others and fuck you.
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Maybe I am too attached to Philip Pullman's novels, but even if God were to exist, he certainly is a bad guy. He created a seriously flawed world with a lot of suffering and what I guess you could call evil, whilst calling himself all-good and creating a cult of personality. If God were to exist, you should not follow him but rather opposse him. Instead of wishing for a heavenly kingdom, wish for a republic of heaven where you don't serve some maniacal bastard, but yourself. Luckily he cannot be all-powerful, because that leads to a paradox, and we always get paradoxes when the premise is false. If God were omnipotent then he could create a rock that even he couldn't lift, but then he wouldn't be omnipotent.
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TLDR: No.

So, I don’t think religion causes more harm then good, I believe it’s manipulation does.
And with the argument that God cannot exist if there is suffering and hardship, here is my religion’s perspective: This life is a test. Hardship comes for different reasons. Sometimes, like with the destruction of the people of Ād and Thamud, it is a punishment. Other times, like when Ayyub (Job)’s house fell down, it is a test. And God never gives us more than we can bear. In the Qur’ân, God says that, as we know, some people will become angry with God when they hit hardship, and reminds us that nothing is outside of what he has willed to happen, and he has never and will never forsake or forget us. And of course, we cannot expect to fully understand a being such as God, or his actions.

[Insaanistan]

The Islamic belief is that all previous religions are corrupted versions of Islam, and that Islam is the one true message.

Except it is not, because just like all religions it claims many falsehoods, hence it is at best not entirely true, and it consists of non-falsifiable statements. If there was a God, how come there isn't even the smallest bit of evidence that he exists? In fact science is ever more converging to the conclusion that there is no God. That God exists is a conjecture, which you must prove. Until then you do not have the justification to force religion upon others.

What untrue statements does it hold? And the perfection of the universe indicates there must be a creator. Despite that logic right there comes from a show, it actually makes sense. Let me ask you: if not by God, how was the universe and Earth created? By chance? Or by an all powerful being? I believe the latter. What about you?
And God says: “Let there be no compulsion in religion.”

[Insaanistan]

How so?

I'm not sure how to answer that. Islam hasn't demonstrated any physical evidence for the existence of their personal god (or the lackthereof)... because it's impossible to do so. The most it has done is to provide a weaker, less stable form of the same flawed and rebuked arguments that Christians have been using for about 600 years more and Jews for much much longer.

God states in the Qur’ân that all previous religions are corruptions of what he sent down to mankind.

[Purple Rats]

I think religion was important part of the history, but not needed anymore. As someone from country where most people are nonreligious, I don't really see the importance of it. Sure, it can give a lot to someone individually. It can give interesting cultural value, but otherwise nope...

And it seems to me, that in bigger picture religion does more harm. Why would someone think "hmm, is it moral? Hmm let's see, what does xxx think about it?" Seems more like searching information from textbook, rather than thinking yourselves. We should know that it's not right to harm anyone, because we would not want to be harmed, not thinking that it is wrong because "God" told us so.

And LGBT+ people are part of society, but it seems that lot of religions does not accept them.

[Ankenland]

This is high quality but dense and free-ranging, a bit like being waterboarded with chardonnay. I also could have come up with twenty different arguments, but I just made my best one.

So far, no one in this thread has been able to make a counterargument not comparable to "medicine was poorly implemented in the past, therefore, we do not need medicine" but I will just change course so that we aren't talking past each other.

We would not have trouble with integration, because if everyone was irreligious. If the natives and immigrants were all irreligious, there would be no reason for conflict

What? Oh, I... hold on, let me just...



There is always a reason for conflict, and it is always economics and game theory.

Swedish opposition to immigration, for example, is based on things like rapes, murders, firebombing, other property crimes, welfare consumption, economic contribution, educational standards.

[Insaanistan]

just look at India's caste system.

India has abolished the caste system, Mormonism has given up on polygamy and overt racism, Islam has decided that it was reading the Hadiths wrong for more than a thousand years (oops!) and it actually didn't promote pedophilia this whole time, and the Pope is a liberal.

Try again.

I agree with pretty much everything here, except for the one on the Hadiths. Many Hadiths say and said she was not a child, pedophilia wasn’t widely accepted or practiced.

[Deacarsia]

Yea, religion is necessary for society. However, it is important that it is the correct religion.

This would be a wonderful argument if it wasn't undermined by little things like reality.

That would be a wonderful reply if it were not entirely pompous, vacuous, and without content.

[Ankenland]

I agree with pretty much everything here, except for the one on the Hadiths. Many Hadiths say and said she was not a child, pedophilia wasn’t widely accepted or practiced.

For the sake of page length and compression, please delete the whole quote of my long post, and only quote the part you want to refer to.

[Insaanistan]

I agree with pretty much everything here, except for the one on the Hadiths. Many Hadiths say and said she was not a child, pedophilia wasn’t widely accepted or practiced.

For the sake of page length and compression, please delete the whole quote of my long post, and only quote the part you want to refer to.

Sorry, mate. Will do.

[Katganistan]

These are all cases in which it would be in my own best interest to behave socially or ethically, not reasons why I should behave socially or ethically when it is not in my own best interest to do so.



These are more examples of cases in which it would be in my best interest to behave socially or ethically, not reasons why I should behave socially or ethically when it is not in my best interest to do so.

I specifically requested the opposite of this, and I strongly suspect that you both did not understand the question, or worse, you did not understand your own answers.

For example, why, if I find someone's lost wallet, I should not take the money, find the owner of the wallet, give him the wallet, lie and tell him that I found it with no money in it, and hope he will give me more money for returning his wallet and cards? This is the most effective strategy for gaining money from a lost wallet, and carries no negative consequences to myself. One person who is not me loses money, and I gain it. I win, and he or she loses.

I like this result.



Yes.

I can't really give you an explanation as to why you should act ethically when it is not in your own interest, but yet I can point out to you that if you take someone's wallet, you're a thief, and because of that you'll have your hand chopped off with which you stole the wallet. Now, ethics aside, why would a society punish someone for theft? Surely if someone else's property is stolen it shouldn't matter to another person. And yet the fascinating part of this question is that the very notion of a justice system in the first place demonstrates that there is some internal force driving us to keep ourselves in check. Now my question to you is how do you explain that?

I am not trying to challenge you supposition, I'm merely fascinated by what you said and would like to press the forum forward in intellectual discourse.

You care because stealing from someone puts them in danger, and society exists to protect its members. Therefore, the community will have to provide the food or the rent or whatever has been taken from the victim.

It's not hard to understand.

Why should it be? There is nothing religion provides that secular alternatives can not or that is not unnecessary.

Whilst true on paper this isn't the case in reality. Staunchly secular and atheist societies very much lack the strong communities and other such things that religious societies foster.

In your opinion.

Pretty much the same stuff in three, somewhat destinctively altered, variations.

The Islamic belief is that all previous religions are corrupted versions of Islam, and that Islam is the one true message.

The Christian belief about the Muslims thinking that is "Cool story bro" and quietly believing they got it right, while the Jews think the same about both Christians and Muslims.

[Insaanistan]

The Christian belief about the Muslims thinking that is "Cool story bro" and quietly believing they got it right, while the Jews think the same about both Christians and Muslims.

I am aware, I’m just giving my religions point of view, which explains why the religions share the similarities they do. This is supported by the fact there are so many Bibles.

[Swindenland]

And of course, we cannot expect to fully understand a being such as God, or his actions.

This is a statement that cannot be said to be true or false - it is what Popper would call an unfalsifiable statement. This is problematic, because we cannot prove or disprove it, it's pure opinion.

You assume God is real, but you need to prove your assumption. If I say there are infinetely many prime numbers I must prove this (this is by the way proven). So let's do a thought experiment together.


Let's try to prove God by contradiction:

Let us assume the following statement to be true: "There is no God."

To prove God you have to disprove that he does not exist. If you find any contradiction to the above statement, bravo, then you have proven God's existence. The problem is there is no disproof of God's non-existance or with other words no proof of his existance. Some argue that the creation of the universe is a proof of God, since we cannot explain it with our current knowledge, but you didn't prove that a God exists, you only acknowledged that the universe had a beginning. If I said the universe was created by the flying spaghetti monster, how would you counter this statement? You see without evidence literally anything could equally likely have started the big bang. Let me give you an analogy: Suppose you have found a strange big treasure chest. It's locked. Now I ask you what's inside it? When you have no information literally anything could be in it.

Since you gave no evidence supporting your conjecture that there is a God, I will not agree with you that religion should play a role in society. It would be irrational to do so.

[Hakons]

Religion is fundamentally part of the human condition. Religion fills many necessary roles in society, like the transfer of social mores, community cohesion, belonging, and spirituality. This period of secularization doesn't change human nature. Most secular people still have religious traditions and spiritual beliefs, because those are natural for humans to have (as confirmed by nearly every civilization and tribe). Hardcore atheism is a vanishingly small belief, and demographically it will decline in the future.

[Purple Rats]

Religion is fundamentally part of the human condition. Religion fills many necessary roles in society, like the transfer of social mores, community cohesion, belonging, and spirituality. This period of secularization doesn't change human nature. Most secular people still have religious traditions and spiritual beliefs, because those are natural for humans to have (as confirmed by nearly every civilization and tribe). Hardcore atheism is a vanishingly small belief, and demographically it will decline in the future.

We can have communities and belonging without religion too.

"and demographically it will decline in the future" - could you explain why you think so?

[Insaanistan]

And of course, we cannot expect to fully understand a being such as God, or his actions.

This is a statement that cannot be said to be true or false - it is what Popper would call an unfalsifiable statement. This is problematic, because we cannot prove or disprove it, it's pure opinion.

You assume God is real, but you need to prove your assumption. If I say there are infinetely many prime numbers I must prove this (this is by the way proven). So let's do a thought experiment together.


Let's try to prove God by contradiction:

Let us assume the following statement to be true: "There is no God."

To prove God you have to disprove that he does not exist. If you find any contradiction to the above statement, bravo, then you have proven God's existence. The problem is there is no disproof of God's non-existance or with other words no proof of his existance. Some argue that the creation of the universe is a proof of God, since we cannot explain it with our current knowledge, but you didn't prove that a God exists, you only acknowledged that the universe had a beginning. If I said the universe was created by the flying spaghetti monster, how would you counter this statement? You see without evidence literally anything could equally likely have started the big bang. Let me give you an analogy: Suppose you have found a strange big treasure chest. It's locked. Now I ask you what's inside it? When you have no information literally anything could be in it.

Since you gave no evidence supporting your conjecture that there is a God, I will not agree with you that religion should play a role in society. It would be irrational to do so.

Okay. You have made a fair point here. Allow me to counter it: I know God is real, because I see his creation, and his creation could not have come by chance. Pretend you have never seen an iPhone in your life. You are walking one day, and you see on in the street. You do not say to yourself, “Until I see what created it, I will not believe that it has been created, I will believe it has magically appeared by chance.” Rather, you’d say, “I have not seen what has made this but I know it has been made by something or someone”.

[Albrenia]

I can't help but notice that all of your examples of "secular" regimes tend to be not that secular, and incredibly cultish.

With some of them even declaring the start of a new calender, justifying their rule with ancient prophesy, printing "god is with us" on their stuff, engaging in heresy hunts, declaring miracles, and worshiping a living god.

I'd also slightly nitpick in that there's quite a difference between being outright anti-religious (like some Communist regimes have been) and being merely secular.

I'd also be rather surprised if anyone could actually call the worship of a God Emperor 'secular', or the weird shit that a lot of the Nazis believed in either.

Sorry to quote myself here, but I just had an odd thought.

If, for the sake of argument, one assumes the Soviets, Nazis, Imperial Japan and Mao's China all to be 'secular' powers, doesn't that prove that religion is not necessary for a society? I mean, all of them are rather vile powers morally, but as a society they managed to maintain great power and a lot of cohesiveness without religion.

Not saying that they were actually secular, just that if one counts them that way one is basically conceding the argument.

[Purple Rats]

Okay. You have made a fair point here. Allow me to counter it: I know God is real, because I see his creation, and his creation could not have come by chance. Pretend you have never seen an iPhone in your life. You are walking one day, and you see on in the street. You do not say to yourself, “Until I see what created it, I will not believe that it has been created, I will believe it has magically appeared by chance.” Rather, you’d say, “I have not seen what has made this but I know it has been made by something or someone”.

Yeah, but you can take that iphone and show it to people, and they will also see it. If you tell me "I saw God" I am not gonna believe you.
I could also say that I enlighten and now know all kind of things what is right and what wrong, but if there is no actual proof, then seems just a hoax some people use to manipulate others

[New haven america]

The worst and most genocidal regimes of the modern world have pretty much all be secular.

stalin, mao, vietnam, nazi germany(god took a back seat to the furhur), khmere rouge,

Even japan too an extent consideing the “emperor” was still a human with an massive cult of personality.

Those countries weren't secular though, sure they were atheistic, but there's a massive difference between that and secularism. Secularism doesn't care about what religion its people choose to practice, while State Atheism does very much care.

Also, all of the leaders of those countries built basically cults around themselves. That's where the term "Cult of Personality" comes from.

[Albrenia]

The universe rather looks like it came about by natural processes rather than being crafted by a Creator Being with our specific little ape species as the centre of the show.

It's rather like an orphan finding an iPhone, picking it up and declaring 'this way made by my father, who dislikes pickles, and made it for me'.

[Vetalia]

Since you gave no evidence supporting your conjecture that there is a God, I will not agree with you that religion should play a role in society. It would be irrational to do so.

Here's a little twist you didn't consider: what if religious belief is useful to society, irrespective of its rationality?

Like it or not, people intrinsically seek a sense of meaning and purpose greater than themselves, it has been this way every since we became sentient.

[New haven america]

The universe rather looks like it came about by natural processes rather than being crafted by a Creator Being with our specific little ape species as the centre of the show.

It's rather like an orphan finding an iPhone, picking it up and declaring 'this way made by my father, who dislikes pickles, and made it for me'.

Actually... The Big Bang and Judaism's Creation Myth are scarily similar.

Basically at one point there existed nothing but God, so he got bored and decided to create everything in one massive universe level explosion and crafted the planets and heavens from nothing but dust.

[Insaanistan]

The universe rather looks like it came about by natural processes rather than being crafted by a Creator Being with our specific little ape species as the centre of the show.

It's rather like an orphan finding an iPhone, picking it up and declaring 'this way made by my father, who dislikes pickles, and made it for me'.

How exactly does it seem like it came by natural processes. And what natural processes do you mean, and what causes them?

And I agree that some religions are like what you have described, but my point is that you would acknowledge that it has a creator, one capable of things you are not.