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A world without religion, how will it really look?
The voices against religious belief are growing stronger in recent years as is to be expected in this age of information, but would there really be an idyllic world waiting in the end of this war?
Would the people susceptible to the religious doctrines really abandon illogical thinking, or will we see the various "New Age" movements get stronger with new pseudo scientific lies that might seem like an easier path to take than the proof demanding science, as we see today from many secular people around the world?
How far are we from completely embracing knowledge and research? How do you envision such a world?
Topics:
God future philosophy religion science singularity technology
Anna Hoffmann
Wayne Busby 30+
Vasil Rangelov 50+
Wayne Busby 30+
Christophe Cop 500+
And I would add warning signs to everything that is proven to be wrong.
Ok... I'm dreaming out loud...
But this would hold if we are making claims about reality (so claiming truth)... When that happens, we should all realize the only right and rational answer is through science... even if we know that is a cumbersome way to obtain knowledge. (And people now thinking that science claims to have all the answers: WRONG and you just made a big logical error)
For all other things: things we don't know, understand, things we feel, experience, the bonds in our lives: use whatever methaphor you like to feel "connected" (Religare in Latin means "connecting")
Your feelings are a true experience, what you feel to be true is not always true.
I think the world would look less wrong
Wayne Busby 30+
The root of the matter is Pride.
Anything science discovered was already there waiting to be unveiled. Any process that we attempt to 'catalyze', we claim foolish credit for, willfully ignorant to the fact that our very action makes us part of the experiment and therefore part of an energetic process put in motion before we existed.
Culture and The Arts are for the most part fickle concepts, as even the man made Wonders of the World have become, over time, little more than tourist attractions. The stories surrounding their genesis lost to the general population. And with that the lessons.
Mind S 30+
How many times it has been stressed that in contrary to religious belief systems, atheism/non-believing has no specific set of beliefs that are final and sacred. The atheistic view concerning the universe changes and evolves with the advancement of science and rational knowledge. Hence, atheism doesn’t fit the definition of religion.
Wayne Busby 30+
Not having an opinion on the matter should also excuse him/her from the right to any vote on the matter.
To remain relevant all ideas must be open to change, on that we stand in agreement. This is what I hope to expand on through constructive and collaborative criticism of all issues. So can we stop the passive aggressive B.S. and at least try to find any other relevant concurrence of opinions? Or should I wait untill your religion evolves to to point where it accepts its limitations in this infinite system.
andrew lindsey
Peter Law
Vasil Rangelov 50+
Someone on YouTube once said that... I think on a Richard Dawkins video. I don't know if that's the original author, but the thought sure makes sence.
Aldous Blair
It's ridiculous to say that not believing in God or a higher power must mean you believe in something- but Richard Dawkins has advanced a meme that I do consider Ill-guided; the idea that faith in-of itself is obsolete, that science and logic can make faith redundant.
*EDIT: in response to Vasil, who was thrown off by this point, I agree it was not a point that was sound or wholly thought out very well on my part and I feel the need to apologize for it.
Vasil Rangelov 50+
Even when a communist leader has been atheist, they haven't commited atrocities IN THE NAME of atheism. They commited atrocities because they were f**kheads. You can be a f**khead regardless of faith. The catholic church has been the one to do atrocities in the name of christianity. Also, Bin Laden has been the one comitting atrocities in the name of (radical) Islam. An atheist comitting atrocities is never comitting atrocities IN THE NAME of atheism.
To comitt atrocities in the name of atheism would mean for said person to kill or torture people of ALL religions because they believe in gods. Can you name ONE such case?
The only "atrocity from a communist leader" case I do know from my country is where all people living here in Bulgaria were once forced to have Bulgarian names. Bulgaria, being a christian country has many names rooted in christianity. Many turkish immigrants, being muslim, refused to change their names. Some were killed on an instant, others rebelled and were eventually shot (I believe the current events in Lybia are a close analogy), and third were trialed and executed. Refusal equaled death either way.
Our former leader, as far as I know, was not atheist, but even if he was, that name enforcement was not done in the name of atheism. It was done in the name of nationalism. Considering the fact the nation is christian, and the names are christian based, you could say it was indirectly in the name of christianity.
Besides, in the last two centuries at least, politics and religion have not intermixed, at least in my country, though AFAIK, that's also true for other former communist countries. I don't recall a politician having to proclaim he's a christian to win over voters, despite the fact we DO have a muslim party, as well as party that has the reputation of being fascist (though they aren't IMHO).
Wayne Busby 30+
If you don't believe in something then nothing you say means anything. Would you trust someone who refused to show his position on something that matters to you?
Not having an opinion on the matter should also excuse him/her from the right to any vote on the matter.
"Richard Dawkins has advanced a meme that I do consider Ill-guided; the idea that faith in-of itself is obsolete, that science and logic can make faith redundant." Agree.
Redundance is relevant;
"I said 'The plural of anecdote is data' some time in the 1969-70 academic year while teaching a graduate seminar at Stanford. The occasion was a student's dismissal of a simple factual statement--by another student or me--as a mere anecdote. The quotation was my rejoinder."
The original quote by Raymond Wolfinger.
'Natural selection itself, when you think about it, is a narrowing down from a wide initial field of possible alternatives, to the narrower field of the alternatives actually chosen. Random genetic error (mutation), sexual recombination and migratory mixing, all provide a wide field of genetic variation: the available alternatives [redundancy]...the information fed into present-day genomes from past generations is helpful information. Information from the ancestral past can be seen as a manual for surviving in the present: a family bible of ancestral “advice” on how to survive today..."
ironically
Richard Dawkins
Peter Law
"If Atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby."
Non-collectors do not preach on the evils of stamp collecting. Who ever heard of "Militant Non-Stamp collecting".
Atheists want to STAMP (sorry) out religion.
:-)
Vasil Rangelov 50+
If there were evils in stamp collecting, I think non-collectors would make collectors aware (not preach; just make them aware, and prompt them to search for further evidence themselves) of the evils of stamp collecting.
Wayne Busby 30+
I think this is a most salient point most of those who rail against faith miss.
Science, the summum bonum of our ability to define and thereby control our environment, must always work in tandem with morality, which is the root of our accountability.
Raw science has no intersest in accountability other than proving an observatiion infallible, and securing the means (Money) to continue research. So what if we cripple our bioshpere or kill millions in the process.
I would go so far as to say that anytime science has been used to the betterment of mankind it happened because those involved with the genisis of the technology had some sense of morals which, like it or not, have origins in the wisdom intrinsic to some faith.
andrew lindsey
Wayne Busby 30+
Roi Shpaner 20+
There were some very good comments made here and I enjoyed reading them all. As we near the closing time of this debate, I will give you my own vision of a world without religion.
I see a world extremely different from today (and still far away if to be honest), a world without borders, that values knowledge and information more than anything. A world not without violence, not without crime, but at much much lower rates than today. A world much more productive and active as we waste less time and rely solely on ourselves as a human race. A world more open to disagreements and debates, treating all people as equals.
A world where all human knowledge is free and available to every single person. And it starts with TED.
kris ho
Hopefully it would also be a kind of common link between different cultures- I mean, no one (witha decent 'moral compass') goes out with the idea to rape pillage and destroy surely??!! with out god(s) decency will be seen for what it is- a common human trait rather then a religiously shaped one.
It would also be about taking responsibility for your own life- It is what you shape it- or how you deal with what happens to you, rather then because the 'big fella' deems it so, and thinking about how our choices affect what we really have- the here and now, rather then relying on a cushy afterlife may make us feel different about what we eat, how we act, and what we really value.
as for how far are we away from this.... it's maybe within our reach, but definately within our sights.
sayyid Tirmizi
Nicholas Lukowiak 50+
transhumanism, humanisn, budhism, shamanism, rationalism, skepticism the list goes on.
I believe an end to religion would be the result of teaching everyone all the religion past and present. That way the comparison will show that humans throughout history have tried to make morals a law rather then the law to understand morals.
Am I thinking too far ahead in time? Or is religion inedible to the human condition? Or are the religious foundations installed today are too in deep into cultures/societies of the world to be ended?
A world without religion would be perfect.
Sanjay Sundraraj
Cynthia Chen 100+
Helen Hupe 30+
Cynthia Chen 100+
Wayne Busby 30+
Here is a wonderful example of what is going on here.
Please all of you Sage and Scientist alike, watch these short videos which illustrate the folly of not collaborating towards some mutually acceptable understanding of ideas. Presented with humility.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJVBQefNXIw&feature=related
Another example of the same type (duplicating the experiment lol):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAeeZ2A3g8U
Morale: "Knowing in part may make a fine tale, but Wisdom comes from knowing the whole."
Enjoy!
Matthew Baron
Beside i'll never know that.
Wayne Busby 30+
Do you really not know how this would end without the latter?
Wayne Busby 30+
We have become so enraptured by our splendor as to believe with asinine stubbornness that there is no reality outside our existence or experience.
One reason for this, I believe, is that at an animal level we have both willingly and through desperate necessity created civilizations which focus mightily on what our senses help us identify as tangible and how such matter can be turned to satisfying (or in some cases saturating) our physiologic needs.
The ultimate and most relentless (read Omnipotent) goal of this behavior, which is shared by all life forms, is an ecstatic immortality.
This makes sense, however, I truly don't get how most of us can think that because we are unable perceive something - with our scientifically demonstatably fallible and comparatively feeble senses - it does not exist.
This very thought process is pathologically counterintuitive!
Pride comes before the fall.
How can we hope to evolve (read not become extinct) if we refuse to embrace much less assimilate the infinite outside ourselves?!
Having said that, I must admitted I am wary of approaching such phenomena with our immature, yet curiously classical, modes-operandi (usually akin to rape and pillage for it is better to ask forgiveness than permission)!
Brothers and Sisters wake up and however you may, deal with it.
I propose that a more suitable definition for the term supernatural denote a phenomena purely outside the scope of normal human perception, therefor outside the scope of current scientific means to measure or catalogue within our understanding of those laws applying to our nature.
Nuf said.
Peace.
E G 10+
A Latif 30+
I am aware that answering such genre of questions invokes a tendency to project our current concepts, knowledge, psychology, impulses, and emotions on remotely placed future situation.
The meaning and nature of things, hence our knowledge, evolve and develop over time. World-views and outlooks change as time passes by (and this becomes more evident on larger time scales). Remote future humans will have higher intellectuality (assuming we are not going to destroy ourselves), different emotional setting, different psychological contexts, different societal structures and different priorities and concerns (Even here I use some terms that may lose their usual meaning and significance in the remote future). People of the future will look to present-day concepts of life and knowledge as outdated, discarded and obsolete similar to how we now evaluate those of ancient human societies.
Keith Whittingham 20+
I think the answer to the question is relatively simple.
If there were no religions then we would be obliged to shoulder the responsibility regarding moral and ethical problems. We would get on with fixing them.
If it were known that there is no afterlife then we would value the one that we are living now much more. Both our own lives and those of others.
If there were no religions then a great number people that currently help others because they think ‘it’s a godly thing to do’ would do the same thing with redoubled effort because they would know it was the right thing to do. And they would rightly be rewarded for doing so.
Vasil Rangelov 50+
While I'm an atheist myself and fully agree with you on all other points, I'm not entirely certain that people who don't belive in an afterline would necesarily value life more, especially those who've previously lived with religion in mind. Imagine - you live your life thinking "I'll be good now because there's [insert religion promise for reward] waiting for me after death, and I won't get it if I'm not good.", and suddenly, when you realize this is not true you're going "But... why should I be good now? Why should I live? My life has no purpose! I want to die!".
I have the answers to these questions for myself, but I'm not entirely sure if those answers are universal in nature.
For me, we live... because we live... because we were born. "Deal with it!". And even if there's no afterlife, I think we should be good because... well... the golden rule basically implies it... so that we can all enjoy life. If there's no afterlife, then there's no need for a reward after death. But if there was life after death and [insert religion promise for reward], then so be it. And if we're being reborn, all the better - one more round of being good in order to enjoy life along with everyone else.
I guess this explanation is also one reason why developing countries life Pakistan and Afghanistan are usually breeders for extremists. "enjoy life" doesn't sit well in those environments. People in other places know that their life can always be better or at least at its "good" level, but in those places, the possibility is usually out of sight, and therefore out of mind.
Keith Whittingham 20+
With regards to purpose. Religious people may consider that they have a purpose in life but they don't know what it is. I would find that even more frustrating. And if I were to think by life was predestined - what would be the point in struggling?
While I think my reasoning is right, I'm not sure that I value my life any more than a couple of good friends of mine who are christian. So my suspicion is that you're right.
Maybe one would live a life more purposefully?
A Latif 30+
While the core of your comment represents misunderstanding for the word “meaning” in my statement «The meaning and nature of things”, you have actually expressed, nicely, my own thoughts! The word “meaning” that I used has a physical context and not a theological or metaphysical context. For instance, ancient people held different meaning for physical phenomena in comparison to the modern meaning (e. g. the “sun” meant a God, Apollo while for us it means just a star, a huge natural nuclear reactor). I have already made many comments (in the original thread/forum “Militant Atheism”) criticising the expressions "meaning" or "purpose" as applied to the natural world by theologians and in metaphysical philosophy and I expressed my view that these are anthropogenic terms that reflect our own personal, human emotions/feelings and have no bearing on the impersonal physical cosmos in which we live. Regards.
Keith Whittingham 20+
AbdelRahman Siddig
it will looks like school where the students are willing to do any thing except study and learning
it will looks like a hospitals where the patients willing to do any thing except taking the medicine
it will looks like an office where employees willing to do any things except doing their work
"I only created mankind and jinns to worship me " quran (51/56)
Keith Whittingham 20+
The evidence shows the opposite. The more societies are moving away from religion then the more civilized they become. My use of the word "civilized" here means respectful of each other and of themselves.
AbdelRahman Siddig
let us step back one step before we can tell A world without religion, how will it really look?
who is the world owner ?
because the manufacture of each product is one who really knows why he made his product in the first place and he is also the one who make the manual of his product
if some one bought a car and said I'm the owner of the car I will use it as I wish not as been mentioned in the manual is this a wise decision?
Keith Whittingham 20+
In the question above, there is no world owner, no designer and no afterlife. We all just get on with it.
Answer the exam question.
Keith Whittingham 20+
In other words. Do you think that if you discovered that Allah did not exist, you would suddenly start robbing every bank and raping every living thing you encountered? I think you are better than that AbdelRahman Siddig. I think you are probably quite a nice person, even without Allah.
Nicholas Lukowiak 50+
And when you are fighting for a religion do not use your religion to defend your position that is circular logic.
kris ho
andrew lindsey
Gabriel .C 20+
Religiosity and education (or lack thereof) are inextricably linked and inversely proportional. As the world becomes more educated, it will become less religious. Now, the set of parameters that allow a nation to offer adequate schooling to it`s citizens are essentially the same as those that allow a nation to be economically prosperous. Thus, a non-religious world (NOTE: Not "no religion", but rather "not religious", for only the latter is feasible) is basically a developed world.
Obviously, a developed world and the tenth sphere of heaven are very much different. Violence, which is rooted in our very nature, will persist. What will go away however, will be the flimsy yet powerful excuses for war that religion offers in almost equal amounts as guilt and fear. And that, I think you`ll agree, is most definitely better than what we have now.
Lee Wilkinson 20+
Steve Frazee 500+
The domain of science is rationality that can be measured or predicted. Rationality is attached to the current evolutionary perceptions of the human mind. That which falls outside the human ability to perceive, or conceive, is transcendent by definition. I would argue there is a big difference between irrational and trans-rational spirituality.
The current world of static, dogmatic, mythical religions may give way evolving systems of wonder and respect for all that is transcendent. I hope so. Spirituality at it's best is not illogical, magical or mythical, but it is optimistic that whatever exists beyond the human mind's abilities is slightly is supportive of our collective evolution.
I do not expect that humanity will ever let go of that optimism. I can't imagine a world without spirituality in the form of wonder and awe for that which is unknown or unknowable.
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Wayne Busby 30+
Empty.
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Wayne Busby 30+
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Wayne Busby 30+
or
www.roman-colosseum.info/roman-empire/causes-for-the-fall-of-the-roman-empire.htm
Pride, herald to all sin, is at the root of the matter.
Enough is enough when you can no longer perceive how your overindulgence imposes unfair (life threatening) restraints on others.
There is no knowledge or discovery defined by our Science that was not waiting to be unveiled.
We fool ourselves into thinking that any reaction we have attempted to 'catalyze'. Comes from and is owned by us alone, willfully ignorant that our very action makes us part of the experiment or energetic system that was set in motion millennia before our existence.
The Arts and our Culture are fickle things as exemplified by the fact that even those man made Wonders of the World have become little more than tourist attractions. Their true stories and the wisdom behind the lessons lost but to a few.
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Wayne Busby 30+
You asked me for an example and I gave you two.
If you read through the link I sent you, you will see that the precipitating factor for the fall of most of Chinas Empires was the same: Greed the same thing (not religion) which led to the downfall of the Roman Empire.
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Wayne Busby 30+
I am not interested in convincing you of something you already, intrinsically know. I will however remind you since you seem to have forgotten and you cannot learn from what you choose to forget: You are part of and therefor accountable to something far greater than yourself.
A world without what you call religion means erasing those most important histories which seeded all civilizations with ideas like the Golden Rule (as far as I know these are not empirical formulae). It is a world where we would feel even more justified to never extend ourselves beyond our selfish desires. Where would you be today if your ancestors cared more about art or culture than rearing their offspring to be good and responsible individuals, qualities I dare say you will never find expounded in any history of science.
To date, the most advanced civilizations known to have existed are still trying to justify the idea that it makes sense for us to sh@# where we sleep. So we go on raping the bowels of our mother, pillaging her irreplaceable beauty and annihilating what biodiversity is left on our planet. This has nothing to do with any religion I conform to. How about you?
I say again: enough is enough when you can no longer perceive how your overindulgence imposes unfair (life threatening) restraints on others.
Feel free to try and prove me wrong
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Wayne Busby 30+
Those individuals who are committing the atrocities to which you refer are, surprise, misguided.
How much more and for what reasons are those proud and Godless doing the same?
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Wayne Busby 30+
It is not my concern what you choose to believe. You have nothing to fear.
My question to you is simple. Look around the world and examine the history of the last 100 yrs then tell me what those Godless and proud have done to improve anything for anyone in need. Without the guidance of some virtue based in some religion.
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Wayne Busby 30+
kris ho
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Wayne Busby 30+
The examples I gave you showed exactly my point that the most predominate factor in the disintegration of many past Empires or civilizations is pride and the resulting greed (and other problems) that it spawns, not religion.
I never said that religion is the 'only way to guard against greed' I did however say that said belief systems are the source of many of those wisdoms and tenants that hold up the best of what our current civilizations have to offer.
Finally I never 'contended' that anyone "did nothing to benefit societies" and made no statement based in prejudice. I simply asked for examples so that you might prove your position. Are you not in fact Proud to be Godless?
You have made many peculiar (dangerous) defamatory accusations and judgements about my character and now attempt to deflect my attention away from your slights. Weak, you have shown me your stripes.
I have answered Rio's question adequately in my opinion.
Go in peace I am not here to harass or be harassed by anyone.
Zdenek Smith 100+
If, through the Internet, you see strong voices against religion I also see many strong voices of extremists in the name of religion.
I think eventually only minority will be involved in religion, probably because the Internet will allow people to create communities (like Facebook and MeetUp does to some degree today). Science will allow to treat all physical and mental problems so people will feel more powerful.
E G 10+
Raheel Lakhani
Mark Meijer 100+