Do Gods and Religion Have a Place in Modern Society?

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Do Gods and Religion Have a Place in Modern Society?

Postby LMAO » Fri Oct 09, 2015 2:04 pm

Since the marriage thread is being completely derailed with religion, I thought it would be better to just make a religion topic where we can all duke it out.

What is your view on religion's place in modern society as well as deities'? Does religion and belief in deities still have purposes or are they merely relics of a time bygone?

In my opinion, the belief in gods and religion are relics of our ancestors. This chart summarizes my views succinctly:
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As our understanding of the world has increased, the need for deities as an explanation for phenomena has decreased exponentially. Sure, we may not exactly know how the universe began, but it's a copout to just say that a god did it and fail to explore the topic any further. For all we know, the universe may not have had any beginning. The universe may be eternal, just existing in different forms throughout the eons. There could have been an infinite number of universes before our universe. The thing is, we must continue to explore it instead of being lazy and simply attributing the universe to a deity.

Also, religions claiming that the universe was created open a can of worms. If the universe was create, then we can presuppose that a more complex thing had to create it. But that begs the question: What created that more complex thing that created the universe? What created that more complex thing? And so on and so on. If we claim that, then we're only entering into the realm of infinite regression. So to make things simple, it may be better to observe Occam's razor in this situation. (Yes, I realize religion's say their god wasn't create and it/they are eternal. But if the deities can be eternal, why can't the universe?)

Moving on to our views of humanity, religions claim that humanity is special, but are we really? The universe is large—incomprehensibly expansive. We are completely insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Even if there were deities, there is no way all of this could have been created for only us.
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Humans used to believe that Earth was the center of the universe, but astronomy has taught us that that is simply not the case. Hell, we don't know if there is even a center to the universe.

And ending with religious texts for now, if these divinely inspired texts can't even get basic science and math right, then why should we hold them on a pedestal for other things such as morality and history? Religious texts are nothing more than archaic books written by our more ignorant ancestors. And what makes scientific knowledge superior to religious texts is that scientific knowledge isn't static. If something is incorrect, then the science evolves to a more correct theory instead of claiming absolute rightness like religions and religious texts do.

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Re: Do Gods and Religion Have a Place in Modern Society?

Postby elkanofan » Sun Oct 18, 2015 1:23 pm

modern atheism is funded by satanists. That is all.
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Re: Do Gods and Religion Have a Place in Modern Society?

Postby Héctor24 » Sun Oct 18, 2015 1:30 pm

religion has a place because most people are too dumb to be left to their own devices imo and by religion i mean serious belief not the casual kind of religion that you see a lot of single mothers and promiscous men partaking.

and definitely not the only god can judge me type of bullshit religion
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Re: Do Gods and Religion Have a Place in Modern Society?

Postby DiamondGooner » Sun Oct 18, 2015 7:09 pm

I'd love for religion to be dissipated over night then all this West vs Muslims scenario will have to face a very ugly fact ......... where will the excuse to hate "them" be now.

It will be laughable.

The tabloids will have to come up with a very different angle won't they for their headlines, as will the far right groups.

When I look at the headlines now being bombarded with Anti-muslim articles I actually get ashamed to think what future generations are going to think when they look back at this.

I actually appreciate back in the Roman times when religion was not big enough to be used as an excuse for war / not liking a group of people .......... they just said it! whether its right or wrong I find the honesty refreshing, at least you know what your fighting for.

Today they use "I don't like your religion", but in fact they actually hate the person practicing it whether they are nice or bad people, not sure how that makes sense?

I may dislike the Catholic religion but does that mean I'm going to hate all Catholics? I may hate Russia but does that mean I'm going to hate every individual Russian I meet?

No lets call it for what it is, Racism, and so for that fact alone I'd love for religion to disappear, so people can get honest and at least I wouldn't have to read or see this religious wars crap on the news 24/7.
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Re: Do Gods and Religion Have a Place in Modern Society?

Postby Héctor24 » Sun Oct 18, 2015 9:58 pm

i completely agree with this.

I actually think future generations will be the same people will always look for justifications for their savage behaviour.

You know like weapons of mass destruction it's all bullshit really people just like killing others especially if they dont agree with each other
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Re: Do Gods and Religion Have a Place in Modern Society?

Postby StLGooner » Mon Oct 19, 2015 12:47 pm

Héctor24 wrote:religion has a place because most people are too dumb to be left to their own devices


This part!

Sad but true. I don't think the average mind can handle the highly probable reality of there not being a god or a heaven or afterlife period.

Slowly but surely I think it will go away though.
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Re: Do Gods and Religion Have a Place in Modern Society?

Postby DiamondGooner » Mon Oct 19, 2015 6:51 pm

StLGooner wrote:
Héctor24 wrote:religion has a place because most people are too dumb to be left to their own devices


This part!

Sad but true. I don't think the average mind can handle the highly probable reality of there not being a god or a heaven or afterlife period.

Slowly but surely I think it will go away though.


I think people are always too scared to go there but we should.

"Why should I be good if there is no God? why should I not steal? why not kill?"

If we stopped babying people, these questions would be obvious.

If you steal you damage your standing socially because those who know you view you as untrustworthy, being viewed as untrustworthy damages you socially that's just natural, not to mention the ass whoopin you could receive and the prison sentence to boot, there's a reason.

Killing, people make out they could kill without the fear of God but what about the 20yr prison sentence? what about the fact that killing leads to people then wanting to kill you?
People don't not kill today because of Gods judgement, people don't kill because of the retribution that follows, people fear consequences, hell doesn't have to be one of them.

We really need to get over this religion excuse, people act like before religion there was no civilised man, that's BS, civilisation started in the ancient cities in the middle east, in Greece and eventually Rome.
What's civilised about burning women and calling them witches? what's civilised about starting and supporting wars like the crusades which has nothing to do with protecting your territory or local resources?

Religion has run past its expiry date.
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Re: Do Gods and Religion Have a Place in Modern Society?

Postby StLGooner » Mon Oct 19, 2015 7:49 pm

DiamondGooner wrote:
StLGooner wrote:
Héctor24 wrote:religion has a place because most people are too dumb to be left to their own devices


This part!

Sad but true. I don't think the average mind can handle the highly probable reality of there not being a god or a heaven or afterlife period.

Slowly but surely I think it will go away though.


I think people are always too scared to go there but we should.

"Why should I be good if there is no God? why should I not steal? why not kill?"

If we stopped babying people, these questions would be obvious.

If you steal you damage your standing socially because those who know you view you as untrustworthy, being viewed as untrustworthy damages you socially that's just natural, not to mention the ass whoopin you could receive and the prison sentence to boot, there's a reason.

Killing, people make out they could kill without the fear of God but what about the 20yr prison sentence? what about the fact that killing leads to people then wanting to kill you?
People don't not kill today because of Gods judgement, people don't kill because of the retribution that follows, people fear consequences, hell doesn't have to be one of them.

We really need to get over this religion excuse, people act like before religion there was no civilised man, that's BS, civilisation started in the ancient cities in the middle east, in Greece and eventually Rome.
What's civilised about burning women and calling them witches? what's civilised about starting and supporting wars like the crusades which has nothing to do with protecting your territory or local resources?

Religion has run past its expiry date.



Totally agree with you buddy!

And when you try to point out to people that the majority of people in prison are religious/believers then they just say "oh well they're not real Christians or insert any other religion". SMH!!
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Re: Do Gods and Religion Have a Place in Modern Society?

Postby Héctor24 » Mon Oct 19, 2015 7:49 pm

I think you're being to optimistic DG.

As Stl said the worthlessness of life is a hard pill for most people to swallow. Most people aren't willing to accept that their life has no more worth than say a moths. People would rather have something to live for instead of believing that they're only living to die.

Part of religion also acts as an incentive for people to behave well because of the prospect of heaven (not always but again i'm talking about people who are seriously religious not the only god can judge me types). This incentive of heaven/ fear of hell is unfortunately so powerful in some people that they are willing to actually die early as martyrs so they can get to heaven/ avoid hell. Heaven gives some people real comfort even if they're life is absolute shit because they believe in the consolationary prize of heaven. Without this a lot of people really struggle.

Being athiestic is only a relatively recent phenomenon but even then you could still say that the majority of earths inhabitors are still religious and in the past religion has pretty much been a constant whichever periods we can date back to and study. I think it's a bit short sighted to say people dont need something that has pretty much existed throughout time.

Something so prevalent must be serving some kind of function to people and it's arrogant to believe that isnt the case. Sometimes it's not actually about what you need but what you believe you need.

There was religion even in Rome and Greece, religion dates back much further then you're giving credit for. Even Pagans believed in some kind of religion.
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Re: Do Gods and Religion Have a Place in Modern Society?

Postby StLGooner » Mon Oct 19, 2015 8:07 pm

I agree with a lot of that Hector. But maybe the question in the title is misleading. Does it have a place or is it needed are two kind of different questions, which could generate two entirely different answers.

We could say it does have a place (and should), because SOME people actually still need it. Is it the majority that need it? Hard to say really.

Or we could say that it doesn't have a place and isn't needed once the majority realize it's probably a false hope.

But just because something has existed so long doesn't mean we still need it, definitely not as a whole.

So maybe that begs the question, if the majority of the world are believers, would society break down if all of the sudden all the believers realized it was all fake and made up?
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Re: Do Gods and Religion Have a Place in Modern Society?

Postby UFGN » Mon Oct 19, 2015 9:09 pm

No
Corinthians 15:57; But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus

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Re: Do Gods and Religion Have a Place in Modern Society?

Postby Jackson » Mon Oct 19, 2015 11:52 pm

Héctor24 wrote:Something so prevalent must be serving some kind of function to people and it's arrogant to believe that isnt the case. Sometimes it's not actually about what you need but what you believe you need.

There was religion even in Rome and Greece, religion dates back much further then you're giving credit for. Even Pagans believed in some kind of religion.
Well that's the point - it did serve a function when people didn't know where the sun went at night. It doesn't any more (and 'modern' religion is just an update on pagan superstition).
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Re: Do Gods and Religion Have a Place in Modern Society?

Postby Héctor24 » Tue Oct 20, 2015 12:03 am

StLGooner wrote:I agree with a lot of that Hector. But maybe the question in the title is misleading. Does it have a place or is it needed are two kind of different questions, which could generate two entirely different answers.

We could say it does have a place (and should), because SOME people actually still need it. Is it the majority that need it? Hard to say really.

Or we could say that it doesn't have a place and isn't needed once the majority realize it's probably a false hope.

But just because something has existed so long doesn't mean we still need it, definitely not as a whole.

So maybe that begs the question, if the majority of the world are believers, would society break down if all of the sudden all the believers realized it was all fake and made up?


i dont think it's needed your right but something doesnt have to be needed for it to have a place that's my point. You could argue that things like electricity aren't needed for example and the world wouldnt fall apart if it dissappeared tomorrow but it still has a place.

In response to Jackson it still serves a purpose or else it wouldnt still be so popular
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Re: Do Gods and Religion Have a Place in Modern Society?

Postby Jackson » Tue Oct 20, 2015 12:25 am

Héctor24 wrote:In response to Jackson it still serves a purpose or else it wouldnt still be so popular
It serves many purposes: social control, on-going power for clergy, a personal crutch against fear of death, a focus on an imaginary future rather than the here and now. None of those are good reasons for keeping it around.
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Re: Do Gods and Religion Have a Place in Modern Society?

Postby Héctor24 » Tue Oct 20, 2015 12:51 am

Jackson wrote:
Héctor24 wrote:In response to Jackson it still serves a purpose or else it wouldnt still be so popular
It serves many purposes: social control, on-going power for clergy, a personal crutch against fear of death, a focus on an imaginary future rather than the here and now. None of those are good reasons for keeping it around.



they all seem like valid reasons to me . A lot of people want all of those things.

I think you and i have probably oversimplified religion seeing as we aren't actually experts in religion but even the oversimplification still sounds reasonable.

Social control is something that pretty much every ideoligical group wants. Whether they are liberal, conservative, progressive, democratic etc. Even your answer suggests you want the same seeing as you want people to share the same ideas about religion as you do.

Yearning for Power is another thing that humans typically want and in my opinion whether that power is derived within a religious insitution or political makes no difference to me.

I've already explained the personal crutch agaiinst fear of death.

Also is being optimistic about the future ( maybe in terms of wanting family, a good job or to be rich) any less imaginary than Heaven and does it ignore the hear an now any less than religion i would argue no. I would say providing people with optimism is certainly a good reason for keeping it around.

As i said as long as it still has a purpose then it still has a place. Whether you want that purpose served is really irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Individuals or even groups shouldnt dictate what purposes others should and shouldnt wanted served. If it serves you no purpose then that's completely fine religion should have no place in yout life but if it serves others then who are you to tell them that they shouldnt want these purposes fufilled. Wouldnt that be the social control that you're so vehemently against?
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