I was going back through our old forums on proboards, the Paradox of the Taco (Emily Yang), The Revolt on B2 and Birth of Corestianity (what a great story), and yes, even the infamous Prop 8 discussion, and something I read in one of the threads is that religion is necessary, without it, all humans would be living under a dictatorship and in a state of chaos.
You wanna run that by me again?
"we need religion
without it we'd be under dictatorship or chaos
and it gives us something to fear
fear keeps us in order
without us kept in fear we'd be flying around right now shooting each others heads off."
I'm still not sure how that makes sense. So let's take it piece-by-piece.
"Without [religion] we'd be under dictatorship." The only way I could possibly conceive this happening would be some atheist (obviously we'd all be atheists w/o religion) rising up and taking control and no one speaking up for ourselves. This would then require the police, the lawmakers, and the rest of the government to go corrupt and allow this to happen (not likely) as well as the common people allowing it to happen (looking back on history... not likely. How about those French revolutions?) In general, dictatorship would not work, or at least not work for long, as we would all revolt and establish democracy, assuming it hadn't been established long ago by the Greeks.
"Without [religion] we'd be under... chaos." Not sure how this one makes sense either, although I assume the reasoning for this is "it gives us something to fear... fear keeps us in order... without us kept in fear we'd be flying around right now shooting each others heads off." As an agnostic, I can honestly say that the reason I am not "shooting... others heads off" has nothing to do with God or a fear of hell. I'm afraid of the police, jail, etc. I could care less about eternal damnation. Religion has nothing to do with my life not being chaotic, it's more a fear of state and secular law that does that. Religion is absolutely not necessary to keep us away from chaos, and could be the cause of chaos in some ways (Crusades, etc.)
Now I know that a lot of people (Stella, Jooheon, and Solomon have already countered with this) will say that it wasn't REAL Christians that cause these wars and chaos, because REAL Christians would never do that. Regardless of whether or not the Christians that participated in the Crusades were "real" or not, they were still influenced by Christianity and the Bible. Part of their reasoning to go and take the Holy Land back was because it was the "Holy Land" and it belonged to the Christians. They fought and slaughtered Jews in their own empire simply because the Jews weren't Christians and helped contribute to the death of Jesus. Religion did play a part in the Crusades, whether it was REAL religion or not. Religion still is a cause of this war. As it is the cause of so many other wars. As Paul stated himself on proboards, "basically every political leader is leading cuz of religion and their beliefs, so religious wars is a given." Doesn't that leave the question, without religion, wouldn't there be far less wars? Without religion, and only atheism/agnosticism across the land, the following events would never have happened:
Crusades
Holocaust which then means no WWII
Iraq War
Palestine/Israeli War
Any war regarding "The Holy Land"
ALL of the horrifying events read today in class
Think about it. Does religion really help? Is it really a fear of hell that keeps us from killing, or a fear of jail, and what your family/friends will think? It's a tough question, and I think at some point we have to realize religion might not be as great as we think.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
may i ask how the Iraq war has anything to do with religion first of all? No religion targeted them and it was not like Christians started this war or any other religion for that matter.
ReplyDeletesecondly, yes predicting our case of "REAL" Christians. but really, if you think about, there's so many fake Christians in the world today. those who claim that are Christians but only do it to gain attention and what not and it can be shown through their acts. Just like that, the Crusades were done by ignorant people who basically wanted power. You can't just blame the "group" of Christians as a whole because it was specific people out of the religion who did. Therefore, it's wrong to just go blaming all Christians. It's like the same thing as the Iraq war and how it started. Basically, all Middle Eastern people were blamed for this, which in fact was not true.
Religion brings unity, because with the idea of God and everyone worshipping him, it allows everyone to believe in the same God. For example take my church, we're from various schools and what not, but worshipping together allows us to grow up like family and it brings us together. Just in general, we can have fellowship, and therefore through this bonding, it brings order.
Religion is necessary and it's just not through the fear of hell that we are Christians. It's the fact that we believe that there is a God who created the world and should be glorified and honored. The idea of "hell" and "satan" doesn't scare Christians, because we know that we are going to go to heaven, so this argument that oh, all Christians become Christians because they are afraid of hell. 1) of course no one wants to go to hell- therefore, we look to God whom we worship and then we believe in Him.
and on a side note, someone became a Crhsitian to came to revival night yesterday and through the many testimonies that i have personally seen and heard, i believe that it's only a fact that God exists. and the idea of "testimony" i know is something really hard to understand until you physically experience it or is with someone who is experiencing it.
-0- i like proboards a lot better, no offense Mr. basinger, haha because we could argue a lot more! and like it's easier to postt....
i understand the entire paragraphs on how they are "fake" christians. think about this: could we have fake christians if christianity didn't exist? of course not. therefore religion is a cause of the crusades whether it was caused by real or fake christians, or even misguided ones. religion is a cause for many, many wars including the iraq war in which the terrorist attacks were in the name of allah and bush has said claimed this war in the name of god (don't remember when but i remember it happening).
ReplyDelete"Religion brings unity, because with the idea of God and everyone worshipping him, it allows everyone to believe in the same God. For example take my church, we're from various schools and what not, but worshipping together allows us to grow up like family and it brings us together. Just in general, we can have fellowship, and therefore through this bonding, it brings order."
ReplyDeleteThis assumes two things: that we cannot get this "unity" elsewhere, and that religion brings more unity than it does disunity.
1st off, without religion, we'd be forced to go make friends elsewhere. To go to somewhere else besides church (seeing as there are no churches) and maybe we spend our Sunday morning innovating and creating, or perhaps building relationships with people who are on-screen as opposed to a supposed entity off-screen (Whoopi Goldberg, Academy Awards 2009).
Also, we assume that religion brings unity, which therefore means it doesn't bring disunity. Regardless of whether it was "fake" Christians and "fake" Muslims and "fake" Jews that caused all these events, the fact still remains that it is impossible to have a "fake" Christian without the invention of Christianity in the first place. Without religion, we wouldn't have fake Christians to:
start the Crusades
start the Holocaust
fight for a supposed "Holy Land" because a book told them to
kill Jews because their ancestors supposedly killed Jesus
kill fellow Europeans for not believing in the Pope's power
Al-Quaeda
etc. and so forth.
None of these things are conceivable without the invention of religion in the first place.
Let's make an analogy.
Stella says that real Christians aren't to blame for the Crusades and stuff. They do things properly. It's the fake Christians we have to blame.
Now let's look at Communism. Many people around the world agree that, in theory, Communism is a great idea. It is founded on a solid, neighbor-first, ideal. However, it fails. It is seen as an ideal that cannot be executed. Many people in China have suffered under Communism (Red Azalea). Communism is a great idea. "Real" Communists can say that "fake" Communists are to blame for the bad rap it gets.
Both "real" Communism and "real" Christianity are good theories, good ideas at heart. But they fail in practice, and it is still impossible to have "fake" Christians without the implementation of Christianity in the first place. Religion is not necessary.
Check out Blaise Pascal's Religious Wager
ReplyDeleteMost likely the reason why people seem to have religion and rely on it