I've heard the argument that religion has damaged civilisation, but is it true? What if religion has been turned into a shadow of its former self because civilisation itself is degenerate?

For instance, one argument is that religion is a major cause for war, but it can also be argued that all civilisation wages war at one point or another.

Thanks in advance, I hope to see some insightful discussion (although it may seems presumptious of me ).

Most of the great discoveries of the world have been made by rebels. Without authority such as institutional religion there would be nothing to rebel against. You could say that in it's own way religion has had great benefit to mankind.

I am only speaking for the western culture that stems from ancient Greece. I think that religion has been throughout history a terrible deterrant for true scientific and social progress. Religion has also always spread completely false views of how the world works - as it continues to do today, in many places. This complete lack of flexibility in religion's world view has lead to the scientist's stigmata as being god-haters and many have been executed and censored for their views.

That's very unreasonable logic. Science isn't made becase people want to rebel against the church, it is made because of what scientists know is true.

Imagine what the world would be like if the notions of, for example, heliocentrism were accepted when they were first discovered in the 4th centry BC instead of during the Reneissance. We would be a thousand years ahead of our time, or something.

I'm not sure you could really call them rebels, they lived within their society and were able to consider the advances as one of the benefits of being part of a stable society, the people who have brought us advances were not content to remain as they were, but that I think is different.

You apparently didn't read the entire sentence Wombat. I said "without authority such as institutional religion." Institutional relgion being an example of a mechanism of social control and an agent for setting a status quo.

The great minds of humanity have always thought against the status quo. This isn't limited to just science.

That's like saying we found heroes in the world due to Hitler.

Religion is a problem... Yes, there are problems without religion by why add more problems to the world? Religion oppresses mankind and kills free thinking. You can't claim you have all the answers by labeling it "higher being(s)" and then think it supports free thinking and exploring. Religion is the death of ideas and dreams.

It certainly hasn't helped.

I think the problem with religion's effect on society is that religion isn't about spirituality or about God. Religion is all about religion. Its like the professional sports industry. It's not about the sport, it's about making money and the egos of its sponsers and owners and the continuation of the Organization. The 'sport' part is only a vehicle for something else. The only purpose a sport's 'fans' have in all this is to be used to continue to create wealth and security for the sport's hierachy. As long as the owners of the Franchise and team owners can manipulate the sport so that it continues to fulfill the imagination and psychological gratification of its fans, they will remain in control not only of the sport but in control of the fans as well, and they will have accomplished their real purpose.

Organized religion is the same. 'Engendering a Jesus-like personality in mankind' is not the primary focus of the various Christian denominations, to use an example, in my view. The primary focus is the health of the Organization and of its heirarchy. Organized religion is like a committee whos only purpose is to have meetings to continue the continuation of the committee. The Religion's followers become less important that the Organization, and it continues to exist for its own sake, and for the sake of its leaders.

Having said all this, I think this is why Religion has had a divisive effect on society and will continue to do so. The influence on society of a religion's 'moral values' also are devisive. It may seem that Religion's influence has made societies more kindly, peaceful and loving in some ways, and I can't deny the positive effects Religion seem to have on its followers. However, I also see this influence as being of a superficial nature. Religion creates divisiveness within societies and needs to uphold these divisions. And the self-righteousness of any particular Religion's dogma must always be defended. Threats to these easily overwhealm any positive influences Religion may have on its followers, and conflict is the result.

So in the end, I think Organized Religion has had a more detrimental effect on society and on its individual followers.

This is a fascinating video. Religion vs. Science (Pt.1) Part 2

Religion doesn't have to oppress people. Some people take it too far and use it as an excuse to oppress people. The religion isn't what's oppressive. It's the people in power. There are plenty of people who practice a religion who are freethinkers. My religion teaches people to be freethinkers.

If a religion (which is completely unflexible) gives any ideas about anything, they oppress people's thought.

Uh, hmm. One would think by now that I'd have gotten into the habit of making clear on what I mean... Only problem is I find it difficult to put my thoughts into words...

Thanks for the replies so far. But it's not what I was looking for. Lemme see if I can expand on the original post...

The arguments made by those against religion accuse it of having a bad influence. From intolerence to genocide, limiting free thought and blind faith and such. They have their points, but they often fail to recognise that religion is often a tool used by people in charge, like politics. However, there is also a point to be made that, though today's civilisation has more freedom of thought than ever before, it has not resulted in a manifestation of timeless values such as tolerence and justice. In fact, civilisation, although continuing to evolve technologically, is on a downward slope, from a reduction in manners to an increase in criminals and an increasing depravity of the nature of crimes. So is religion, instead of a chief cause of humanity's woes, actually a victim of human corruption, along with the rest of civilisation itself?

I hope I've managed to make myself a bit clearer... I'm not sure I've done a good job there

i would agree with this Rev....if it wasn't for religion and all its mistaken understandings and they have made plenty we couldn't have many of the great ideas we do now.... its out of our greatest mistakes we have the greatest growth.....

gosh so sad but so true.... except we have learned what WON'T work and how we aren't civilized , we can't call ourselves civilized and have so much hatred and violence...


the movement may be better served for a humanity to never except a vengeful angry demanding deity that condemns the world with everlasting damnation.

Truth is just what is so NOW life is about change and truth changes our personal journeys have shown us this and our world has demonstrated this....Life is change ...god is the process by which life changes IMO.....

Humanity isn't going in a downward slope (apart from in terms of population explosion). Today people are much more educated and well-mannered than ever before. The crime rate in the US has been steadily going down for years.

One of the main causes of crime is poverty. Generally poor people have a lot of kids, especially when conservative, religious, anti-abortion and anti-contraceptive laws/morals are there. That leads to a lot of poor people and a small percentage of well-off people, which results in more crime. So religion is definitely not helping to keep order - if anything it's causing problems.

Then you also have to consider things such as the Israel-Palestine conflict and suicide bombers and such. Does that make religion look good?

How about all the religious concervative moral guidelines? It's ridiculous that such things as stemcell research can't be done.

I think that Religions provided a vital social cohesion in the early days that allowed societies to start accreting. The rise of the monotheistic religions enhanced this by providing a common focus, although this was often subverted by Kings etc for political ends. Nevertheless, without organised Religion, I think our current civilisation would NOT have developed as rapidly.

In this day and age, I think religion SHOULD have an even more important role to play: balancing spirituality against consumerism. However, in the UK at least, the traditional religions are destroying themsleves by pandering to social trendyness, and have entirely lost their way.

Meow Purr.

Perhaps, but was it religion that stunted the learning, or humanity? After all, Galileo (I know heliocentricism was taught in the East long before Galileo, I'm just using him as an example) was rejected by his own scientific community years before he was ever rejected by the Church. The scientists back in those days were not quite so devoted to the scientific method as they are in today's society. Galileo had been shunned and ostracised and told to be quite by his own peers long before the church became involved.

So are we to blame religion or blame something else? I blame selfish humanity, though sometimes such selfishness is cunningly disguised in the guise of Religion, which is what I think chaostrom was getting at from the start. If so, it's an interesting question. one I would have to largely agree with, but I doubt critics of religion would agree

Regards, PA

Could you deny that the scientific community wasn't back then poisoned by the church? All universities in Europe considered religion to be above logic, not counter-logical, and would have then automatically rejected such claims.

Besides, that's just one example which took place about two thousand years after the beginning of the development of scientific thought.

Yes! I got my message across! Yes, that is what I was getting at. Religion, like politics, is a tool in the hands of humans. So is it fair to lay all the blame on religion? I think not.



I must disagree with that. A person can be more educated and well-mannered, but humanity as a whole does not follow this trend, otherwise we'd be making some of the difficult choices intelligence demands. It is readily observable that humanity is just as barbaric, murderous and egocentric as they ever were.



And poverty is a result of civilisation. As long as there have been wealth, there has been poverty. Yes, religion does little to resolve this issue, but the blame cannot be laid on religion alone.



And once again, you must take politics into account. The guilt cannot be laid on religion alone.



Agreed. After all, many of the greatest scientists were also religious, and they were religious before they became scientists. Religion made them who they were.



Really? I thought religions were being left behind because they didn't go along with social trends. Also, religions have been a major advocate of consumerism in times past.





Both of you have a point; the scientific community rejected Galileo before the church did, but the church did have a heavy influence. On the other hand, it was a member of the clergy (Copernicus) that came up with heliocentricism in the West in the first place. And here I must point out that science is a lot older than religion (btw, when I say religion, I always mean organised religion, not tribal beliefs, personal spirituality, etc). The science of astronomy is older than civilisation itself, and one could argue that neither science nor church were to blame in this instance, as the people allowed themselves to be blinded to the truth.

In my opinion religion stunts the growth of man with it's ideas of morals, it rewards man for being passive and subservient and aims to suppress qualities in men which are essential for man to reach his full potential.

How do morals limit potential?

Man is more concerned in acting in the interest of what is moral, than what is best for man and he is too concerned with the notion of an afterlife. Perhaps I was a little rash in my explanation, I believe man needs to create his own code of morals rather than having what is moral and what is not dictated to him, as many of the morals that come from a religious source are quite subjective, ie most religions consider monogamy to be moral and polygamy to be immoral, when there really is nothing to suggest that that one is inherently better than the other, the individual should make assesments on issues like this independently.