Actually, master, an atheist would speak quite contrary to your "origins" and "meaning of life" argument.

Quote from master of animation

To me religion is the most important thing to have during these times. Saying that there is no God or gods is insane thinking. Being a christian saying that we can do better without God is highly offensive. These countries that are fighting over seas for what they think is right. People are very vunerable to what you teach them. Sadly these people are fooled into thinking killing yourself is good deed. To me religion isn't bad only the people teaching it. Also I think the world is a better place with religion espeacily christianity. Besides there is no way to explain the origion of everything without religion. Also you can't explain the meaning of life without religion.

coughstringtheorycough

Tell me one thing that we would lose with the erradication of religious belief and explain how it outweighs the cruelty and abuse in the video I posted three posts up from here.

I doubt that if we never had religion, we'd govern our world with most of the laws we have today.

Quote from Gavel

I doubt that if we never had religion, we'd govern our world with most of the laws we have today.

Explain. Murder would obviously be illegal because no society can function if its members can die at any time just because they pissed someone off. Stealing cannot be legal - if it is legal then "property" loses it's definition and so you can't steal to begin with because you own everything. Just about all laws I can think of exist to protect people and property, or in some cases animals, but very few to protect God.


Wait ... have I been trolled?

I'd say that religion is very important to society.

Religion was created in the first place because people were asking questions, "Why are we here?" "Why does this happen?" and since they didn't have advanced technology back then, they didn't know. There was no proof that harvests didn't go well because of some higher being. It was all the reason they had at the time, and it made sense to them. But today, with more technology and intelligence, we know that it rains because water vapor in the air condenses on dust particles and falls down to earth. So why is religion still existent?

Because people need an explanation why some things are right, and why others are wrong. No one would want to go to Hell, would they? If they didn't believe in any sort of religion, then why bother? It's not like it matters in the end anyway. But with religion, they have a reason not to just ****ing kill everybody for no reason.
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Well that's my two cents.

Quote from Zed

Explain. Murder would obviously be illegal because no society can function if its members can die at any time just because they pissed someone off. Stealing cannot be legal - if it is legal then "property" loses it's definition and so you can't steal to begin with because you own everything. Just about all laws I can think of exist to protect people and property, or in some cases animals, but very few to protect God.


Wait ... have I been trolled?

I was talking about the commandments and shit, to some extent. But I'm pretty sure we all wouldn't be telling each other not to do bad things if, at first, we weren't afraid that those bad things would anger the big man up in the sky.

Quote from Fusion

But with religion, they have a reason not to just ****ing kill everybody for no reason.

That is ****ing nonsense. Why do you need a reason to not kill for any reason?

Killing is a voluntary action, and all voluntary actions have a reason. You don't need a reason not to kill for no reason, because the mere fact that a person has no reason to desire to kill is the reason they aren't ****ing killing.

That's like saying that people need a brick wall to stop their cars from going down dead ends when it's not being moved down the dead end, or saying that a phone needs to have a mute button for when noone's calling to cause it to make sound. It's ****ing redundant.

And to add on to that, some religions believe killing those who don't believe what they believe is necessary. Or at least the way a certain portion of people interpret the religion. Can somebody say jihad?

There are likely multiple reasons for the most widely accepted set of values nowadays.

Why aren't people killing each other?
-Their belief does not approve of it.
-They don't want to be killed themselves.
-There is another entity (EG Law enforcement) which would punish them for murder.
-They simply don't need/want to kill anyone.
-They believe in mutual benefit.

etc. Not to mention that many people's beliefs apply to more than one of the above.

Just saying, removing one of these reasons doesn't mean utter chaos will break out.

Quote from Fusion

I'd say that religion is very important to society.

Religion was created in the first place because people were asking questions, "Why are we here?" "Why does this happen?" and since they didn't have advanced technology back then, they didn't know. There was no proof that harvests didn't go well because of some higher being. It was all the reason they had at the time, and it made sense to them. But today, with more technology and intelligence, we know that it rains because water vapor in the air condenses on dust particles and falls down to earth. So why is religion still existent?

Because people need an explanation why some things are right, and why others are wrong. No one would want to go to Hell, would they? If they didn't believe in any sort of religion, then why bother? It's not like it matters in the end anyway. But with religion, they have a reason not to just ****ing kill everybody for no reason.
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Well that's my two cents.

Alright, to demonstrate the fact that religion and morals are two separate ideas that have been skewed together for the last few thousand years, let's take a look at the dog.

The dog does not possess the cognitive capacity to comprehend religion in any sense of the word. If religion and morals were one and the same, this would mean that dogs could not comprehend any moral ideals either. However, this is not the case, as dogs demonstrate almost all forms of moral concepts with ease. While dogs don't give the afterlife a single thought and cannot comprehend the abstract idea of a 'God', they are loyal to their master and arguably trust them more than humans do, going so far as to die on their behalf in some cases. They are affectionate, and their ancestors the wolves have demonstrated empathy and a sense of justice. All of these ideals that people claim to be as complex as religion can be found in animals that cannot even grasp any aspect of faith. This applies to almost every other form of advanced life (dolphins excluded, those cruel bastards defy all explanation)
This shows that morals are much more deeply rooted in our behavior and thought processes than religion, and that without religion our moral systems would be unaffected.

To add to what Critical Design jsut said, I'll point out that even if the removal of religion were to result in the deaths of some people because it was preventing them from killing, do you really think that the number would be any more than the number of people killed because they held beliefs that encouraged killing?

this is just my opinion but no because most people like christians like me need somthing to look up to an heaven is were we expect to go as long as we abide by the rules

Eh, I tried.

Quote from 2-D

what about the peaceful religion, guys!!!

You mean Christian? They're a very peaceful bunch. I know a Christian.

Quote from Stickfreak 457

Christian

Quote from Stickfreak 457

peaceful

Crusades .