If you could prove there is no god...

So then, it's absolutely natural to believe in deities. It's human nature. Why would nature program us that way if there's no validity to it?

 

Everything humans do are natural - we are a part of nature. That doesn't mean that every human thought is fact.

 

If nature has programmed humans to believe in a God or gods with damn near universality, the indication would be that nature has 'decided' that such a condition is pretty damned important for our survival. Would it not?

 

If you're speaking of me, although I thought your remark was a bit absurd, I rarely take anything personally at my age; and, while I disagree, you certainly have every every right to your opinion.

There are approximately 1.2 billion people who do not believe in god. The only reason more people are "proclaiming" it is: 1) it no longer carries the death penalty in western culture. 2) Most of us are fed up with the arrogant and insulting remarks and the discrimination.

I don't think this is true. Traditional Buddhism has no god, as well as Jainism, and it's rather difficult to know very much about religions before recorded time. There were/are religions that worshiped ancestors, nature cosmic bodies and a host of other things.

The primary purpose of any religion is to give one a feeling of control. a farming culture, for instance, might feel helpless in the face of a drought, but they can feel as though they have control of the weather by giving sacrifices to the gods of nature, wind, rain, sun, etc. If it happens to rain the day after, they are believers and will do it again. The same is true for superstition.

Your supposition that every culture had/has a god also depends on your definition of a god. The idea of a single god such as Jehovah is a relatively new concept in human history. The early gods were forces of nature, cosmic bodies and then statues.

 

No. It's human nature to repeat behavior that seems to bear fruit. If your child is sick, you pray, your child gets well. The next time someone gets sick, you pray. Since most of the time the sick get well, praying seems to bear fruit. Before science people did many things that we consider useless, or even harmful, simple because they seemed to work sometimes, like bleeding the sick.

 

Not at all. The same meaning and value can be found through any form of philosophy or ideology, without making assumptive statements about how the world works.
It just proves that a sense of meaning and value are important to our survival - there are plenty of other ways to get it.

 

Or maybe it's because there is God and we have been programmed to know it intuitively.

I still maintain that if I could prove beyond doubt that God does not exist many, many more people than already do would become terrible. And that that terribleness would spread and multiply until no one is safe from it and everyone is affected and changed by it. Take away the fear of consequences and you embolden the selfish.

 

Then why would there be agnostics or atheists in the first place?

Because you can't be moral without religion
Because there aren't a shitload of gangsters, terrorists, bigots, and fucked-politicians that are religious

Religion gives you an excuse not to be moral in this life: the after life.

Atheists have no such excuse, this is all they have, and they have to make the best of it.

Most people who identify as religious in our Western World don't even practice their own claimed religion.

And if people did practice their religion as their book tells them to, we would have a lot more terrorists, a lot less people working Saturday, and way more Kosher food.
All three major religions in the Western World have these same doctrines.

And as far as morality:
The Old Testament of the Bible which is also the basis of the Jewish Tehran and inspiration to the Islam Qur'an has these words of 'God':

"If your own full brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife, or you intimate friend, entices you secretly to serve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known, gods of any other nations, near at hand or far away, from one end of the earth to the other: do not yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare or shield him, but kill him. (Deuteronomy 13:7-12 NAB)"

"Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods. In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find it is true and can prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. (Deuteronomy 13:13-19 NLT) "
Deuteronomy are the laws in which believers must follow (including the Kosher laws) in the Bible and Tehran, and similar texts to this can be found in the Qur'an

People would be far less moral if they actually followed their religions.
Since few do, I really don't see how the extinction of religion could affect the world's morality.

 

The fact that a trait is universal is not enough evidence to claim that it has been directly selected for by natural selection. The tendency for humans to create dogmatic supernatural belief systems is probably an evolutionary byproduct. Religious beliefs probably begin with superstitious reinforcement (as was suggested by JackFlash) and the tendency to infer intentionality where there is none (which has clear evolutionary advantages).

I really doubt that people would descend into barbarism without religion. Humans posses evolved moral capacities which in no way require god or religion to operate. In many cases morality advances in spite of religion. It is the secular state, not religion, that has maintained civilization.

 

This fear of god's punishment is actually a red herring to this conversation. The punishment doesn't come until the afterlife, and one can repent after the crime/sin and avoid the punishment. How affective can this really be?

On the other hand, Man's law is unrepentable and provides a clear punishment in this life, which does have somewhat of a deterring effect.

 

The selfish bankers and Wall Street traders are already emboldened enough to steal nearly every dime from every person in America and a good portion of the rest of the world. This happened only after man's law preventing their actions was repealed.

 

But once we 've re-written History then we realize that the pure Evolution for Man was a myth. That was reasoned for life but the changes for wareness could and should only Be represented by a Revolution (of science? no not really enough: of political change).

Would we descend into Barbarism? We are already in the Barbarism of specialistic society and impersonal consumerism. The solution is perhaps to
turn back to primitivism away from scientific progress. Towards a revival of religious Faith?

 

Not back to primitivism, but away from superstition, back perhaps to our last sane thought.

 

The snitching revolution for the Bostonians. There the well shall claim opinions for falling on their backs at the Negative Common.

 

the politic are varying degrees of tact, shrewdness, and cunning. True innovation comes in with the absence of technique.

 

Funny to think that as religions movements are taking a back seat in dictating everyday life of the masses and as we are loosing faith in all that BS. We as a species becoming more moral then ever and making progress precisely because we reject the closed minded belief system of religion.


So are u kidding me, look at the facts and and ask urself would the world be a better place with no religion? If u answer yes well then I would say better later then never

 

Primitive societies are much more violent than modern industrial societies. The murder rates of down town Detroit pale in comparison to the murder rates of so called "peaceful" tribes such as the Kung San of Batswana. And they are considered peaceful. Among some tribes of the Amazon, including the Yanomamo, around sixty percent of all men will die at the hands of another man. Compare this to the fact that during the 1900's the combined probability of being killed violently in America and Britain, including all combat deaths from World War I and World War II was about one to two percent. Man has become much less violent and much more moral throughout history and it is precisely because of science and the actions of organized states and police forces and it often happens in spite of religion.