Imagine the beauty of a world with no religion. I wonder what would fill

[RKP5637]

the void. So much hostility in the world is fueled by religion and inane archaic dogmatic beliefs.

[immoderate]

1. Crystals!

They have these powers! It's quantum!

--imm

[RKP5637]

2. And imagine magnetic wristbands embedded with crystals! It's a quantum leap!

[Warpy]

3. Religious haters have the capacity to be shamed

Oh, it doesn't happen nearly often enough, but the potential is there.

I'm not so sure about jingoistic or political haters. They seem mostly unreachable.

And that's what would fill the void, nationalism and political isms. No thanks.

[immoderate]

4. A very good (and scary) point.

I sometimes wonder how we can deal with no religion.

--imm

[RKP5637]

5. Yep, it probably would. I think there are what, about 4,000 religions

now ... I guess in a way that provides diversity, but surely better, as you mentioned, than some type of nationalism and political isms. That, would be scary.

[RKP5637]

7. Good point! ... more the fervent and sometimes manic adherence to something. Someone

can believe in an invisible being and all the magic that's been built around it ... but what crosses the line, at least for me, is when they try to force others to believe just the same and all of the trappings and baggage that go with their beliefs.

[brooklynite]

8. Don't get your hopes up...

People can hate, fear or comepete with each other for any number of reasons under the sun.

[RKP5637]

9. Yeah, it never ceases to amaze me, what humans are capable of in all of

the bad ways ...

[dimbear]

10. I take my foot from out the flowing stream, it leaves no hole.

The stream, however, is a better place to drink.

[WhollyHeretic]

11. At the very least bigoted beliefs would have one less shield

[malakai2]

12. I don't think it would be that different

I think Stephen Crane put it best: "Range me all the men of the world in rows."

People can fashion dogmatic beliefs and intractable positions over any inane thing or statement. They don't need organized religion to push them in that direction, though maybe it helps with early indoctrination and lifelong peer pressure. And it wouldn't last anyway; if there were no religion today it would only be a matter of time before dogma and superstition built us an entirely new set of religions.

I like to imagine all the different weird religions we would get doing that. Maybe we'd eventually stumble onto one that gets things more or less right.

[RKP5637]

13. Yep, I think you are quite correct. It would be like digging in

sand, as soon as you dig down some, it fills back in again. I think there are something like 4,000 religions today in the world. As one of my friends said once, with all of them arguing about who is right and has the real god, as least it keeps them preoccupied and leaves the rest of us alone ... some.

[AlbertCat]

14. Y'know....

Religions that don't insist on converting people are a lot less trouble than those that do.

And of course there are philosophies like Taoism and even some Buddhism. Jainans try not to kill anything. Secular Humanism, anyone?

So even if you can't imagine religion disappearing, just getting rid of the "salvation" religions would be a great step forward.

[RKP5637]

15. That, would be a huge big step froward, "just getting rid of the

'salvation' religions." It's the brainwashed fire and brimstone religions that irk me, the ones that feel their destiny in life is to convert/force every critter and rock to think/be just like them.

[awoke_in_2003]

16. as has been said...

I believe assholes will always be assholes.

[RKP5637]

17. Yep, so true. I guess it's a given in life, they will exist be it religion or

something else they've found. The hatred in so many religions just astounds me. No matter how old I get, I will never understand why there are so many assholes in life, just amazing to me.

[darkstar3]

18. I like the way the Rude Pundit put it.

"You need to expect that motherfuckers will fuck their mothers. It's just what motherfuckers do."

[awoke_in_2003]

19. +1. nt