The world is a better place without religion. Discuss

As for morals unexplained by evolution, I'd say you'd have to look deeper- I mean, let's give an example - why is it morally wrong to be selfish? Evolutionarily, the answer would be that it hurts the group. Then, why is it morally wrong to hurt the group? I guess the answer would be that the species wouldn't survive? But why should I want the species to survive? Why should I want myself to survive? All of these seem to depend on prior moral notions - that there is something good and something bad.

Sure, babies have been sacrificed tragically but that certainly isn't "for fun", but rather for a man-made purpose. I'd suggest the permitting of murder merely for the "fun of it" would not be in any cultures, anywhere. But even if not, the question isn't whether other cultures have taken part in a practice as such but whether it would be appropriate or "morally acceptable" for that to be okay in any situation. Sure, the culture may have done something - that doesn't mean it was a right thing to do.

As for morals unexplained by evolution, I'd say you'd have to look deeper- I mean, let's give an example - why is it morally wrong to be selfish? Evolutionarily, the answer would be that it hurts the group. Then, why is it morally wrong to hurt the group? I guess the answer would be that the species wouldn't survive? But why should I want the species to survive? Why should I want myself to survive? All of these seem to depend on prior moral notions - that there is something good and something bad.

without religion and my beliefs I would have no purpose in life ...

Sometimes it's hard to tell

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But the ideas of Karma and treat others as you would like to be treated both came out of religious philosophy. It's not a case of "we didn't need religion to do those", but religion did provide those and thus religion has done some good.

Furthermore, I would argue if a bloke that was "just a philosopher" came up with those, the ideas probably wouldn't have hit the mainstream. For example you don't see many average people consciously following Kant's categorical imperative to make moral decisions.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Crusade

Second paragraph, m8

me 2 years ago . I can clearly remember thinking that I'm going to commit suicide if I become an atheist because what's the point anyway.
However I also liked science and I thought perhaps I can follow them both ... I couldn't , I just couldn't no matter how much I tried .
At first I tried to be skeptical about science ... worst failure ever . Being skeptical to religion came naturally.
It was my worst year of my life such a painful procedure but it turns out I'm still alive , I didn't kill myself I learnt to value other more beautiful concepts such as nature and humanity . My opinion now (take it with a grain of salt) : nature gives more meaning to my life than religions did , I passionately want to discover its secrets (how it all began, what is life and how it works, what's going on in the subatomic level ...they can all be reduced to what's that interesting game nature is playing) and also want a better world I really don't think religion is the problem as long as people don't believe everything in their holy book by word (sometimes it is quiet problematic don't you think?) and what I really want from threads like these is a fruitful discussion rather than an attack-defend and attack discussion so that everybody can gain something from it ; I'd really like to make a discussion with switched ideologies so that a christian defends atheism against an atheist who defends christianity (I think it could have some interesting results ...)

Many people/things have done a combination of good and bad things. See: My dog, my mum, me, Britain, the EU, Japan, Oxford University....uhhh.... sheesh. Are we going to say that we should never have had any of these or is there a measurement in there somewhere?


It would've been Germany if anywhere, seeing as Kant was German.

Not saying that non religious people don't do bad things but religion doesn't seem greatly useful to the majority and it opens up a new world of opportunities, to start wars, to make peace or to really do anything else they want

Generally, people that are absolute ***** will find any avenue they can to do *****y things anyway, regardless of religion. WW1 definitely didn't have any basis in religion but that didn't stop it being the biggest war people had ever seen.

Lots of things aren't "useful" to the majority but we choose to have them around anyway for the sake of comfort and making people happy. Junk food is a good example that comes to mind.

It's a fact.
I don't see what there is to discuss?