Why did so many people waste their lives for religion?

[vorlon13]

Savvy/connected/unscrupulous adults might confiscate goats for the sacrifice from folks they disagree with, thus solving 2 problems; appeasing an especially pissant God and impoverishing neighbors they don't want to compete with.

[Brian37]

"God" is the gap filling excuse humans make to create social pecking orders where conveniently each group thinks daddy loves them the best.

[Minimalist]

Sadly true, Brian.

No god ever told the people he creates "fuck you."  Every group is the chosen people of some fucking god or other.

[Brian37]

Sadly true, Brian.

No god ever told the people he creates "fuck you."  Every group is the chosen people of some fucking god or other.

Buddhists and Hindus don't get a pass either, nor do atheists. Group think is a clusterfuck to western civility. You cant stop humans from forming groups or competing. But we certainly need more humans worldwide to understand none of us are the center of the planet or the universe.

I will say currently the big three of Abraham are causing the most distraction to humanity and I wish all three would get the fuck off their high horses and stop using the only home I have as their sky daddy pissing contest.

[AFTT47]

Yeah, like the elevator experiment thing. A group of actors all stand in the elevator facing the back wall. A non-actor walks in, and very often they'll turn round to face the back wall because everyone else is.

People are often easily led and want to fit in.

They don't always fit in my freezer, hence the chainsaw.

This is especially true if they have been raised in cultures which value conformity. I worked with Japanese tourists in Guam as a scuba instructor and sometimes I was blown away by how conformist they could be. One time, I had just picked up a van full of them from hotels. I parked the van in front of the dive shop I worked for beside a trailer filled with scuba tanks. The first one out of the van looked at the tanks and knocked one like he was knocking a door before heading into the shop. To my amazement, each of the others (there were at least 10 of them) did exactly the same thing! It was comical and a bit sad. 

[robvalue]

Yeah

I remember them saying on the atheist experience also that when someone's brain gets messed with enough so that it accepts an irrational idea like religion, that it makes it more likely that person will also accept other irrational ideas and be less able to distinguish between real and imaginary things. It's like they've stepped over the boundary between reality and fantasy. This is particularly worrying when you consider children. I think they said this has been shown by proper studies.

[Jericho]

Which is why I hope that more and more children these days will learn to look at the world logically. I'd like to think that the internet would contribute at least a little bit towards that hope.

[dahrling]

Yeah

I remember them saying on the atheist experience also that when someone's brain gets messed with enough so that it accepts an irrational idea like religion, that it makes it more likely that person will also accept other irrational ideas and be less able to distinguish between real and imaginary things. It's like they've stepped over the boundary between reality and fantasy. This is particularly worrying when you consider children. I think they said this has been shown by proper studies.

I think this is completely true. I still think religion makes sense sometimes, then I remind myself I need to be truly analytical and logical. Then it passes. But it does worry me sometimes. Permanent brain damage? I hope not.

Which is why I hope that more and more children these days will learn to look at the world logically.  I'd like to think that the internet would contribute at least a little bit towards that hope.

I think in some places this is already a reality, whereas in others the opposite is happening. For example, here in Brazil. People are becoming more and more religious. It is very disheartening. And angering. 
 

[Jericho]

I think in some places this is already a reality, whereas in others the opposite is happening. For example, here in Brazil. People are becoming more and more religious. It is very disheartening. And angering. 

I'd like to think that one day, all religion will be nonexistent, and that people will look at everything logically.

But perhaps that is just wishful thinking.

[John V]

If you read history then so many people have sacrificed their life for religion or a religious cause,so many people have dedicated their life for religious purposes,there have been so many mystics in every religion who were good people,so much deep stuff written about religion and God,why did they never ask the basic question that does God exist or not and were all those religious people and mystics frauds?

Why do you say that such a life was wasted?