Brainstorm

[Aegon]

Is religious belief inherently bad? Was there anything harmful about certain sects of Native Americans worshiping the ground they lived off of and believing in the inter-connectivity of all members of the animal kingdom? I would disagree with the statement that all religion is bad. I would agree, however, that organized religion is bad. Organized religion can be (and has been) used by a ruling class with ulterior motives (obedience, war, etc.)

As to the question of eradicating religion, I do not think it is possible. I personally believe that religious and spiritual belief is natural to human beings. Let's make an absurd hypothetical situation: almost the entire world is somehow destroyed. Humans start over. No established language, no established cultures, and obviously no religion. We're essentially rewinding the clock about 5,000 years. Day 1 for the New Humans. They have no clue what anything is. They begin to realize that the big glowing thing in the sky is giving them warmth. They realize that certain things will grow only under the glowing thing's light. They realize that without it they will die. So they collectively decide that this thing that dictates their fate deserves their respect and worship. They begin offering it gifts and prayer/song to show their respect and to make sure that it returns to them every morning. The first religion is born.  But really, you don't need to make a post-apocalyptic hypothhetical. This is exactly what happened in ancient times. For this reason, I believe religious belief will always exist.

Yes, believing any untrue things about the world is inherently bad.

I reject your scenario. I am talking about the current world assumming we won't regress that drastically, and even if we did, that we would eventually reach and surpass this earlier point of development anyway.

We are skeptics. Therefore yes, it is possible to be human and rational, to the best of your abilities. This has already been said by some, but all you need to do is change exactly one generation's mind, and you've eradicated religion forever.

On a personal note, I'm quite astonished that so many atheists seem to think religion will be around forever. Frankly, it makes me laugh, especially since I have absolutely no reason to believe so. As far as we know, superstitious tendencies are always born as (bad) explanations about the way the world works where better explanations are initially unavailable. I realise that what we've done, as an intellectual species, is quite shocking and seemingly unique at a grander scale, and that only very recently(in broad historical times) has the most progress been achieved, but that's no reason to think of the future in terms of the past. I think we have every reason to believe we have a real chance of transforming the current global zeigeist within this century in this particular regard, and that this, if properly done, would probably save us a lot of time in the long-run. I believe religious beliefs(and other such nonsense) are putting an unnecessary constraint on logic, imagination, creativity, etc. - you name it. I am partly basing this on my own experience as both a believer and a non-believer and partly on reflecting on the behaviour(of all kinds) of religios folks and making the connection between that and the basics of their worldviews.

Explain to me why believing any untrue thing about the world is inherently bad. To your other point, there has to be something to be skeptical of in order to be a skeptic. Also remember that a sizable portion of atheists were once religious. And many bad explanations and practices have been eradicated through new knowledge and technology, yes...but religion has always been there through all of it.