Why religion should not vanish

[Vox]

Meat and premarital sex mortified your (clearly decent) grandfolks..but somehow the same system failed to mortify all the assorted thugs, murderers, and rapist from then to now? I think the mortifier is broken. It needs to mortify shitty people....not people who are already in the clear. Just for starters.

Indeed, for some like Hitler the threat of divine wrath wasn't enough, but does the same not ring true in secular countries? We still have rapists and thieves despite the threat of the death penalty or life imprisonment. The point is however the law itself is still deterrent enough for the majority of the masses.

The difference is though that to the believer a divine law is far more powerful than any secular threat. A Judge can only condemn you for however long you have left to live, Orcus can torment you forever and ever. Who's going to get their ass kissed and whims pandered to more?

Clearly this is a problem when Venus craves the blood of the infidel, but if we're working on the premise that there is no God some rather clever little theologian shouldn't have too much of a problem changing that to "Venus wants rapists to be put behind bars" and propagating that value amongst the public.

It is also the single biggest CAUSE of fucking AIDS, by refusing to accept that people are going to have sex, and opposing and demonizing condom use. It also is the leading cause of physical and sexual child abuse in Ireland. The fact remains that without the church and its 10% drain on society, people would fill the vacuum with less antiquated and fear based solutions to real world problems.

Indeed it is, and I personally do not agree with that stance. That is not the point I was focusing on however, my point there is that religion itself, irrespective of the belief system itself is the motivator for public works. Yes, Catholicism has a great deal to answer for but we can't deny how many countries rely upon the support it offers with remarkably little cost.

A secular agency would cost multi millions to be persuaded to fly over to Ireland and take over the education system, the Catholic Church is willing to do it for a few nods of respect and an hour in a church every sunday.

Again, without religion, people have every capability to act in an ethical way. Society is built on certain rules for a reason, because society as a whole is more successful with those rules in place. This has nothing to do with religion. I would question whether a person is moral or ethical in the first place if the only reason they are acting in that way is so that they reap some eternal reward or avoid some eternal punishment.

I don't doubt they have that capacity but this is the thing Steelcurtain, not all humans are ethical or remotley nice. I have watched several "good" religious confess that if there were no god they would think nothing of raping and stealing if they could get away with it. To these foul creatures, Religion is the only thing keeping them on a leash. I would prefer that they remain docile and restrained rather than loose to prey on the naive.

Secular law is not enough to dissuade them, death is just basically a game over to them. I'd rather turn it into something unpleasant to make them think twice about seeking it or bringing it upon others so soon.

Clearly you are Catholic. If you think that the stories in the Bible are good source material for teaching someone ethics, then please state the region of the earth you inhabit so I can stay away. The Bible is a mish-mash of racism, mysoginism, homophobia, hatred, genocide, child rape, and ritual murder. I'll pass.

Me? Oh..I don't have a clue what I am anymore. I'm not a practicing Catholic I'm sure of that. I'm only picking out examples, I'll use any other scripture you like to base my claims. How about the Upanishads? The Tao, The doctrine of the mean? Pick any other one you like, I'm not referring specifically to the bible here.

It seems quite unachievable to me. Humanity is by nature sectarian. There are always going to be people that have vastly different beliefs than others. There are always going to be truthers, conspiracy theorists, and religious nutjobs. The topics will change, but the people will always be there.

Unless they are compelled to change and adapt to a new world view I think the Romans got closest to this, clearly I don't like their methods but we can feel the immense impact they had upon western society even today. At the core they themselves were motivated by faith, they believed they were the Children of Mars, and the world was theirs for the taking.