Why religion should not vanish

[SteelCurtain]

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.

And 10% or more of their money, plus the lack of tax revenue by the state, which could be used to pay for the very "education" that the church metes out.

It won't be secular "organizations" that would fill the void left by religion. It would be society.

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.

But the point is that the church or religion does not change the number or percentage of people who are going to do bad things. Those people are always going to exist, church or not. There is no evidence that religion is the thing that stops these "foul creatures" from perpetrating evil. In any case, with all the evil that religious organizations perpetrate on a global level, the trade off would be a net positive. And by the way... they already are preying on the naive.

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.

Let's stick to the major religions, where their absence would be noticeable. They all say great things that don't require religion. Don't lie, steal, murder. Fantastic. We don't need religion for that, these are basic laws of a successful society. What they all have in common are laws demeaning women, promoting slavery, vilifying homosexuality, advocating genocide, and excusing rape. Ethical? I could do without.

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.

But that is an idealistic view. They all won't be compelled (scary choice of word, especially with religion involved) to do any one thing.