Seriously, folks. We have medical and scientific knowledge thanks to religion. Do I really have to remind you that the ones squirreling away human knowledge for centuries were monks? It wasn't the non-extant scientists of their age that were doing it, to be sure.
Religion has served an extremely important role in our society, and its knee-jerk demonization is kind of sophomoric.
Don't take me as not being anti-religion in my comment, though. The Dark Age was mantained for so long in part due to religion, and even though monks preserved knowledge it is my stance that we never should have risked losing that knowlege in the first place. We still have some of Hellenistic Grecce's knowledge preserved, but not all of it was saved though the centuries, and we will never know what that lost knowlege
was even if we do possess it now. Pre-modern universities were all religious in nature and funded by the church, have no doubt, but being in a situation where that's the only way to have a university is still bad. While religion has indeed played an important role in human society, I do not consider the majority of that role to have been beneificial.
My understanding of religion is that for a long time, it was the only thing keeping people from killing each other.
Humans have an built-in inhibition against killing other humans that has to be broken or bypassed before such acts can be commited. I think that, along with the social power of absolute monarchies at the time would keep people in line more than religious doctrine would.
It's a way to negotiate the social contract (in a Rousseau sense).
Fair enough, but it isn't the only way.
Why else would you make up a story about being tortured after you die, if not to regulate negative behavior while on earth?
Quite a few reasons, I think. You can control people through it with simplicity. Heaven is a carrot, and Hell is a stick. Plus, the story and its message are memetic, and could continue on without any real purpose. It's also wish fufillment ("I'm right and shall be rewarded for my faith! People who disagree with me are wrong, and will
burn forever in a lake of fire for their impudence!"). There's also the issue of being forgiven by Jesus, making Hell a very ineffective deterrant.
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Topic: Things that made you sad today thread. (Read 9442965 times)