Monday, October 13, 2008

A World Without religion-Perdition or Paradise

There seem to be an awful lot of people out there who think the world would be better off without religion. I don't mean less religion in politics or schools, I mean none at all. Frued is an example, he says that religion is a kind of nuerosis. A kind of child like condition much like that of a teddy bear that a child sleeps with to keep the boogie man away. Frued predicts that one day mankind, like the child, will finally realise how silly religion is and discard it like a child who no longer needs teddy. He said that we would leave religion, and replace it with reason and science.
There are a couple of problems with this however. Science cannot account for certian things that people must have some kind of answer for. Things like: How was the universe created? What happens when we die? Another thing science and reason cannot do is define the "objective good". What is "good"? When we say something good what do we mean? I would argue that we get our sense of "good" from our respective religions. No matter your faith, almost all religions say essentialy the same thing about how to treat your fellow man and what the difference is between right and wrong. For that matter if we cannot define "good", how can we say something is "better" than something else? Because "better" is the comparative form of "good" and we cannot define the objective good with some kind of transending "good", like we get from God, we would not be able to compare things as "better than" or "worse than" since those ideas would have to be completely subjective to he(or she) who making the comparison. I will argue that without any idea of objective good, man will lose any notion of alltruism and mankind as a whole will fall into a sort of Hobbsian state of nature. Of course in this cas the word "good" would not disappear, it would simply mean "good for me." In which case the entire social contract will change. No longer would you respect others' right live or pursue his or her own happiness, the rule of "might makes right" would envelope the human race and we would inherently lose our humanity. People would become animals, doing only what they must to survive and perpetuate the species.
I know this sounds like an extreme idea but think about it, is it really so so hard to imagine? Look at the wolrd we live in today as apposed to the one your grandparents grew up in. Today material goods, money, and fame are glorified instead of things like, charity, ethics, honesty, hard work, and humility. Now you have to worry about what shoes to buy, what celebrity did what, how can I best benefit myself as apposed to those around me? I would argue that mankind right now is headed down a path that going to a place very dark and hotile. We certainly won't see it, and mostly likely nor will our chilldren, but generations in the future will. We must stop this social decay gripping our nation and world for that matter.

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