If Religion / Science Never Existed..

[Jeff777]

Answer two questions in your post 1. If religion never existed, how do you think the world would be today? Do you think we'd be more technologically advanced? How do you think society would be? Would there be such a thing as "faith" and if so, what would people use it for? In essence, If all forms of religion and spiritual beliefs/practices NEVER existed.. how do you think we as humans would be today? 2. If science never existed, how do you think the world would be today? Do you think (in 2010) that we'd still foster beliefs about the world as our ancestors did in archaic times? How do you think government would be as a result? Howabout people? Would Friday the 13th be an international holiday so everyone could stay home? Paint a picture for me as to how you would view the world if science never existed.

[Photolysis]

1. If religion never existed, how do you think the world would be today? Do you think we'd be more technologically advanced? How do you think society would be? Would there be such a thing as "faith" and if so, what would people use it for? In essence, If all forms of religion and spiritual beliefs/practices NEVER existed.. how do you think we as humans would be today? In the modern age, without religion, yes I would say we would be more advanced. However it's also possible that religion of some form was essential for forming stable societies in our early history and so if it never existed, societies would never have taken off. But I do object to lumping religion and spirituality together, especially as "spirituality" is such a nebulous concept anyway. Someone could watch the sunset, and whilst doing so has a flash of insight or thought regarding one's connection to the Earth, an experience that some might describe as "spiritual" "Spirituality" (however one wishes to define it) has played a useful role in inspiring people to discover and create things. If it never existed, I would conjecture that we would be far less inquisitive as a whole, and would have far less use for the arts. 2. If science never existed, how do you think the world would be today? Do you think (in 2010) that we'd still foster beliefs about the world as our ancestors did in archaic times? How do you think government would be as a result? Howabout people? Would Friday the 13th be an international holiday so everyone could stay home? Paint a picture for me as to how you would view the world if science never existed. Science is, fundamentally, the art of gaining knowledge via observation. For science to never exist, that would essentially mean humanity would be incapable of learning and adapting. Being physically weaker than many species and instead relying on tools, and the ability to predict behaviours and to use foresight, without this I would say we would not have survived to exist in the first place. Or at least failed to evolve past our ape cousins. A man discovering that a fire can cook meat and make it safer and easier to eat has made a crude scientific discovery. Same as the man who realises that a certain substance makes his crops grow better. If science ceased to exist in the modern world, we would quickly degenerate back to a primitive state at best, as our entire modern infrastructure and society is based on scientific knowledge. It's also an excellent mechanism for separating what is true from what is false, so we'd also become far more superstitious, as were the people in earlier societies.

[Xei]

1. Due to the number of occasions on which religion has surpressed scientific progress, I can only guess we'd have advanced faster. 2. It depends what you classify as science; if you go the way of Photolysis and include everything involving learning from observation, we'd still be hunter gatherers. If you take a more restricted idea of science limited to things where you need something more than basic human intuition and which require a good understanding of the philosophy of science (only that which is observable can be asserted to be true), then we may be living in relatively organised social structures, but we'd be constantly stuck in the pre-Renaissance era.

[LRT]

[CENTER] 1. If religion never existed, how do you think the world would be today? Do you think we'd be more technologically advanced? How do you think society would be? Would there be such a thing as "faith" and if so, what would people use it for? In essence, If all forms of religion and spiritual beliefs/practices NEVER existed.. how do you think we as humans would be today? I believe we would be nominally more advanced from a technological standpoint, but morally in the dark ages.

[Xei]

Because we wouldn't know that it's wrong to kill without The Almighty Bibble. But of course stoning children, commiting acts of genocide and selling people into slavery is all fine.

[juroara]

Are you people so obsessed with hating Christianity that you ignore the birth of humanity? It was spirituality that gave birth to man. It was spirituality that made us walk of the woods in awe for nature. It was spirituality that made us wonder and question and realize there is so much more to life that what we know now. TODAY we call that ancient quest to find the answers of this mysterious universe religion. But that is ignoring that the time this most primal and most ancient religion was the cusp of human creativity and intelligence. Without it, we would have continued living as mindless animals. Never questioning. Never caring to question. Science was born because of this spiritual curiosity. You take spirituality away from human history, science would have never existed. Where would we be? Naked and wild! (not that that is a bad thing)

[Xei]

Except we wouldn't be, would we? I have a sense of awe at nature and it has nothing to do with spirituality. My curiousity also drives me to 'wonder and question'; again, this has nothing to do with spirituality. In fact what religion does is to substitute meaningless or incorrect answers to those questions. Science concerns itself with what is actually true.

[Koalaman]

Except we wouldn't be, would we? I have a sense of awe at nature and it has nothing to do with spirituality. My curiousity also drives me to 'wonder and question'; again, this has nothing to do with spirituality. In fact what religion does is to substitute meaningless or incorrect answers to those questions. Science concerns itself with what is actually true. Meaningless? Some of these answers, even when incorrect, are pretty meaningful to some people. Is truth all that matters? What about personal truth? I'm not religious myself, but I've known a depressed girl who started to believe in God very fanatically. It helped her to see life in a different and less depressive way. Before she felt alone, but when she had God at her side it made her feel like somebody was watching and protecting her all the time. This gave her faith in her life, which gave her energy, which she was able to use to do more with her life and so she became happier. I'm not saying that religion is necessary for everyone, but that it's very appealing to some people and that it produces real effects in their lives.

[Indecent Exposure]

Without religion I can only assume we would have progressed much further than we have as a species and would be divided along slightly different lines. Without science; I don't really think that's possible. Science is basically everything we've ever done to move forward. Without science we would be primitive, very primitive.

[Xei]

Meaningless? Some of these answers, even when incorrect, are pretty meaningful to some people. Is truth all that matters? What about personal truth? I'm not religious myself, but I've known a depressed girl who started to believe in God very fanatically. It helped her to see life in a different and less depressive way. Before she felt alone, but when she had God at her side it made her feel like somebody was watching and protecting her all the time. This gave her faith in her life, which gave her energy, which she was able to use to do more with her life and so she became happier. I'm not saying that religion is necessary for everyone, but that it's very appealing to some people and that it produces real effects in their lives. Well, I find it sad that she couldn't find anybody else to fulfil that role, rather than somebody who essentially was a figment of her imagination.

[tkdyo]

Well, I find it sad that she couldn't find anybody else to fulfil that role, rather than somebody who essentially was a figment of her imagination. I find it sad you couldnt just be happy for her that she got better. seriously...Im not very religious myself but I agree with pyro on his points.

[juroara]

I have a sense of awe at nature and it has nothing to do with spirituality. Spirituality is AWE. Spirituality is WONDER. Spirituality is wanting to know more, wanting to be connected. Seeking truth and unity. All true scientists that see a mystery they want to unravel are spiritual. Einstein was spiritual. You don't know what spirituality is.

[Koalaman]

Well, I find it sad that she couldn't find anybody else to fulfil that role, rather than somebody who essentially was a figment of her imagination. That figment of her imagination was something she shared with the people from her church. So she could socialize easier with them and feel more connected with them. They helped her to have faith in something to empower her. Does it really matter what it is from this perspective? As long as it's not harmful. Or do you think that religion is harmful?

[Xei]

I find it sad you couldnt just be happy for her that she got better. seriously...Im not very religious myself but I agree with pyro on his points. When did I say I wasn't happy for her? I just find it quite a depressing fact about the human condition that people feel they have to imagine things in order to be happy; that they can't be happy with what is real. That figment of her imagination was something she shared with the people from her church. So she could socialize easier with them and feel more connected with them. They helped her to have faith in something to empower her. Does it really matter what it is from this perspective? As long as it's not harmful. Or do you think that religion is harmful? I think religion is at best inert. I wish people could just connect with each other due to their mutual humanity. Spirituality is AWE. Spirituality is WONDER. Spirituality is wanting to know more, wanting to be connected. Seeking truth and unity. All true scientists that see a mystery they want to unravel are spiritual. Einstein was spiritual. You don't know what spirituality is. Spirituality does not equate to curiosity.

[Koalaman]

When did I say I wasn't happy for her? I just find it quite a depressing fact about the human condition that people feel they have to imagine things in order to be happy; that they can't be happy with what is real. Spirituality does not equate to curiosity. But it takes a lot of learning to know what's real. What's wrong with the easy road when you look at it this way?

[Indecent Exposure]

Of course religion has the potential to be harmful. Most forms of ideology and belief system do. Religion has just shown time and time again that it possess great potential in this regard. The unshakeable belief that what you are doing is right, coupled with the belief that you will be rewarded with eternal life upon death is a dangerous mix. Add the fact religion has often been used by those with power to control the populace and you get the picture of something that has the potential to be extremely dangerous.

[Indecent Exposure]

Spirituality is AWE. Spirituality is WONDER. Spirituality is wanting to know more, wanting to be connected. Seeking truth and unity. All true scientists that see a mystery they want to unravel are spiritual. Einstein was spiritual. You don't know what spirituality is. This is a bit ridiculous. I don't think you know what language is. Language is much more subjective than you're aiming to make out here. There are lots of different definitions of spirituality. Everybody has their own personal understanding of the word. Yours I quite like. It doesn't mean he doesn't know what spirituality means, just because you decide you do. Don't be so arrogant as to think your personal definition of the word is somewhat universal.

[juroara]

Spirituality does not equate to curiosity. All spiritualities will ask you to dig deeper for truth

[Xei]

Therefore digging for a deeper truth is being spiritual. Oops, fallacy!

[tkdyo]

When did I say I wasn't happy for her? I just find it quite a depressing fact about the human condition that people feel they have to imagine things in order to be happy; that they can't be happy with what is real. I suppose you didnt explicitly state it, but the tone of your response just made me feel that way. Perhaps that part of the condition is sad to some, but to me it is actually quite useful. There really are some people who are so loathsome to themselves that they need an external jolt to pull them out of it. I guess I just think as long as they arnt harming anyone else and they are happy then good for them.

[SpecialInterests]

1. I think at one point in time religion would have been necessary in order to get masses of people into the same kind of mindset. To work as a collective to build their societies before they got too complex. As for modern day, I don't think religion serves its purpose anymore. We don't need religion to maintain a cohesive society, and it's irrelevant and counter-productive to the advancement of our species. 2. If science never came about, I'd say yes, our worldview would be very much like our archaic predecessors. Probably not the exact same, since beliefs can evolve, but more or less a long the same level of sophistication. We'd be full of superstition with a variety of different gods for controlling the wind and rain and fire and agriculture etc. We'd have a god for everything we couldn't explain, which is pretty much everything without science. For example, lightning is pretty cool. But imagine having no system for explaining this stuff, lightning would be a pretty mysterious and spooky thing. There must be a god doing that.

[Jeff777]

Interesting posts. Thanks for the replies guys.

[Replicon]

It was spirituality that gave birth to man. It was spirituality that made us walk of the woods in awe for nature. It was spirituality that made us wonder and question and realize there is so much more to life that what we know now. [citation needed]

[juroara]

[citation needed] Travel way back in time, before we recorded time. There are many things all around you to make you feel you are more than just a body of flesh of blood. For one dreams. The brain of the first modern humans is the same as our brains today! If we can lucid dream, then they can lucid dream. But you're a wild human. You don't have an advanced culture (yet) telling you that hallucinations and dreams aren't 'real'. So what happens when you, the wild human, has a vivid lucid dream? How do you think that would affect you when you wake up? There is a reason why humans began to believe in the spirit world. They had to have experienced something to make them belief they are more than just their physical body. And if it wasn't lucid dreams, then it was psychedelics. And the great thing about these psychedelics is anyone could take them, and experience it for themselves. Which made it, to the wild humans, an objective shareable reality! Through lucid dreams and psychedelics we were tasting divinity! We were experiencing the duality of the mind and body. That the mind can some how 'detach' from the body. This possibly gave rise to the belief of the soul and the spirit world, and all the gods and demons in it. But more importantly it took our attention from just trying to survive to something larger and more meaningful. Culture was born. And that meant for one, we were creating an abundance of artwork. By looking at ancient cultures that have survived today, art is magical. By carving or painting a creature you capture it's essence. And shamens could depict their spirit journeys to share it with their tribe We wouldn't have true science until we had advanced math. And even then, our math was being used to count and measure the stars. Not for the sake of science, but for the sake to understand divinity.

[Darkmatters]

Naked and wild! (not that that is a bad thing) Juroara, let's get naked and wild in the primeval jungle And I completely agree with what you're saying... it was magical beliefs expressed through the first art that brought mankind up from an animal state.