Religion is an opium
by alecholmesthedetective 49 Replies latest members adult
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Phizzy
Good quote, Dirac points up the deleterious effect of religion, and how it is used to keep the masses quiet.
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eyeuse2badub
Doesn't even take a brilliant mind to realize that religion is BS. One book, the Bible, has given birth to 35,000 religions--and they are all"the truth". Just ask any of them! Religion has kept the world's population under control though.
Just saying!
eyeuse2badub
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Syme
Karl Marx wrote that "religion is the opium of the people", but he meant that in 2 ways: 1st, religion is an opium that the ruling classes use to keep the ruled classes 'sedated'. 2nd, religion is an opium in the way that it acts as to relieve someone from the fear of death & the unknown: Like the drug which offers an artificial 'relief' which however is not real nor permanent, the same goes with religion: It offers a quick relief from the fear of dying and the unknown, but this relief is superficial, not real.
However, as Lenin wrote, religion may be the opium of the people, but this doesn't mean we can ban it. Rather, we can make it obsolete & useless, by advancing education and scientific knowledge for everyone.
I think the 21st century will be a great opportunity to make this drug unnecessary.
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Apognophos
^ Hear hear.
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designs
I was having a discussion with some Evangelicals on abortion and asked what they believed happened to fetuses that were aborted either spontaneously or by a medical procedure and they all agreed that the person was now in heaven with God. And there you have it.
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jgnat
“If you think that moral reasoning is something we do to figure out the truth, you’ll be constantly frustrated by how foolish, biased, and illogical people become when they disagree with you.”
― Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion“The very ritual practices that the New Atheists dismiss as costly, inefficient and irrational turn out to be a solution to one of the hardest problems humans face: cooperation without kinship” ― Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion
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alecholmesthedetective
cooperation without kinship
I feel much more a part of this world now that I don't need a deity to tell me how to live my life and be good to one another than when I was religious. I'm much more connected to people, and I see that once we understand where we come from our kinship with our fellow creatures becomes blindingly obvious to see.
We don't need religion to be good to our fellow creatures, and religion has stood in the way of peace, in the way of progress, enquiry, development, knowledge, enlightenment.
It would also be interesting to consider Phil Zuckerman's book Society without God showing how nations live ethically and morally without god in our world today.
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jgnat
You don't need religion to feel connected to your fellow man. But there are obviously large proportions of our world who do. A common cause or belief, such as religion offers, can inspire groups to self-sacrifice far and above what can be achieved through personal effort.
Are those societies without God WIERD countries?
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alecholmesthedetective
I and many unbelievers all over the world.
Religion belongs to the infancy of our species. It has done us more harm than good and still does.
It's time we grew up.
