Do we really need religion?

Hi Pose: That's actually a pretty good question. I like my religion but I think at the same time that we should be smart enough to respect other points of views and make our differences. Religions are good if they are a guide to us but if we use them as a weapon to create divisions and to hate people, I think they could be bad. I think that more important than the institutions, religion should be viewed as a style of life. And that's the way it could be considered as a good thing. ALVARO

I don't really think we can discard religion. If you distill religion down to its essence and remove all of its different sects you are left with a set of behaviors that are universal to the human species. This universality would imply that there is something at the base of religion that is genetic and an evolved trait. Evolved traits are hard to shed.

Religion is something fundamental in our lives, it is platform and the right path in life to the slaves of God. God revealed the Quran to mankind for their happiness,and guide them to do good things and stay away from bad things during dealing with God, others as will as the dealing with themselves. Religion is the foundation of all other sciences, we must strive in our study of our religion, in order to succeed in all our lives at home and work.

No, we do not need religion. What we need are more people getting out there and helping to solve the problems of the world instead of getting down on their knees praying for "god" to do it.

If you believe that religion is useless I appreciate it even do I don't agree with it. If there is no religion at all what will be happen to us. Do you think people know their boundaries in doing bad things and so on...? If no religion, at all do you think we accept that doing wrong is our sin? There are many questions to ask if there is no religion being exist in our world, my friend. Accept the fact that there is no religion the day we know how to used the internet? But how ignorant will be if you and me don't accept what is right and what is wrong because as what I did is all correct...did you agree with me.

without religion means without believes, without rules witout ethics, can you live without these things, no body can live without these things, life will be messy and meanning less, how you think makes who you are and make you either good person or bad the religion do not force you to do anything, its the human mind decided to do things so do not blame it on any thing or subject

it is a difficult question such as it is difficult understand if without a religious beleif people would be bette or not!!In general religion gives you positive view of life and about others and so trying to achiev positive goal in your life naturally there are also people that misaunderstand reglion and its beloef and so it wouldn't be so positive...i think religion isn't bad for society also because the real choice is made by you and religion beliefs!!

That quote that you read does not make good sense to me.

Does we need religion? No. Religion needs us. Religion is like Tinkerbell - a fairy that'll die once people decide they don't believe. People tend to naturally follow. We're all guilty of this in one way or another. But there is no purpose religion serves that it is "needed" by anyone. I'm not saying the world would be any better or worse without it. We'd be indifferent. The way I view things, religion was the natural evolution of thought. Replay our evolution a million times and we'd come out the same in terms of projecting the best of ourselves onto mythical things to seek understanding. But without religion, we would have still done just fine. I say this because I already do not believe that it was a god who shouted down and lit a bush and etched 10 commandments and all that. I believe it was men. (I would be PC and say women too, but judging how women are viewed and treated in most religions, it's obvious that only men had the say lmao) Man created the laws and the standards back then. We still create them today. When people lean on religion, they're leaning on the words of their predecessors on this planet, so it's obvious that religion isn't needed. As far as all the evil that has happened over religion, again, that's just naturally how we would--and still will--progress. Wars were fought for salt and nutmeg and women and everything else. Killing in the name of religion is another foot of snow in a huge blizzard.

I think we need a religion that would remind us of God's existence. That would remind us of doing good things not bad. We need a religion for us to have a direction that would guide us towards an eternal life. We need a religion for us to have self discipline, self confidence, courage and hope. Self discipline as in religion we became God fearing. We gain self confidence as we believe God is with us. There's courage and hope as we believe God will not forsake us. Religion teaches us to love ourselves, our neighbors and love God. If we don't have religion maybe we'll just do what we want to. There are religions that maybe not perfect but people know what to follow or not. That's why others maybe change their religion if they observe something not doing them good. I believe though religions are doing more good to people than bad.

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Hi Pose123 I found interesting you say that was not Jesus intent, when in the gospels He clearly says: "I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church" (Mathew 16:18). Not all religions are man made. I know that in jewish-christian begins, it was God who look up for Abraham (read that story). Jesus was the one who funded His religion, and He was God Himself, so no it wasn´t man made.Christ funded the Catholic religion. I don´t agree with the last statements you say. For example the Catholic Church is one of the institutions who has more hospitals, asylum, orphanage houses, in the world (specially in Africa). I´m guessing what you might say here so I´m responding already. Yes, catholics has made some things that weren´t accord to what they preach. But that doesn´t mean anything. People do good things and people do bad things. Our essence is not one or another (good or evil). People do bad things not because of religion, but because they don´t follow their religion. Finally I want to say that we can be good without religion. It´s true (read ethics writings in greek times for example). But for our lifes to have some real meaning, to understand our purpose, it is only through religion, and hence through God, that one can be not just good, but perfect as God is perfect (Mathew 5:48)

Your topic is same with mine but I like your own thoughts here. Really, there is danger in religion and being too religious. Most of the time the most popular religions are nothing but Cults. We don't need religion, we need Jesus only- as He said, No one comes to the Father except through Me. When you accept a religion sometimes weird teachings, weird practices will be instilled on you. There are negative sides to religions too. I guess non-religious organizations that do social works, feeding the poor, teaching poor children on the streets, visiting the sick, giving help and doing lots of good things to other people, being environment friendly-can be better than religions. Teaching livelihood, teaching good manners and right conduct is far better than doing stuffs just to make you feel holy-or have the false holiness.

Certainly needs to religion in human life,with evidence that it does not know God creates for himself a god to worship, man needs to worship God and go to him when calamities to ask him to help, thanks also go to him when there's a good thing for him.May have good people doing good and bad people doing bad things, but the presence of religion in their lives makes them think of times before doing bad, too bad they may one day stop on the work of evil deeds,because they feared punishment from God for them. Not all the religions of man-made religions of this applies to land only.If you mean what happened in the change of religion, it is true that man-made . I see that we are not better off if we were without religion, but the opposite is true.

With or without religion there will always be good and evil people. What makes a religion bad as of today modern society are because of liberalizations, democratization and secularization. The internet and other form of social medias globally we are all having a universal information libraries of knowledge and wisdom emerging in a fast paced. But, no of course we can not leave-off from religions these are the roots of all every civilizations from ancient or to modern society. And, maybe beyond. Just live with it or be like a long bearded lonely untidy hermit. All of these as just matter of choices. And, life are just full of choices. Always be grateful and be thankful of what we have now. Everything and everyone are blessings.

It is my opinion that we would do well to follow the teachings of the great masters who the orthodox religion has been built around as they all teach the same thing.. Mostly is about forgiving. To have world peace if everybody followed that on teaching of being willing to forgive then there would be no need for anything else. As I see it, most orthodox religion thinks it is the only religion that has the truth or is the only true religion. How can this be so, if forgiveness is at the root of the teaching? What religions really do forgive? Tolerance and non-interference is the way of Zen and as a Zen practitioner myself, I would say that Zen is not a religion, but a way of life. _Derek

A truer word was never spoken! Religion has been the World's Greatest sin! But all is not lost, as the consciousness of the world continues to rise, people become better educated, and leave the church. There is a dearth of priests and pastors training for the ministry,and the empty churches are falling into disrepair. After 2000 years, Christianity, and all its evils, is on the way out! Thank God for that!

I have thought a lot about this discussion. So here is what I think. Mankind has a hugh need to answer the questions how and why, we are not comfortable until we have come up with these answers. The answers maybe right or wrong that doesn't seem to be as important as having some answer. Religion is a great comfort to us, and seems to have been with us since the begining. So I think yes we need religion. However, on the negative side of religion is the creation of power over others, we can't seem to help this, we abuse this, instead of using that power to give saftey and comfort we use it to gain wealth and status. We must also need this in some twisted way, or we would have done away with it a long time ago. Religion being a creation of power and knowledge has done much to develope mankind into wht we see now. I include Science as a religion in this need. Churches being an offshoot of this as are Universities seem to still be needed or again we would have done away with these. I think in the future, with our wonderful increase in communication and spread of knowledge the churches and universities may be gone, maybe within the next generaion or so. However religion evolves I think it will still be a need of mankind. Even for people like me who have no religion, I became that way by study of existing religions.

True Spirituality is not a matter of need it's a natural thing that most people have within themselves weather they acknowledge it or not faith and spirituality is part of humanity in some form no matter if we think it's necessary or not As for structured religion such as faith taught by books and through preacher's I respect those who choose to preach what the feel is the word of god but I've learned through my short adult life that people don't like to be preached at or made to feel that who they are and what they like, and think is wrong That said I still think for some people structured faith can be a great blessing for certain people because good preachers and ministers can offer comfort to those who feel lost they offer advice, and counsel much like a doctor or psychiatrist, your question is do we need religion my answer is Yes, but not the kind that looks down on humanity and makes people want to rebel against it but the kind that offers love and understanding as I believe true faith and spritulity does.

Who are we ? I think that is a good question :Do we really need to be "we" ? Do you feel bad if you see that for some people religion is important or they have a different opinion about gay rights ?