What is the need of Religion?

[wtfyo]

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What have they achieved? Pretty much every invention you can think, or thing you are using was invented by a Human. The probability of that Human being religious is quite high.

So, Saying Religion has not contributed is not a good argument. Especially, if I started Quoting Islamic contributions..


Who said we are competing? We are quietly living our lives by our moral codes given to us by Hadith and Quran.

What is the point of living?
What is the point of breathing?

Excessive drinking is bad. Yes, Science agrees with this.


Pre-marital sex leads to excitement, excitement leads to getting the girl prego, getting the girl prego=Big problems.


Again, You are making claims without elaborating on your stance. I would appreciate it if you can explain to me, How we would be more advanced without the Muslim who created Algebra and so forth.

Fair enough.


Nice to meet you, I look forward in discussing more matters to you?

Thanks for your response! For sure! I like discussing religion...but overwhelming number of members here are firm believers in some form of a belief system...I think I will keep my anti-religious beliefs to myself ...I only believe in something that is proven scientifically and NOT through miracles... I believe what I see...I don't believe in hearsay

[imb706]

I´m a flaming atheist myself.

[IamDZJ]

Islam is a way of life to Muslim.
Just like how Hinduism is my way of life.

if you don't mind me asking this hindu, how were the living conditions for hindu afghans under taliban's regime?

[IamDZJ]

Well, We are Hindus from Kandahar city (Hindu chowk).

We were highly,highly respected community. In fact, our nicknames were "Lala" big brother. Every Pashtun Muslim that saw us would call us LaLa. Kandahar at one point had the best high school education in Afghanistan, even pakistanis travelled to Afghanistan to seek education since it was free here.

There was no discrimination in the beginning of the regime, Everything was perfect. We had good jobs, we were known to be Hindus, The Talibs cared for us, they made sure we were not bullied around with.

Kandahar was probably the only city in Asia in which bribery did not exist. I was able to get my Tazkera(ID)without paying bribe. So overall, Me and my family felt safe. but then as soon as these Talibs from other cities and provinces came, they started discriminating against us. In fact, My dad swears that Taliban had internal clashes and the Taliban of Kandahar even defended us.

Thats when our community started feeling oppressed cause outsiders were here, Taliban of Kandahar were regular people. They decided to do what they go to do. It never negatively effected us, in fact Taliban regime for us had plenty of positives, stealing did not exist anymore.

In Hindu chowk(Kandahar city) There is a money exchange, all the money would be on the floor and no one had the will of touching the money cause they knew a govt was in place.

Now? I am scared to go back to Kandahar. The Canadians soldiers in Kandahar are brutal people, in the morning they knock on your door, enter houses, come in with dogs and scare the children.

I have too much to say, I don't want to become annoying.


Overall, I love Kandahar city. It was the only place on earth where a Tajak,Uzbak,Hazara,Hindu and sikh lived side by side with peace. In fact, this Pashtun vs Hazara vs Tajik nonsense did not exist sister.

This is all new recent drama, ask any Kandahari, if you were to ask them whats your ethnicity they would say Kandahary.

i know what you mean about the government in the beginning. it seemed to have such a promising future but then all the silliness started.
i have some faint memories of my father taking me to his hindu friend's house when i was young. i remember women dying white fabric with hot pink colors. i was so surprised to see them speak dari and pashto clearly with out any type of an accent.
it must have taken a tremendous amount of courage and faith for a non muslim to hold on to his religion during a fascist islamic phase such as taliban's... bravo to you guys..because we barely made it through...

[imb706]

From what I read, they didn´t kill hindus all the time or anything, but they made them wear gold badges (something they got from european history, for hundreds of years, jews had to wear gold badges to identify themselves in public) in public and had to follow islamic codes of dress and such. If they fell out of line, well they got to see the end of a gun.

All that was happening before 2000, when they had U.S. support. Not all the senators were for the support, and certainly not all the public. Some senators came in with gold badges at work to show solidarity with the hindus there.

[ozymandias]

I´m a flaming atheist myself.

I'm a personal inferno.

[imb706]

The only religion I´d ever need is that cannabis religion in the Netherlands :D

[imb706]

Like what? The rituals and the old books? Those are boring though.

[ozymandias]

Those that don't have religion are missing out on important things..

Those that don't understand science are missing out on important things.

[imb706]

Algebra actually has its origins in Indian and Babylonian scientist and mathematicians, who predate the founding of the Islamic religion. Didn´t Bertrand Russell debunk the whole claim that religion gave rise to some forms of modern science decades ago? I´ve read articles from ex-Muslims that also say the same thing.


What exactly has Islam contributed to Science nowadays anyway? It seems a lot of muslims are very anti Science. The Taliban banned almost all forms of scientific research and progress for example.

It also seems unfair to label some ethnic groups accomplishments as Islamic accomplishments. Would you label the spacecraft, the computer or the internet as Christian inventions?gl

[imb706]

The link I just gave actually showed the opposite. Even when you do find ancient and medieval muslims who contributed to science, they were labeled as heretics by the ruling islamic groups and were sometimes even under threat of their live.

I did google islamic contributions to science, and I found that page and others criticizing the claims. It´ś just a myth.

But don´t focus on the past, please tell me about modern day technological advancements that have been facilitated by Islam and some islamic method.

[ozymandias]

woohoo.

so Ozymandias here os going to show us how science says Religion is invalid?

Science cannot do that. It can only disprove certain claims made by religion. As a whole, religion is about the supernatural -- something that science, the study of the natural cannot touch.

It is up to religion to prove it is valid, not science to prove it invalid, anyway.

Islamic ontribution to Math and Science is unmatched.

Religions harm to science and cultural advancement is unmatched.

Did you forget Algebra?

Not at all -- but why the preemptive attack on a stance I have not made, in a thread completely irrelevant to the topic you bring up.

I will happily discuss science versus religion, and the relative merits of each, however the question of this thread appears not to even be is religion valid, which would be tangentially related to the topic you raised, but is rather 'Is religion even needed' -- which is a question you may wish to answer. If you wish to discuss the evidence for and against religion, let us not hijack this thread when other threads abound.

The validity of religion is unimportant to the question of a need fore religion. Religion can be needed, even if there is no god, and contrarily if if there is a god, religion may not be needed.

The need for a religion can be discussed on purely ethical, moralistic, and rational terms separate from the discussion of proving the existence of a god, or proving that the claims of a given religion are true -- a much simpler argument for theists to make. This is actually the discussion most theists try to turn a discussion of 'proving religion' into. Take a look at the "Does God Exis" (or was it "God does not exist"?) thread to see exactly this -- people trying to argue the need for religion as evidence of a god.

There -- did I surprise you? You seemed to be trying to predict my response ;-)

[ozymandias]

Would you label the spacecraft, the computer or the internet as Christian inventions?

Seems like that is fair game ;-)

[imb706]

Lol, I guess Jesus Christ blessed the Mercury Spacecrafts

[Roshina]

In the modern society their is no need for religion.

Religion has evolved thus:

1 Early societies had no rational explanations for certain natural phenomena. Thus they came up with certain myths and cults to explain them.

2 The real bedrock of religions has been the amalgam of these mythologies and the Greek Philosophy. The Roman conquest of the religiously fertile Judae can be assumed to tbe the source of all religious theology and ghorzang.

3 The real value and benefit of religion has been to those classes that have ruled the masses either as Masters (Master-Slave), Feudals (Fuedal-Serf) and the capitalists (Capitalist-Worker). Many aspects of religion such as determinism and fatalism benefit the ruling classes. An example: I tried to impress upon a Tablighi friend of mine to work for the betterment of the Pashtun people and secure our resources for the Pashtun masses. He would have none of it. His reply: Our goal is the next life, we have nothing to do with this life. Another example: There is a saying is almost all religions: "Be Thankful to the lord for whatever he has granted you. Be content with it. Do no be ungrateful'. Needless to say this has taken out the will for a progressive and revolutionary change from the masses.

4 What is the positive value of Religion in these times? 0. I see a point in the 'pragmatism' of William James. I could ignore the obvious obsoletness of religion and religious discourse if there could be any potenial of a positive social, economic or political change in religion. Furthermore, In the matrix of the essentials of the Pashtun future, religion has no 'value' or 'benefit' which would grant it worthy of following.

5 Major questions regarding many things have been answered since the days of Rene Descartes and the age of rational thought. There is nothing left for religion to offer. (This point I have further elaborated in the thread, Does God Exist?)

Wow, Nadir! I was going to say something similar to yours (with regards to the evolution of religion and the evolution of the concept of God), but of course not as well as you did! And the examples you gave are very pertinent to our society as well as our current miserable circumstances. Very true that it's this whole idea of being thankful for whatever we have that prevents us from moving forward -- and in fact pushes us backward instead.

Unfortunately, religion seems to have been interpreted way too negatively for it to have a positive impact on many people. I'm personally pro-positive interpretations of religions, and I think any that prevents a people from moving forward and growing as humans should be rejected. More on this later, as I've written something regarded which sort of interpretations should be accepted and which rejected for the sake of a peaceful humanity (what, isn't that what many Muslims will claim? That Islam means peace and peace only? Then how about evaluating and re-evaluating its current and classical interpretations to seek one that'll remain "Islamic" but will be more pro-humanity and anti-violent? Khair, more on this later.)

Now, I speak mostly of Islam in today's case when it comes to relgiion. In the past, too, it was religion that drove the Christians to kill innocent people (Crusades); today it's the same reason that pushes some Muslims (Taliban and other terrorists) to kill innocent people, and it's the exact same thing that drives some Buddhists to burn each other alive -- of course, these are just a couple of examples of the harms of religion.

However, that doesn't mean religion can't be used positively whatsoever. Of course, it's unreasonable to believe that the only thing that should influence people to be good to others is religion, or that religion is the only thing keeping people immoral, but then ... religion and morality don't always go hand-in-hand. I'm speaking here strictly in practical terms, not in theoretical terms. Lemme give a link to this really amazing article I read some months ago regarding this. I shared it on PF; it's called "Morality and Atheism." (The article was first published in DAWN and is written by the great Irfan Hussain. I think it's very relevant to what's being discussed here, so some of us might wanna take a look at it if we haven't already.) Anyone can see that the most "religious" nations of the world are the most corrupted ones as well, so at least for them, there's no need for religion -- or if the need is there, it's only to keep on completely diminishing their chances for a peaceful, successful, and progressive future.

To me, though, religion doesn't need to be wiped off the face of the earth. Of course, the harmful interpretations do, but not religion itself. C'mon - there are some people who do good ONLY becuase they're expecting a reward in the hereafter, you know. It's exactly this sort of mentality, this one of doing good only for the sake of God and for attaining heaven in the end, that makes some theists think that if you don't believe in God, you must be the most immoral person on earth, even though statistics prove this claim to be wrong.

I'm completely against extremism of all types, be they pro-religion or anti-religion. Instead of repeating my views on this, I'm just gonna ahead and give the link to a blog post I wrote about this about a year ago. It's called "Extremism and Religion - Part I" (oh shucks! The Part II was never posted, hah.).

Anyway, good discussion, folks. Keep it going!

And welcome to PF, Nadir Thanks for joining! We certainly could use more minds like you, bro!