What would the world be without religion?

The following is borrowed for the author and not my work. He has done an excellent job of putting it all together. I will only add a few comments.

Chris 'Nugget'
Casualties
- 1.5 million people during Crusades
- 7,000,000 during the Saracen slaughters in Spain.
- 2,000,000 Saxons and Scandinavians lost their lives opposing the introduction of Christianity.
- 1,000,000 in the Holy Wars
- 2,000,000 to 4,000,000 Deaths during the French religious wars
- 8,000,000 during the thirty years war
These figures are from between around 1090 to 1650 and I have only included the major religious conflicts, there are millions more in smaller but still significant occurrences. So within around 600 years 23 million people died between 6 conflicts and mass murders.

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Have you ever stopped to think about what our world would be like without religion? Well, I have. And it would be incredibly different. Religion has disadvantaged the human race in more ways than one and it is time to change and rid the human race of its many unrealistic superstitions. True that there are many disadvantages because of religion however, I do not deny that there are many advantages because of religion. My problem with this is that there is much good without religion and I will not give credit to religion for all the good in the world any more that I blame religion for all the ills of the world. The optimum word here is ALL, but definitley some on both sides.

What would the world be like without religion? "Religion without science is blind." This quote is from one of the most intelligent men that has ever lived, Albert Einstein. People like Einstein were prevented by the churches from spreading their knowledge throughout the world. For example Galileo, through his studies, discovered that the earth revolved around the sun. But the churches of the time opposed his solid evidence, saying that - because of what they had read in books written around 1100 years before-hand by a few old men; who had not even come in contact with ‘Jesus’ – the earth was the centre of the whole universe. It is estimated that if religion never existed, the human race would be three times more advanced than we are now, this is equivalent to man having a colony on Mars. Religious principles have been proved wrong by science over and over again. I have a bit of a problem with saying religious principles are proven wrong...which principles? and wrong how?


What would the world be like without religion? “Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity“. This is a quote from another historical figure, Thomas Jefferson. If it were not for religion, and in this case, Christianity, millions upon millions of people of different religions would not have been murdered throughout the crusades, witch-hunts and other cases where religion was the cause or excuse for the murder and execution of people, mainly in the dark ages. It is also possible that the dark ages themselves would have not existed if religion didn’t. During these times many people were brainwashed and believed that witches and other supernatural beings were everywhere, causing them to hunt down so called witches and werewolves. Enough said here. No amount of denial by the religious community can refute this.

There have always been tensions between different religions and in many instances, conflict. There have been many injuries and deaths as a result of these conflicts and many of these casualties are not even from the fighting in the conflicts, they are the elderly, or women and children brutally murdered, raped or bludgeoned because they believed in a different ‘outlandish’ religion and ‘bogus’ god. More often than not, the conflicts were a result of a play for power by a dominant leader, wanting more, using religion to justify their acts of inhumanity.

Even in today’s world there is great tension between different religions, for example the terrorist attacks where; once again, innocent people were needlessly killed. Muslim extremists who believed that Christians are evil and must be destroyed, decided to ram two planes into a couple of buildings killing thousands of mothers, fathers, daughters and brothers, affecting a whole nation, and even the whole world, and They justify the slaughter by saying its an act of God. For example, the mass murders and the ‘holocausts’ that have happened in recent centuries, over 200,000,000 people of different faiths have been murdered because they do not fit in, or they clash with the beliefs of a more powerful religion. This is a comparatively small amount however when compared to the amount of people who have died as martyrs which come to a total of over 290,000,000.

There have been many people who have died because of this blind stupidity. When people believe that there is somehow a better, more peaceful life beyond this life, it undervalues this life. Consider the following for example, Heavens Gate cult or more commonly known, religious establishment at ‘Jonestown’ in 1978 was led by Jim Jones who was a great leader. However, he believed that the world was coming to an end and believed that the Bible said that the only way to get to the ‘kingdom of heaven’ was to have a ceremony and commit suicide. He did this, along with 909 other weak minded people that he tricked using his religion. Without the power of religion this would have been unlikely to happen.
Even more recent, is the ‘Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God’ in 2000. The leaders of this group claimed that they had seen visions of the Virgin Mary and also believed that the world was going to come to an end. They told their many followers these outlandish claims, and conned 778 people into killing themselves and others in a series of fires, poisonings and murders. This is yet another example of the power of religion and its destructive properties.

What would the world be like without religion? Many people die every year from diseases and sickness, some of which could be treated and saved from a certain death but who reject transplants and transfusions due to their religious beliefs one such religion is Jehovah’s Witness. These people do not accept or give blood because they believe that blood is sacred to God. They also do not allow organ transplants. There are a number of other religions that do not accept organ transplants and blood transfusions; these people die long and painful deaths which can be prevented.

It’s not just the physical impacts that religion has on humans, but the mental. People who are deeply involved and taken up by religion believe in religion itself and nothing else. Christians for example, believe that the earth and everything in it was created 6000 years ago. They also believe other similarly unrealistic fables written down by senile men, who were probably experimenting with mind expanding substances, around 2000 years ago. These indulged people do not allow anything scientific to interrupt their religious beliefs and therefore leads to them being ignorant and intolerant about what’s really happening around them.

If you, the person reading this are totally indulged in your religion, this whole essay would have gone over your head, and you have just wasted 5 minutes of your life. But these 5 minutes can’t compare to a whole life time that you have already wasted, following some thing that isn’t real, chasing something that doesn’t exist.

So in conclusion I would like to say what I see in a world without religion is peace, love and good will for the sake of being good not for some reward in a non existent afterlife. And further, even if there was an afterlife why waste this one looking for the next one.