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Originally Posted by DirtyWhiteBoy
Don't understand the question.
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The Scandinavian countries have a very low percentage of religious believers yet they don't experience the chaos and and crime that you suggest would follow without said belief.
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It is quite possible I'm wrong. However, religion is what it is for a reason. The masses WANT it. They NEED it. Otherwise it would not exist in the manner that it does not.
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Which is fine, but it is NOT because it lessens chaos and crime, which is why I asked how you would explain the fact that the Scandinavian countries have comparatively little.
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I do not follow a religion and life is full of meaning to me. I'm not arguing that. However, the people who NEED religion obviously need it. Take their God and purpose away and see where they stand. Many of them will be lost. Some people just need to believe in something other than themselves.
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Fair enough. I agree with you -- some people would be lost; not all.
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You can't debate "if it never existed in the first place" as that is not realistic. You can only debate "if all religion ended today." And if that happened, it probably wouldn't be pretty. At least not for some regions of the world.
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Like where? the Middle East? I would argue it would be much better if you could take away the stranglehold religion has in these regions.
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Government control isn't working out too well in the middle east right now, or if you look at history, it doesn't there either. Religion trumps all for control. As silly as it all is, for whatever reason the vast majority of humans believe in some form of it.
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If you want to argue that theocratic governments or theocratic rule has a better track record than liberal democracies, you have your work cut out for you to illustrate this.
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Until it is no more, I have to consider it brilliant. How else can you control billions people?
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Because "brilliant" suggests that it was concocted with no antecedents. I gave the possible explanation that it was evolutionary beneficial (or a by-product of such). I'm not prepared to give people who were confused about lightening bolts and earth quakes and disease that much credit.