Is being religious better than being non-religious? - Mormons or atheist wet Dreams?

[DumbDosh]

Being religious as a teenager helps you avoid being an angsty teenage atheist.

There are some people who lived better lives because of religion and some who definitely had worse ones because of it.

I feel like I may have missed out on christian youth group gatherings and stuff because of the way I was, but I'm okay with that.

Everyone has their own journey and way of thinking about things, I wear a Saint Christopher medal because even though I don't believe I genuinely love that story and think that's kind of how religion should be, he just wanted to serve the most powerful thing in existence and then when told to pray and fast he refused and instead chose to help people with his strength and ability. He was probably just a complete legend but it doesn't matter because it's still a cool story and it can still be inspiring.

 

[Daughter of Cernunnos]

I would say it's an overall bad thing for social progress as most leftist theorists incorporate atheist ideas into their work. ie. Marx, no gods no masters (originally an anarchist slogan) etc. I think religion is an overall good for many people's mental health so they don't obsess and despair over death and let grief destroy them.

Earth based religions like Paganism and indigenous faiths are an overall net gain for the planet since respect for the Earth and Her spirits is such an important part of EBR. If EBR were more popular there would probably be more interest and action on ecological and climate issues. It is easy for Manichaeism influenced religions (this includes all Abrahamic religions) to not care about what happens to the physical world because they see matter itself as inherently "fallen" already.

Most EBR were far ahead of their time; as their animist beliefs taught them that plants, animals and natural entities are people with spirits. Only in the modern era with scientific research have we found that animals do have sentience and can be considered under personhood (insert animal personhood debate here). Research also suggests plants have their own way of feeling feelings even if it's very different from animals. And scientifically speaking, plants and fungi are alive.

Natural entities like bodies of water are so integrated with the cycles of nature and interconnected with the needs of many living beings that I can see why animists have considered them alive. Life certainly cannot exist without Them.

 

[The Crow]

It really depends on the individual. Some people are better off believing as it tends to steer them towards the right direction in life while others take those religious beliefs to extremes and use them to justify doing harm to others.

 

[Broseph Stalin]

I spent the better part of my high school and post-high school years being non-religious after falling out with Christianity before Weev piqued my interest in Asatru last year. Since following the faith, I've found myself in a better state of mind and well being than I did during those "nihilist" years. I feel that religion itself is what helps us maintain our humanity, in a way.

 

[Daughter of Cernunnos]

I spent the better part of my high school and post-high school years being non-religious after falling out with Christianity before Weev piqued my interest in Asatru last year. Since following the faith, I've found myself in a better state of mind and well being that I did during those "nihilist" years. I feel that religion itself is what helps us maintain our humanity, in a way.

Just call it Germanic polytheism. Asatru, Heathenism and Odinism are all such cringey terms. Just as bad as people call Celtic polytheism Druidry.

 

[Zaragoza]

I had a family member who wasn't a religious type of person but still believed in God and the Divinity of Jesus but wasn't the type of person to go to church at all but as life and the amount of stress accumulated, she started attending Church, she became a much more optimistic and less aggressive person because of the NT and the teachings of Jesus.

 

[Gallian]

Ight, this will be a wall of text:

Vocaloid Ruby posits the thread as "Is being religious better than being non-religious?" The simplest answer, maybe. However re-framing as "Is being non-religious better than being religious better?" With the same conclusion hence making the question redundant. However there is meat in the subsequent OP. I shall be going out of order as to address what I perceive to be the overall issue.

Nobody ever seems to really question these things when they debate religion, but rather society as a whole.

The issue is that both sides are inherently interested in influencing society as a whole. Using religion (or lack there of) as the tool to affect change. The though being that they are diametrically opposed forces. However my personal belief is that you are hold a piece of paper in your hands, while it has two sides it is still the same piece of paper. We here are trying to do is take the paper and tilt it 45° to be able to see both sides breaking it out of its two-dimensional constraints.

Can religion impact your every facet of life, Emotionally, financially, sexually, etc.

This is where I am going to have to start being a bit of an asshole, I do apologize.

Who is "your"? English has done itself a disservice in eliminating the second person plural pronoun. If I am speaking for myself personally; no, but I do not find myself as a particularly religious person. I like many other here can say if we use the second person plural; yes, I know several people that have had religion permeate there life and become a core part of who they are.

However the very same can be said for the other factors. Can emotions impact every facet of life? Hell a good chunk of this board is dedicated to persons that have let their emotions, sexuality, and/or political beliefs take over their personality to an absurd degree.

This is where I feel particular attention needs to be drawn. There has been roughly a 1% per year increase in irreligion
in the United States between the years of 2007 and 2014. To me this is where the impact is felt the strongest. The sociological aspects of religion are being replaced.

The varying degrees of irreligion have started to erode the underlying, unofficial rules of order in the U.S. Leaving in it's wake a vacuum that is being filled by grasping onto an ideology du jour, or for my area the opium of the masses is turning into heroin.

Religion forms a generally standardized society, and ultimately with it's removal there is a space that needs to be filled. My question is not whether religion is good or bad, but can replace religion and maintain order?

 

[Jewelsmakerguy]

oh and about what religions are better
i 100% vote Christianity they seem chill and have some nice tunes

EDIT : i think being a good person has to do with the person himself
with or without a religion

Aren't Mormonism and Jehovah both subsets of Christianity and fucking cult-like in their beliefs? I mean I'm Christian (mostly a Deist of sorts) and even I think those groups are fucking insane.

As for the second statement, that's true- Despite what I said above, it shouldn't matter what religion, age, gender (or lack thereof), race, or whatever else, you are. it's the behavior that affects people the most. And yet, that's not how society works even though humanity should have had that hammered into their heads since birth.

 

[Broseph Stalin]

Just call it Germanic polytheism. Asatru, Heathenism and Odinism are all such cringey terms. Just as bad as people call Celtic polytheism Druidry.

Always just said Asatru because it was less of a mouthful, but eh, fuck it lol

 

[ToroidalBoat]

No religion: everyone dies, the planet dies, the universe dies, the end.

At least religion can give some kind of hope for the future.

 

[Eto]

I think both have a fair share of pros and cons. I'm personally not religious, (atheist, but I'm considering converting back) but it can have a positive effect on a person, like with mental health and coping. The problem arises when you have extremists wanting to push it down everyone's throats, and either wanting to blow up everything or control a facet of a person's life. That's when a religious person becomes dangerous, or flat-out obnoxious.

Then you have the non-religious. Some experience something tragic and simply can't comprehend a deity allowing such injustice to happen, while others come to their own conclusions about life. With the non-religious, you have your typical fedora tipper carrying around that atheists generally have higher IQ's than religious people, and how they're "so smart." If being non-religious is the only thing you can brag about and how religious people are stupid, then I don't care to be around you.

All in all, just don't be an ass about your religious, or non-religious, affiliation.

 

[Pinup Paracelsus]

Eh, my life has certainly improved since I dropped religion. Believe God is judging me 24/7 or just be okay with being a grain of sand in the cosmos? Surf those godless space waves, mah alien dudes.

 

[Dolphin Lundgren]

I think you can be a happy person with or without religion. It's all about how you handle your beliefs and nonbeliefs. Nobody likes asshole religious people or asshole atheists. And there are ways for people to have positive impacts with their lives with either.
You can be a good person either way.

 

[IAmNotAlpharius]

In my opinion, it really doesn't matter what someone believes so much as what they do. An asshole will just use their beliefs -religious, political, philosophical, etc- to justify their being an asshole. A good example of this are atheist SJWs and hardcore Christian fundamentalists. They both are irritating, authoritarian, and justify their behavior with their beliefs.

On the opposite end of the spectrum there are the liberal Red Cross volunteers and Christian Missionaries/Priests that dedicate their lives to serving others. Although there are those who leach off charities, these kind of people sacrifice their savings, livelihoods, and time to make the world a better place. They often do it to little fanfare. Whereas the assholes used their beliefs as cover, these people use their beliefs as motivations to do good.

 

[Jewelsmakerguy]

In my opinion, it really doesn't matter what someone believes so much as what they do. An asshole will just use their beliefs -religious, political, philosophical, etc- to justify their being an asshole. A good example of this are atheist SJWs and hardcore Christian fundamentalists. They both are irritating, authoritarian, and justify their behavior with their beliefs.

Which makes it all the sadder that these are the people heard the most. Especially the evangelists who keep saying things like "This piece of media is a tool of Satan" or "The world coming to an end" because they want attention. I'm amazed that there are people willing to listen to those people and not question whether or not these guys may be just a little bit insane.

 

[UptownRuckus]

idk Mormon and Amish girls are pretty kinky

Reasons to become Mormon

I think I'd probably be a worse person without religion, especially because it provides a context to morality. Not in a reward/punishment sense, but as to why we should think any one action is morally better or worse than another action. Religions can create a sense of community, of personal hope, etc. They can have a dark side of course, and it depends which religion you're talking about, but I think overall the good far outweighs the bad.

That said, even if it has apparent benefits, I don't think there's any point in following one if you don't think there's any sort of universal truth in it.

I'd have to agree. Even if at the end of life there is nothing, I will agree that it made me happier, better, and treat others with kindness. So whether or not it is real in the end...it does make one...as they say, more Saintly.

 

[Hellbound Hellhound]

I think it depends upon the religion, the individual, and how you define "better".

One distinctive feature of religion is the way that it employs soft power (that is, the ability to persuade via social pressure) to discourage people from breaking certain taboos and engaging in certain behaviors. In my view this is both a positive and a negative. It is a positive in that it can reduce the need for hard power (i.e. state intervention in people's lives) to deter objectively destructive behaviors, but it is also a negative in that it can discourage people from thinking as freely.

Social pressure towards a popular belief system does, after all, lead to a more conformist society, and as Nietzsche (I believe accurately and eloquently) pointed out, conformity tends to lead to mediocrity and intellectual stagnation in society.

The other distinctive feature of religion is it's tendency to make bold claims about wholly unknowable and unsubstantiated things (i.e. the supernatural), and this is where I think atheists have the strongest arguments against religion. I do think it is boring to focus the argument around this aspect of religion though. It is easy to make the case that concepts such as a personal god and the afterlife are very likely the product of the human imagination (which let's face it, they probably are), but this in no way diminishes the important social role that religion serves in people's lives across the world, and I lament that I don't hear many prominent atheists really attempt to address this, nor provide a viable alternative to it.

As for where I stand, I would like to see mankind gradually outgrow religion. I don't think it will happen anytime soon, and it's not something that I'm overly emotionally invested in, but I do think that as soon as we reach the point where we are (technologically or otherwise) able to reduce hardship in people's lives to a negligible level, as well as perfect our approach to education and knowledge acquisition, religion will start to decline in prevalence. In the developed world, I would say this is happening already.

 

[⋖ cørdion ⋗]

Always felt like it's a hobby for the soul. Give an incel a hobby they're passionate about and suddenly they can have a 10-minute talk on the matter if anyone shows interest.

Give an angsty teenager a set of beliefs and values to follow and they'll suddenly have an easier time acting on and justifying them. Do the same in a nutty place like the American south and it 's bound to go wrong, but in a reasonable country I can see how leaning more to religion than atheism could be the foundation for a healthy person, at least til they realize it's literally just some behavioral guidelines and they dismiss them once mature.

 

[RadicalCentrist]

As for where I stand, I would like to see mankind gradually outgrow religion. I don't think it will happen anytime soon, and it's not something that I'm overly emotionally invested in, but I do think that as soon as we reach the point where we are (technologically or otherwise) able to reduce hardship in people's lives to a negligible level, as well as perfect our approach to education and knowledge acquisition, religion will start to decline in prevalence. In the developed world, I would say this is happening already.

Such incredible naivety. Mankind will never outgrow the need to feel a part of something greater. The decline in sacral religion in the west has been matched with the rise of ideological religion, equally divorced from the scientific method. 'Reduce hardship in people's lives to a negligible level' - this has already happened. Death in childbirth or infancy is nearly wiped out, healthcare is available to all, even school is funded by the taxpayer. We are living in a time of incredible wealth. Yet things don't seem to be getting better for the spiritual life of man, are they. "Perfect our approach to education" - hate to break it to you but civilization isn't a video game. You don't 'research' better methods that are immediately adopted. Even if you develop a better educational method, how do you prove it? How do you convince the entrenched members of society that have much to gain from the status quo to change?

 

[Hellbound Hellhound]

Such incredible naivety. Mankind will never outgrow the need to feel a part of something greater. The decline in sacral religion in the west has been matched with the rise of ideological religion, equally divorced from the scientific method.

Using words such as "equally" and "matched" implies that you think there is some equivalence between religion and the various secular ideologies which have increasingly replaced it. While I would agree with you that the void left by religion's decline has partly been filled by such ideologies, I don't think you can convincingly make the case that they have an equal influence to religion in most people's lives. Some people, certainly, but in general, they're much more peripheral.

Of course, it is part of man's nature to want to be a part of something bigger, but this goes beyond religion. What about community, family, work, etc? Many people who are irreligious in the West are perfectly content with those things, and don't seem to need religion (just look at the figures on church attendance in most European countries).

'Reduce hardship in people's lives to a negligible level' - this has already happened. Death in childbirth or infancy is nearly wiped out, healthcare is available to all, even school is funded by the taxpayer. We are living in a time of incredible wealth. Yet things don't seem to be getting better for the spiritual life of man, are they.

I think that you are incredibly naive if you think that hardship in the developed world has become negligible. It is true that we are living in a time of incredible wealth by historical standards, and compared to many parts of the world, we live very well, but at the end of the day, we still have to work to put food on the table, we still get sick, we still grow old and die, and we still have to endure the distress of watching our loved ones do the same.

If you think that what we have now is about as good as things are likely to get, then I think you are extraordinarily short-sighted, especially if you are familiar with the latest developments in computer science, robotics, and medicine, which look set to completely revolutionize our quality of life in the coming decades.

"Perfect our approach to education" - hate to break it to you but civilization isn't a video game. You don't 'research' better methods that are immediately adopted. Even if you develop a better educational method, how do you prove it? How do you convince the entrenched members of society that have much to gain from the status quo to change?

You don't even have a point here. About the firmest thing that you are trying to say is that change and reform are incremental, which I have never denied, nor would deny. Still, that doesn't mean that educational reform can't happen, does it? Unless you're going to suggest that our approach to education was better 100 years ago.