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E3 -> RE: Religion (8/2/2010 8:58:54 PM)
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Religion has played MANY factors in history.
Religion plays a powerful role in mental health. The peace of mind it can provide, or even as simple as the distraction from ones present situation. The knowledge that something is over you, watching, a parent always with you or your ancestors always watching. The promise of some kind of afterlife, or something to follow after this life, all dependant on how you behave here and now. The concepts that you are never alone, there is always a reward, that there IS something more than just the shit we live in.
Historicly it has been used as a tool to control a populace. The Dark Ages in Europe as an example. Nuff said right? The concept of "if you behave THIS way, you get the best afterlife" is just too easy to use to play apon peoples fear. "God has approved this king, all others are lesser kings!" to win support. All religions, durring some period of their history, have been used by someone to further their own earthly goals.
Cultural, religion has played an amazing role in human history. Look at the Eastern Orthodox Church. Look at the rich, vibrant culture of it. Look at Jewish culture, which is hand in hand with their religion. Budhist culture with their monks. So much flavor to humanity, such a wide variety of cultures all because of religious differences.
On a more negative note, religion has been a division often causing wars. Now while wars have, historicly, allowed nations, cultures, and the religion to grow, even this negative coin has a positive flip side. Religious wars have always occured in history. Egypt and the Jews in the time of Moses. Roman cults (of which there were several) vurses early christians. Christians vurses the european pagans. The Crusades. Those were a big deal. Even more recently, Al Quaida (likely spelled wrong) has viewed its fanatical war against the US as religious based. So religious wars have NOT vanished from our modern world. All of those violent, ugly wars have helped shaped society as a result of them.
Would we be the same without religions? The answer is, without reservation no. We are who we are, we are what we are, and we are what we are, becuase of the path we have taken, and so much of that path has been controled, influenced, or otherwise involved religion.
Where would we be without it? In the superstitious age of humanity, we'd have lived in fear without the comfort of religion. And we'd have been too scared to step outside our caves without a God watching over us to protect us, to achieve anything. Of course figuratively speaking, and only applicable in the ages of superstition now long gone. Would humanity have learned to stand on its own, without needing to feel like there was something higher than them? There is that possibility, a greater resolve taking us. But there is also the possibility that without something higher to reach for, without being sheltered from above, we'd have ended up cowering and hiding, and stagnating.
Without religion as a difference between people, there may have been less wars throughout history, THOUGH knowing humanity, we simply would have spent more time finding NEW reasons for wars, instead of not fighting. But so many wars that shaped our history would never have been waged, thats for certain.
Would culture have existed without religion? Likely. But what would it have been? Every world culture today has been shaped by the major religions of that area. Culture is natural to people, so without religion to shape it, what would have?
In the end, religion has been a good thing to bring us to where we are now. But would we have been better without it? Cant say. The variables to modify stretch too far back into history, and the effects would become too great to try and estimate through time.
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