How far do you think we would have advanced as a civilization if...

[SSSnail]

Religions were never invented?

 

[SlitheryDee]

Bout 20 percent more.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

You didn't need to add the ellipses to the thread, and I'm not saying that because of vBulletin's thread highlight feature.

The world would have collapsed into a godless pit of hairless monkeys without it, btw.

 

[eldorado99]

seven.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

I guess that depends on how you define advance as a civilization. It is my belief that we would endlessly repeat the rise and fall of the Romans and in roughly the same time frame each occurrence.

 

[lothar]

Religions were never invented?

It would not have advanced all. If religions were never invented, we would still be stuck in the Bronze age.
Without Mysticism, Polytheism, and Monotheism, there's not much you can do technology wise.

 

[sandorski]

Difficult to say. It's been around since before Written History, in one form or another, so there's no way to compare against. That said, certainly Religion is a unifying force, at least initially, and without widespread social uniformity civilization can not take root. It is possible that similar results could have come from other methods, but they didn't.

Religion also works in reverse though, bringing division that can hurt civilization. One very good example of this occured centuries ago in Muslim areas of the world where they went from being the leaders in Math/Science, to the current left behind societies who struggle to achieve any progress in any area. Even with vast Oil Wealth they continue to stagnate in their social development. Strangely, the US is currently at the precipice of going down the same road as they did, with Religion again leading the charge.

 

[Sephire]

When unexplained humans turn to the supernatural. To explain things.

 

[AnonymouseUser]

It would not have advanced all. If religions were never invented, we would still be stuck in the Bronze age.
Without Mysticism, Polytheism, and Monotheism, there's not much you can do technology wise.

I am heavily anti-theist, and I tend to agree that religion was necessary for civilization to advance, to a point.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

It would not have advanced all. If religions were never invented, we would still be stuck in the Bronze age.
Without Mysticism, Polytheism, and Monotheism, there's not much you can do technology wise.

Could you elaborate on this please?

 

[sportage]

So they still call this religion?
I thought it was just a series of newly created super packs.
After all... The divide between written word and human obedience is as wide as the grand canyon.
Pick n choose. Find what fits, and ignore the rest. Choose your weapon. Let's play a game of religious twister.
God may be alive, but religion has long been perverted to suit ones cause.
Perverting the written word to suit ones hit list is not religion.
Humans may be too stupid to realize that. God isn't.

 

[brainhulk]

religion and science arose together due to the mutual requirement of a robust imagination

 

[Arcadio]

The invention of religion came as a result of our superior intellect. It's part of what makes us different from the inferior animal species.

 

[JTsyo]

If not religion then something else would have been thought up to fill the void. Best bet would probably to have just one religion that wasn't very strict.

 

[AeroEngy]

The more interesting and accurate question would be how far could we have advanced if religion would have gotten out of the way when necessary.

Early religion was sort of necessary IMO to unify civilizations give them a stable base and by consequence allow more free time/energy to be devoted to science. A good example is the Golden Age of Islam when for 400-500 years (9th to 13th? century) the middle east flourished in Math and Science and then fell.

Basically during this period the Islamic empire was tolerant of other religions and valued scholars highly even if they were from a conquered country or Christians or Jews or whatever. People of various faiths were even given important politcal positions. Being a scholar came first. Also ,a common language and numerals spread via the Quran which aided in the exchange of ideas. So in a sense a lot of this period of advancement would have never happened without religion.

However, it all came to a crashing halt for a couple of internal and external reasons. Internally a decline in religious belief and a rise is skepticism was observed. So those in charge started shunning math and science as morally wrong and started only teaching theology in schools. Externally the Crusades were happening which decreased tolerance for other religions and destroyed trade routes where a lot of the exchange of ideas where happening. So here we see religions setting us back for hundreds of years.

So the real problem seems to be that when religion is challenged with scientific reason and skepticism it fights back (historically quite well) shutting down science and forbidding ideas that question its validity instead of adapting with the times.

 

[Fritzo]

I've often considered the fact that if the Dark Ages didn't exist, we would be about 500 years more advanced than we are now. It was more a combination of Rome's stranglehold on outlying regions, the Visigoths, the Crusades, and disease that caused it rather than religion alone.

 

[QuantumPion]

It would not have advanced all. If religions were never invented, we would still be stuck in the Bronze age.
Without Mysticism, Polytheism, and Monotheism, there's not much you can do technology wise.

LOL nice Civ 4 reference.

 

[Texashiker]

Religions were never invented?

Bout 20 percent more.

About 20% less.

What you may not realize is that religion played a VERY important factor in peacefully unifying groups of people into nations.

Where Rome conquered people with military might and crushed entire cultures, religion allowed people to peacefully find common ground and form a unification of cultures.

One of the reasons why we know so much about our history, is because monk scribes copied ancient text across the generations.

Monasteries were one of the very first types of public education.

Monasteries did not teach a well rounded education as they only taught latin and scripture, but the monks did teach people how to read and write.

 

[SlitheryDee]

About 20% less.

What you may not realize is that religion played a VERY important factor in peacefully unifying groups of people into nations.

Where Rome conquered people with military might and crushed entire cultures, religion allowed people to peacefully find common ground and form a unification of cultures.

One of the reasons why we know so much about our history, is because monk scribes copied ancient text across the generations.

Monasteries were one of the very first types of public education.

Monasteries did not teach a well rounded education as they only taught latin and scripture, but the monks did teach people how to read and write.

I was joking. I pretty much agree. I wonder if we might not have formed other philosophies to perform the same function minus the supernatural belief systems in the absence of religion though. I didn't "have" to be monks who wrote everything down. Perhaps the lack of religion would have given rise to secular educational organizations that would explore the world without worrying about whether their findings conformed to a collection of supernatural myths. Such an organization might discover many thing quite a bit faster than we did simply due to its lack of bias.

 

[mmntech]

It's debatable. Remember that a lot of universities started as religious institutions, including Oxford, Harvard, and Cambridge. Prior to the 20th century, religious education was the only way for non-wealthy people to attend university. In fact this was largely the case up until the 1960s when higher education became commonplace.

Hospitals were largely the domain of the church until about the 19th century. The Italian Rennaissance was largely driven by church wealth and expansion. A lot of the ideas and arts learned then eventually gave birth to the Enlightenment. A lot of social programs find their roots in religion, as do a lot of laws.

It's hard to write off religious institutions as being entirely negative. The problem today is the spread of fundamentalism and evangelism. Those who interpret the Bible and Koran literally. Breeds hatred.

 

[Texashiker]

I wonder if we might not have formed other philosophies to perform the same function minus the supernatural belief systems in the absence of religion though.

It would have to be something that unified the people under a common belief.

Conquering with military might caused tension with the people, and there were always conflicts and rebellions.

The fall of the roman empire left a void in Europe, a void that Christianity filled.

The crusades probably helped Europe more then it hurt. The people that went to fight in the crusades learned muslims were not the heathens that they were made out to be. Europeans learned math from the muslims, which was brought back to be europe.

When math was brought back to Europe from the crusades, it was viewed as witchcarft.

This exchange of cultures probably would not have happened without a conflict over religion.

 

[Kadarin]

About 20% less.

What you may not realize is that religion played a VERY important factor in peacefully unifying groups of people into nations.

Where Rome conquered people with military might and crushed entire cultures, religion allowed people to peacefully find common ground and form a unification of cultures.

One of the reasons why we know so much about our history, is because monk scribes copied ancient text across the generations.

Monasteries were one of the very first types of public education.

Monasteries did not teach a well rounded education as they only taught latin and scripture, but the monks did teach people how to read and write.

Not sure if you know that civilizations did happen to exist for over 3000 years before monasteries were invented....

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Not sure if you know that civilizations did happen to exist for over 3000 years before monasteries were invented....

Are you under the impression that these civilizations were not religious?

 

[Texashiker]

Not sure if you know that civilizations did happen to exist for over 3000 years before monasteries were invented....

Duh, no I did not know, please tell me about those other "civilizations".

While civilizations like Greece and Sparta had education systems, they were regional. It was impossible for Greece or even Rome to unify large areas of diverse people.

The middle east and northern Africa was unified under Islam, Europe was unified under Christianity.

Christianity achieved what the Romans, Huns, Greeks,,, had failed to do.

 

[ElFenix]

LOL nice Civ 4 reference.

glad i'm not the only one who caught that.



truth be told, religion was a great organizing factor of the first cities and states. building an artifice to the gods requires organization and planning, the training of skilled artisans, etc.