Regardless of whether there is or isn't a God, the existence of RELIGION has surely had a huge impact on humanity. We would not be as a society where we are now, if a significant proportion of us did not believe in God - if our ancestors did not follow religious practices. You can look through any law book to confirm it, it all derives from a religious past. Morality & legality have always been intimately linked with religious mores.
My question is this: Was religion NECESSARY for our survival, all those years ago? We didn't always know what we know now about how the world works - we didn't know about DNA, we didn't know about what lightening was, or earthquakes, or disease, or any of myriad of things we now are fortunate enough to understand. At those times throughout history when things have gone wrong, such as wars, disease, hunger, etc. and we couldn't respond to them systematically & rationally-- all we could do beyond a certain, frequently insufficient limit was hope -- would we have survived, mentally physically emotionally spiritually, would we as a group has sustained our will to live and prosper if we didn't believe some figure/s out there was looking out for us? That there was a reason for destruction - that there was a way to control and prevent it - through prayer?
What do people nowadays follow religion for? Numerous studies have shown faithful people are generally happier, their immune systems even work harder to fight infection and disease when they're sick. This could be a simple placebo effect - but an effect it surely is- could this effect have been responsible (at least in part) for the survival of our race itself? How do you think the world would be different if the concept of deities just never materialized?
My question is this: Was religion NECESSARY for our survival, all those years ago? We didn't always know what we know now about how the world works - we didn't know about DNA, we didn't know about what lightening was, or earthquakes, or disease, or any of myriad of things we now are fortunate enough to understand. At those times throughout history when things have gone wrong, such as wars, disease, hunger, etc. and we couldn't respond to them systematically & rationally-- all we could do beyond a certain, frequently insufficient limit was hope -- would we have survived, mentally physically emotionally spiritually, would we as a group has sustained our will to live and prosper if we didn't believe some figure/s out there was looking out for us? That there was a reason for destruction - that there was a way to control and prevent it - through prayer?
What do people nowadays follow religion for? Numerous studies have shown faithful people are generally happier, their immune systems even work harder to fight infection and disease when they're sick. This could be a simple placebo effect - but an effect it surely is- could this effect have been responsible (at least in part) for the survival of our race itself? How do you think the world would be different if the concept of deities just never materialized?