If religion worked, the world would still be flat.
If religion worked, we could spit in a blind person's eyes and they would be able to see.
If religion worked, people would not starve to death praying.
If religion worked, critical thinking would not be necessary.
If religion worked, everyone would have an imaginary friend that was real.
If religion worked, people wouldn't have to.
If religion worked, Tin Man would have a heart.
If religion worked, my dick would be three inches shorter. (I'm tired of all the complaints.)
If religion worked, AR would be silly.
If religion worked, Christians would all be saying "I told you so." Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha .....
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If religion worked, prayer would be cheating (sports, poker, school tests, etc).
If religion worked, I would have gotten the brain instead of the heart.
If religion worked, a day would feel like a thousand years to us.... *look of realization*... (Oh, wait... That actually happened a few times during my military deployments... *cringing*.... Dammit.)
THINK ABOUT IT: If religion worked, there would be no religion. The protestants would have eliminated the Catholics, the Hindus would have eliminated the Buddhists. The Muslims would eliminate everyone else. And God could start all over again.
@Cog Re: "And God could start all over again."
Ummm.... I think he already did that once before. (Life preserver, anyone?) And we all know how that turned out... *rolling eyes*....
I know it's a pretty overused example but pretty sure the holocaust wouldn't have hapoened, especially if it was the god of the Jews who existed. I spent a good deal of my life studying the holocaust but it wasn't until I was leaving religion that I realized how massively it attested to no god.
If religion actually worked, Satan never would have revolted in the first place. After all, he was already in "Paradise" with God, right?
If religion actually worked, then we would be able to clearly see that this all-evil trickster named "Satan" actually is, in fact, real and pulling the strings to lead "teh childrens" astray with Harry Potter and rock music with more credible evidence than just pointing to vague, paranoid persecutory delusions like "XYZ shape vaguely resembles a small part of the Pentagram so therefore, SATAN!!!", or "[Fictional Narrative XYZ] has magic and supernatural monsters in it, which reminds me of witchcraft, so therefore, SATAN!!!"- and then seriously wondering why some people think that he's just an imaginary being invented to scare you into believing in another, more powerful imaginary being who keeps him around just to give his followers something to blame everything on instead of him and plans to destroy this bogeyman but keeps postponing the day that he does such to keep people guessing.
If religion worked, every side in every war would have won with god on their side.
@Algebe
"If religion worked, every side in every war would have won with god on their side."
Religions have always made that claim . Have you ever noticed that during wars, each side claims 'got mit uns' (God with us)--that was on Wehrmacht belt buckle during world Wars one AND two
Religion works exactly as intended by its inventors. IE it bestows wealth , power and control on the priestly castes. Has alway been thus once a religion becomes organised with a hierarchical power structure. Imo organised religion is innately corrupt. There are
probably exceptions. . . However, I've not yet come across one.
SOME of the needs religion may meet are : Addressing the fear of death, give people the illusion of the having power over their own lives, and bestowing the illusion of meaning on their lives.
Like all powerful human behaviours, religion serves important needs. That is why religion is virtually universal . It is we atheists who are in the minority, not believers.
I am unable to accept that there's something wrong bwith evn alarge a
For possibly the majority, religion is simply an accident of birth, We get lumbered with the personal superstitions of our parents ,as well as their world view .
It is a life time observation that few people ever seriously question beliefs and attitudes they uncritically absorbed before the age of reason.
As as far as I can see, when religion is repressed, it is often replaced by personality cults ,EG Stalinist Russia. China and North Korea.
Hey! If religion worked, this thread would not exist!
@cognostic
"Hey! If religion worked, this thread would not exist!"
As I said, of course religion works, just not in the way people have been led to believe it works .
In reality, religions have nothing to do with a putative supernatural. Without exception, religions are invented by men for the benefit of men .They benefit a rarified few. 'We the people' are sheep and are exploited unconscionably .It has always been thus, for millennia.
It will continue until human beings as species grow up to the extent they no longer need religion to validate their lives. The good news is that this seems to have begun in some of the more affluent nations.
@Cog
"Hey! If religion worked, this thread would not exist!"
What thread? I don't see a thread.
Actually, If religion worked, wouldn't we all still be worshiping tree spirits?
@cognostic
Yair, know how you feel. It was the screaming which bothered me.
I won't brag about size, but recount a true anecdote:
One night, a mate and I were crossing the University footbridge, and needed a pee.
My mate said "Damn that water's cold"
Quoth I: "Deep too"
@Cog
"If religion worked, my dick would be three inches shorter. (I'm tired of all the complaints.)"
Pretty sure that would make you a female.
@NewSkeptic Re: To Cog - "Pretty sure that would make you a female."
Nah, not necessarily. Ever heard of "micro-penis"?
If religion worked we would all be living like peasants from the dark ages.
If religion worked, we could all roast marshmallows at the next witch burning event. But bring your own graham crackers and chocolate for smores. I ain't sharing.
@NewSkeptic: If religion worked, you would burn in hell. :-)
If religion worked, no NFL football team would ever lose in the Super Bowl, and no Major League baseball team would ever lose the World Series. Just think of all the poor unemployed bookies... *shaking head sadly*...
If religion worked, every fisherman's fish story would be true.
If religion worked, there would be a whole lot less children in the world. Think about it......
Oh God! Oh God! OH GOD! *A voice from a dark corner of the bedroom.* "Is there something I can help you with?"
Going back to the earliest archaeological evidence of religion, (the first known "religions" with evidence of the practice) it appears if religion was working we would
1.) worship woman, with a special fascination towards the pregnant woman and form.
2.) And perhaps had multiple other deities that covered things like hunting and death.
But with so little actual surviving evidence, and no surviving written word for thousands of years to come.
Purely speculation, but Neanderthals, arguably more intelligent then homosapeins, also practiced things like dead body burial, and it seems likely they had their own early form of religions.
One could make the weak argument that if religion worked, Neanderthals not homosapiens would be populating/destroying the earth instead of us homo sapiens.
If religion worked, we'd all be the deformed products of the dreadful incest that would've been caused by the fact that there were initially only 2 humans- as would all other creatures, due to the genetic bottleneck caused by God's genocidal flood and the fact that each land animal population was consequently lowered to just 2 members. (Or 17, depending on who you ask.)
If religion worked, then believers wouldn't have to point to "seeing Gawd/Yee-soos" in things like clouds, rusty metal, toast, dreams, and near-death hallucinations as "undeniabel PROOF taht gawd egzists!!!!!!1 Explain that, ateists!", as they would already be able to clearly demonstrate the validity of their beliefs with objective, verifiable evidence.
Once you’ve been “broken in” into religion, you are susceptible to being controlled by others. You have been
programmed to not be in charge of yourself. You have to answer to someone. You don’t belong to you.
If religion worked, Mikhael would be as sane as the rest of us.
@Cog Re: "...Mikhael would be as sane as the rest of us."
As sane as the rest of us???... Oh, dear. That wasn't very nice. Why would you wish such a horrible thing on that nice young man? We are trying to help him get BETTER, remember? Suggesting he could be like the rest of us isn't exactly the best way to give a person much hope.
Hey, Mikhael, don't you pay any attention to that mean ol' Cog. He's just being his usual asshole self. You are perfectly capable of finding much healthier forms of sanity. The brand we serve around here is questionable, at best. Stay strong and strive for better things, young man.
If religion worked, that piece of paper I purchased for $10 the other day would have netted me several hundred million.
If religion worked, NewSkeptic would have lost that little piece of paper on his way home and I would have found it and that several hundred million dollars would be mine.
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