Quote:
Originally Posted by GGG
I think that one of the most important parts of religion in modern society is that it keeps people in social groups outside of work. Throughout our youth we go to school and keep having these forced social interactions. I realize that this continues at work but at work you generally are down to a much smaller group that you interact with. As you age the number of people you interact with diminishes. We can talk all we want about our 100 facebook friends but in truth as we age we become increasingly isolated. Technology has made us less and less dependant on community and real social interactions. Religion is just one of many outlets that get people together and therefore true or not religion in a free society has a great benifit for those that choose it.
For those who continually see the negatives of religion remember that if it didn't exist people would find other methods of maintaining power. Communism worked very well as a religion free method of controlling the poor and other techniques would have evolved if religion hadn't proven so effective.
In my opinion it is not religion or a decline in the amount of religion that has led to an increase in our prosperity but it is actually the oppisite as scarcity has decreased the need for the poor to have hope aka religion has decrease as there are fewer poor. As well the rich can become rich and still provide a fair standard of living for the masses so they don't need to subjugate their populations.
Those are just some ramblings I thought of while reading through the thread.
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Some comments regarding your post...
First...religion or religious groups are not the only social groups that a person or family can join. I also do not believe that religion was created for the "social" aspect of the program. Im assuming that if the social aspect is what keeps people in religion they have joined it for the wrong reason(s). In saying that it would not surprise me to find a great number of people who are in it for this reason...people who do NOT lead a religious life outside of their weekly jaunt to the local church. What would we call these people? I think hypocrite is one example.
I also know in my case that my circle of friends does not shrink. I keep adding friends to my list. Close friends are another story, but religion or religious groups dont create anything more than a social circle anyways.
Regarding the communism comment. This point has been hashed about hundreds of times here. Theists would love everyone to believe that atheists are communist or socialist <hence evil> while Christians are devoutly capitalist? Sound funny to you in this vein? No longer are faith in Jesus and God sufficient; instead, one must also have faith in market capitalism and small government?
Communism is not, however, atheistic. It is possible to hold communist or socialist economic views while being a theist and it isn't at all uncommon to be an atheist while staunchly defending capitalism.
Perhaps it is
Christianity which is communistic? After all, there is nothing in the gospels which even so much as suggests a divine preference for capitalism. On the contrary, quite a bit of what Jesus said directly supports many of the foundations of socialism and even communism. He specifically said that that people should give all they could to the poor and that "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."
As to the comment about the poor. The only places in the world where Christianity is growing is in poor or oppressed nations (The USA excepted). The free and educated world is increasingly moving away from religion to a secular stance.