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Atheists and believers are daggers drawn, each accusing the other of fundamentalism.

Atheists blame religion for the state of the world and are concerned that religion continues to thrive despite the advance of science. Believers blame loss of faith in Europe for moral impoverishment and lack of social cohesion.

Now even David Cameron's admission that he goes to church out of conviction has led some people to point up the perils of political decisions made on the basis of hearing voices.

Would we be better off without religion? Michael Portillo, Clifford Longley, Ian Hargreaves and Steven Rose cross-examine experts from both sides.

The Moral Maze, Wednesday 28 February 20:02, Radio 4

Related links:
Atheism - www.bbc.co.uk/religi...
Religions - www.bbc.co.uk/religi...
Cameron 'would pick faith school' - news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/...

The answer to you question is no. People act in their own best interest. Too many people have determined that it is in their best interest to have faith. People do not worship because there are churches. We have churches because people need a personal relationship with God.

Since the UK has about three cars for every one parking place, you could be correct.

The debates between science and religion and this evenings moral maze itself are only happening because religion has been unable to maintain its credibility in the face of scientific progress and the demands of the modern world, and are often seen, for good reasons, by many like myself as more of a problem and never the solution!

This is an amazingly biased sentence: "Now even David Cameron's admission that he goes to church out of conviction has led some people to point up the perils of political decisions made on the basis of hearing voices."

Is it an "admission" to say that you are a believer? Would we prefer politicians to say that they go to church simply to win votes?

The "hearing voices" bit is also an example of loading the debate on one side, implying that religious believers are nutters and should therefore be kept out of public life.

What a distasteful, prejudiced way to set up the arguments.

Thanks, Michael. Jane Shaw was excellent - so sane, logical, and feisty. She spoke sense (especially about our preoccupation with the self). About time we heard from a learned and articulate woman on MM.

We are Not a grouping,the only thing we have in common is that we are Non-Believers. Tooth Fairy and Father Xmas et al.

Quoted from this message

Very true.

We might ask why religion was invented in the first place. After much thought I’ve come up with two overriding reasons; to explain the unexplainable, and to control fertility.
The first reason is perfectly understandable as our intellectual equals thousands of years ago would have realised the hand of man did not determine nature or the heavens; these must have been formed by more powerful ‘intelligent designers’. Science has just about replaced this function completely. I cannot think of any area of investigation where religion still supplies the primary explanation- except perhaps the big one, but the jury is out on whether the Big G exists.
Like all living organisms our primary drivers is to pass on our genes, but our processes are perhaps the most complex and delicate; from conception to gestation to early years nurture. Religions emerged to codify the necessary and to define boundaries of the tribe in terms of who can mate with who. As the male was given the post-coital function of protection and provision, religious structures became totally male dominated and justifiers of conflict and codifiers of behaviour. By the way I am not making a point about sexual preferences- all share the same drivers of the survival of the species and tribes. Again science and technology has just about wrested control of fertility from religion, and the State is now the primary arbiter of behaviour.
So our history, as far back as we can track, is dominated by the futile attempts of religions to retain these overriding functions, reluctantly- and sometimes violently- having to surrender at every turn. The rise of fundamentalism is a backlash against these forces and will ultimately fail.
Of course technology may destroy us by inferring to points of no return with the planet or with our physiology. Perhaps these give religion new, meaningful functions- to warn and act as breaks against too rapid ‘progress’
(Is it a waste of time posting this on this board? Will most of you just nod with broad agreement and other rage about my grammar? Where can I put it where it will generate real heat?)

[QUOTE] Oh and never forget that it was the Catholic Church that fought against democracy during the French Revolution.

Religious practice induces a emotional dysfunction that makes the masses pliable. [/QUOTE]

Why even make comments like these unless you are dumb?

Oh and never forget that while the Catholic church fought against the French Revolutionary idea of democracy, in other places and times the Catholic Church held out against the massive fashionable popularity of atheistic totalitarianisms.

Or, actively worked to bring dictatorships down...

Also, don't forget that the French Revolutionaries persecuted and surpressed atheists as dangerous and pointless, and that the Revolution was aimed at some of the more repressive aspects of Catholic political power, and part of the program was to renew and renovate religious belief.

Not many atheists at all in the enlightenment era, apart from a few deluded and crazy writers who believed that they possessed the sum of the world's knowledge.

[QUOTE] We might ask why religion was invented in the first place. After much thought I’ve come up with two overriding reasons; to explain the unexplainable, and to control fertility.[/QUOTE]

I think you are not talking about why 'religion' was invented, but about why certain beliefs and ideas related to religion came to prominence in a certain time and place.

One point related to rigourous and scientific 'explanation'; as far as I can tell, it was not, as it later became in 18th-19th century Europe, something that was vital and central to people's concerns.

Lots of religious stories reflect the idea that a God made the world, but also reflect that there was no clear idea why, or how, or even whether this had any particular meaning or relevance to people's lives or beliefs. Even in the book of Genesis, there are two different ideas of 'creation' given simultaneously.

A major world religion such as Hinduism rejects the idea that Gods 'created' the world, but the idea is that the Gods came into their current form of existence at the same time as the rest of the universe. And there are many totally different ideas of creation current simultaneously.

You can tell sometimes that people started using the argument that such and such a God created the world, therefore we should follow his teachings, but it is only one argument among many. Because some people became fixated on it as the be all and end all in religious argument, it gained unwarranted centrality.

And, the argument about controlling fertility, is that really overriding?

It would be one aspect of religion, but, the core of some of the oldest religious texts is more like a kind of existential philosophy, or speculations surrounding the experience of existence. Other, 'legalistic' ideas are thrown in there too, but saying one is the origin of the other? Or that across religions and religious practices one attitude to controlling fertility was always dominant and supported by religious beliefs? I don't think so.