Humanity's worst mistake

[Housebroken Lunatic]

The advent of religion from "privately find your spirituality and your place in this world" to "do what I say this two-thousand-year-old book tells you to or you are not fit to be considered human".

Religion in itself is benign. It's the exploitation, commercialization and weaponization of religion that's taken things out of hand.

It's hardly benign, mainly because the concept appeals to the desperate need of spirituality that some people have cultivated and preserved for their descendants.

Religion in itself is irrational. It appeals mainly to the irrational side of all human beings. There is no such thing as "rational religious beliefs", since the basic premise of being rational is not to just believe in fantasy fairytales without having solid proof of those tales depicting an objective reality and thus the truth.

So if you keep religion around, it's always going to be "exploited, commercialized and weaponized" and the religious will ALWAYS fall for it.

So I really have no reason to believe in you when you say that religion in itself is "benign". It's more like having an armed charge of C-4 around with a big red button just waiting for someone to push it.

 

[Optiluiz]

Taking religion too seriously, patriotism. Seriously, patriotism is evil. It's like religion, but it controls people even more.

 

[Byere]

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't crop and animal domestication the whole reason we're here today? Farming, be it crops or animal raising, is one of the main reasons we're able to survive, no matter what situation (inb4 zompocalypse)... cold winter? Fine, he have harvested food for us and livestock. An offshoot? Domesticating wolves and breeding dogs to aid in hunting.

Seriously... how is that "humanity's worst mistake"? The anthropologist you mentioned is a moron.

Now, worst mistake? I cannot say. I don't really thing there IS such a thing as a worst mistake as it's all based on point of view. Some might say that it was dropping the nuke. Well, no... because it showed not only brought a halt to much of the warring, albeit at a terrible cost, it also proved to humanity that we cannot just "play with our toys" and that we needed to be a hell of a lot more responsible with such power, lest it destroy us.
Anything someone would say was a mistake is just something that has shaped humanity to what it is today. Sure, it might not be EVERYONE'S ideal world, but as things happen, we (as a species) continue to grow and change depending on what happens. The thing about humanity is that we LEARN from what mistakes are made. Much like an animal will learn that if you touch an electric fence and get shocked you don't do it again, we learn from everything that we do wrong so that we make things right in the collective view, rather than make such major mistakes again.

EDIT: Just as I post this, I notice that there's an ad for "No Right Answer" on here... which is appropriate as in this topic, there is no wrong answer either.

 

[Dan Steele]

Religion, its has caused so much suffering and loss mainly by halting the progress of humanity, it splits us into groups and factions setting kin against one another. For every step science takes foward religion takes 2 steps back. We use it as an excuse to fight, slaughter, murder, rape, pillage. It causes a hatred for logic and education. Almost all of them drone on about fairy tales that you would have to be brainwashed as a child to believe, all of which instist that THEIR'S is right. Before you ask I am not an athiest, I am agnostic, I do believe in an afterlife but I will never believe in relgion's corrupt interpretation of it.

 

[basm321]

So in my anthropology class today, we discussed how this one anthropologist arguest that crop and animal domestication was humanity's worst mistake and we got into a discussion over what we thought was the worst mistake, so I ask you the same question:

What do you think is humanity's worst mistake?

I think it's somewhere between music elitists, british comedy and Japanese hentai.

Hentai, the word itself means, means japanese art that contains sexual or pornographic images and it is one not a mistake (because it is purposeful) and it is one of humanities greatest creations.

 

[cthulhlu]

to be honest there isnt realy anything inherently bad or evil about what we have created, the problem is that its humans using it, and as history has shown the very first thing a human dose with any new idea or device is attempt to kill someone with it, after that we use it to get as much sex as we can.
the problem isnt the inventions, its the people.
humans are fraking crazy!

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

Roughly 49-78,000,000 deaths were caused by Mao. So yeah I think it is fair to say Mao has Religion beat

What part of: "human deaths in comparison to current global population ratio" don't you understand?

Compare those 78,000,000 deaths to the total world population of the time, and then compare the death toll caused by religion during different historical era's in comparison to the global population of those era's, and THEN we can talk.

We would be killing each other just fine without Religion we would just use varying philosophies, race, stereotypes, differences in spelling, etc. We have no shortage of bullshit reasons for covering the real reasons land, money, power, influence.

Maybe, maybe not. The thing is, the secular reasons still need a lot more persuasion and arguments to actually become accepted. It's like a scientific community of sorts, you can't just make everyone kill or go to war if you can't argue or prove why it would be the correct course of action.

But the old "God want's us to" line of reasoning, end's all debate. Especially when it comes from any high-ranking official in any religion.

That's why religion will awlays be inherently more dangerous than any political movement will.

 

[Akytalusia]

well, it's not the worst thing ever. i mean there are plenty of really obvious things i could say, but i'm just gonna mention one catastrophic tragedy that's commonly overlooked. when edison was sponsored over tesla. that was one of the worst decisions ever.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Roughly 49-78,000,000 deaths were caused by Mao. So yeah I think it is fair to say Mao has Religion beat

What part of: "human deaths in comparison to current global population ratio" don't you understand?

Compare those 78,000,000 deaths to the total world population of the time, and then compare the death toll caused by religion during different historical era's in comparison to the global population of those era's, and THEN we can talk.

We would be killing each other just fine without Religion we would just use varying philosophies, race, stereotypes, differences in spelling, etc. We have no shortage of bullshit reasons for covering the real reasons land, money, power, influence.

Maybe, maybe not. The thing is, the secular reasons still need a lot more persuasion and arguments to actually become accepted. It's like a scientific community of sorts, you can't just make everyone kill or go to war if you can't argue or prove why it would be the correct course of action.

But the old "God want's us to" line of reasoning, end's all debate. Especially when it comes from any high-ranking official in any religion.

That's why religion will awlays be inherently more dangerous than any political movement will.

Well if you can even find some figures from an actually religious conflict that was purely religious instead of getting me to go and do the work for your argument then yes but until then no I won't. If you do actually bother doing this only use conflicts that are literally Religion V Religion with no ulterior motives(eg Muslin expansion through North Africa).

Yes on the ratio I am still not buying it. Unless you can find one just one religious conflict or genocide that continued the length of time of Mao that even comes close to that. You can just go since the beginning of time since that fucks with your ratio so no I am not making your own point for you.

No "God wants us to" does not end all debate any idiot who believes that is an idiot as it goes against your religion. That is why idiots in position of power and authority will always be a bigger threat than religion or political movement or a nuke. Pol pot is a great example of someone insane who got in a position of power and abused like anyone who says that line. If anyone cares about their faith they won't kill for it as it goes against basically all faiths laws.

 

[kingog]

Religion. Without religion there would be no reason for anyone to hate anyone else. There would be no war, not violence. Everybody would be a neighbor to the other.

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't crop and animal domestication the whole reason we're here today? Farming, be it crops or animal raising, is one of the main reasons we're able to survive, no matter what situation (inb4 zompocalypse)... cold winter? Fine, he have harvested food for us and livestock. An offshoot? Domesticating wolves and breeding dogs to aid in hunting.

Seriously... how is that "humanity's worst mistake"? The anthropologist you mentioned is a moron.

Yeah, because everyone in the hunter/fisher/gatherer-society of the early stone age were on the brink of starvation and annihilation pretty much all of the time, right? *facepalm*

Farming isn't the "main reason" we were able to survive. In fact, research of archeological finds and studies of stone age survival techniques have shown that the humans of the hunter/fisher/gatherer- society actually had to work LESS hours each day in order to survive and thrive than your average worker have to today.

Also, consider all those starving people in Africa, who pretty much don't know any survival skills but are dependant on farming for food (which tends to be a pretty bad idea considering all the droughts they go through and the wars that make a lot of the farmable land unsafe places to be in).

If we humans had never gone through with our agri-cultural revolution, then we would've all been taught the necessary survival skills from birth and be able to pretty much live and thrive in any kind of climate and vegetation (like man of the early stone age did quite well).

The introduction of agri-culture and farming however, is the very reason why the concept of war was brought about. There's no evidence at all that people actually went to war before they had land and "property" to protect. They made themselves dependant on farmable land, and thus had to defend it from others that would like to take it.

Also, being able to use farmland you'd have to spend several more hours labouring each day as opposed to the hunter/gatherer/fisher-lifestyle where you could pretty much pluck all the food you needed from any forest or lake.

So no, that anthropologist is NOT a complete moron. It's just you who display a hefty amount of ignorance here.

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

If anyone cares about their faith they won't kill for it as it goes against basically all faiths laws.

Tell that to all the christians in the army. Also tell that to all the muslim jihad-promoters and terrorists.

Also tell that to ALL the religious texts that exist in the world that very much promote killing.

Sorry, your argument has no merits what so ever...

 

[Hank Wants Pie]

Hello, and welcome to the Escapist's 104 Trillionth CYNICALYMPICS!!!

Where the Escapist community comes together to find out, through insufferable, and angst-filled, and often quite misinformed competition, just who is the most cynical fuck on the internet. So far, everyone is losing. Because if they won, they might actually have to be happy about something. Which would, of course, render their victory null.

Anyway, I'm gonna go with slavery.

Ooooh and we have a very SPECIAL guest tonight! It's mister Internet Troll!
A round of applause to him for all the good things he has done!

 

[SD-Fiend]

Religion. Without religion there would be no reason for anyone to hate anyone else. There would be no war, not violence. Everybody would be a neighbor to the other.

because we all know that concepts such as racism, murder, stealing competion, and jealousy wouldn't exist

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

well, it's not the worst thing ever. i mean there are plenty of really obvious things i could say, but i'm just gonna mention one catastrophic tragedy that's commonly overlooked. when edison was sponsored over tesla. that was one of the worst decisions ever.

I'd have to agree.

If there was ever a man close enough to a solution that would end all large-scale warfare forever, it was Tesla.

 

[wrightry]

Eating the apple... that fucked us real good. Made us unnatural beings.

 

[HT_Black]

The Nuclear Warhead, anyone? Ya know, that thing that can destroy miles of earth and then irradiate many, many more? Sure, it's never been deployed; but the very concept is a monstrous idea.

Erm "never been deployed"? Hiroshima? Nagasaki? Ring any bells?

Also, without nuclear weapons or the research that went into them, we wouldn't have nuclear power. You know that power source that's pretty much the best one in terms or relative stability, enviromental-friendlyness and effectiveness.

Blugh. Forgot that atomic bombs and nuclear bombs are the same thing; or rather, had some bad information fed to me. My bad.

In that case, I'll say...Atheist missionaries. Fuck those guys.
Or Werner Von Braun. Fuck him.
Or slavery. Fuck that.
Either of those work.

 

[Hank Wants Pie]

And of course people answer religion, what else? Always as sad...

Well the truth can be quite sad sometimes...

Indeed, but the issue at hand here is that religion is a way to broad answer. Seriously, religion has always been a part of mankind, in one way or another. Now, if you were to say something along the lines with "religious conflict" or "religios oppression" that'd be another thing, that be something that you could discuss. Just saying religion doesn't really work because it is such a fundamental part of our history and our civilization.

Not always for the better...

 

[CardinalPiggles]

Sex for the sake of pleasure.

Obviously to survive Humans have to reproduce, but too much sex and the world is full of STD's, overpopulation and rape, great job Humans...

 

[wordsmith]

Fire. Since we figured out how to make fire, it's all pretty much been downhill. No fire, no industry, no globalisation, no massive draining of resources.