Where would the world be right now if religion never existed?

[binary solo]

A pointless question IMO.

Those who dislike religion will focus on the negative things that have been done under the guise of religion and say the world would be better, more peaceful and more free. Those who are adherents of one faith or another will say say that religion has been overwhelmingly positive on the influence of the advancement of human civilisation that the world would be much worse off without it.

Each camp would take turns to cite examples in support of their case. But because there hasn't been a single society which has developed from primative savage to highly sophisticated and technologically advanced society without religion being part of its evolution there are no examples by which a comparison can be made to determine whether religion has had a nett positive effect on human civilisation or a nett negative effect. So citing examples back and forward is a fruitless exercise.

One might look at the very short term experiment in atheist civilisation like Communism in the 20th century. But in that case the atheism was imposed upon people and religion was actively oppressed rather than it being rejected at a grass roots level by the generality of society. Therefore it's not valid to use it for the purposes of comparison with 20th century societies where religion was prevalent, or even dominant, and have not suffered the monumental collapse of the Communist system. Even China is being somewhat less oppressive of religion now; Falun Gong (sp?) notwithstanding. You only need to look at the rapidity with which religion returned to having large congregations in Russia to know that the Communist state was not a truly atheist society. So, we have no experience other than our own biased imaginations upon which to draw any conclusions.

What we have learned from the 20th century is that the most stable societies in the religious context are those which are secular, which support freedom of religion, and enshrine such freedom in law so that no one group can suppress another without there being legal redress.