| bodhi14 said: Wow, surprising how few of you are religious... a part of me died inside... |
Um, sorry but tough nuts. I'm an agnostic atheist and it doesn't depress me that you've made different life decisions than me. Just don't sweat it! You shouldn't get hung up on what other people believe. In fact, keeping an open mind is highly enlightening.
On the original topic, this question is more complex than it first appears to be. How do we define religion, firstly? Religion can be anything. People say that Buddhism isn't a religion but a way of life, but I don't accept that judgement. What sets the practices or the belief system/philosophy of Buddhism from that of any of the Abrahamic religions or anything else?
Agnosticism is also a religion, more or less. People sometimes think that agnostics simply do not "believe" in religion but I don't think that definition is quite accurate either. Agnosticism is essentially the realization that whatever it is you believe in, it cannot be proven or disproven. Thus the term, "agnostic atheist."
By asking the question in the first place you are trying to get us to tell you that the world would be better without the Crusades or Jihadist groups but those are extreme ends of the spectrum. There are equally extreme positive products of religion. Philanthropy being one. In the end, if there were no organized bases of shared belief systems that groups of people shared and contemplated in an established setting, we would be sitting in practically the same spot.
Then again, there is this:
I survived the Apocalyps3
