Given my recent discussion on the VGChartz forums I have found myself in a discussion that without religion we will be a me-centric society. 

I just can't get my head around this at all. I myself care about the wellbeing of other's despite being an athiest and do so through chritable works as well as many of the people i work with. And unlike many christian charities we don't go around to people trying to convert them in return for aid. Not to mention that Warren Buffet and Bill Gates are both athiest but are the largest charitable donators in the world.

While i'm not trying to say that the religious are less willing to help other's I certainly reject the view that athiest are me-centric.

Opinion's?

Religious people are religious because they don't understand science and especially not evolution and I think those kind of knowledge is crucial for your look at life and how nature and our body really works. Religion causes a certain amount of ignorance because they grew up with it. You can't easily seem to forget or take distant from things that took a great roll in your youth.

About the me-centric part:
Religious people want to believe they are the only kind people in the world because they've a reason not to be mean or kill people: avoiding going to hell. But they don't understand morals take a huge roll in the evolution of species as well. For example: In a group of chimpanzees, when one chimpanzee begins to flip and bite other chimpanzees, that chimpanzee might be banned for life from the group. But ducks seem to forget one of them raped a female. Female lions don't really care if another lion kills their babies and they will start making new babies with the new male lion. It differs per species.
So, if in a certain way scientist prove heaven is not real, religious people have a reason to kill us. I don't kill people because I don't want to (to survive).

These are only a few examples what is flawed about religion, there are much MUCH more. I think it's better for religion to disappear.

It gives meaning and hope to some people and can inspire people who've "sinned" to turn their life around... but ultimately we don't need it, and it does a lot of harm as well as good.

I don't think it's a cut and dry situation. I, too, reject the idea that atheists are necessarily more selfish or less moral than believers. The blind faith and irrationality required by most, if not all, religion makes me pretty uncomfortable. But it's probably true that a lot of people have ditched religion because it requires of them some degree of self denial, and that's just not appealing. (Though I think more people have ditched it simply because it's unfashionable, which is the reason most people do anything.) And it's also probably true that people who don't believe in a god find other outlets for their primitive urge to believe fiercely in something, like political movements. It seems to me a lot less harmful to have such people expending their devotional energy worshiping the proverbial Flying Spaghetti Monster than to seize the very real gun of political power and stick it to your head.

A lot of studies have found that the religious tend to be happier and healthier, too, so I think there are indeed benefits for society. But whether they outweigh the negatives really depends on the particulars of the religion, I suppose, and how wedded it is to politics. If people can compartmentalize their beliefs a bit and be content to exercise their own faith without forcing it on others, than I can see how the asceticism that religion promotes could temper the excessive banality and materialism of modern culture.

Good to know that Martin Nowak doesn't understand science and especially not evolution.

This is so true. Whenever I watch the news for the Middle-East, I can see the top-notch state of those internal organs from the people that were bombed to pieces after some religious driven bombing.

Say whaaat :?

Are you purposefully being ignorant of facts with this statement or what?

No, in fact I do a scientific education and I know alot about stuff like evolution and DNA/proteins/hormones and I've done some research at a local hospital. DNA is the most important scientific evidence for evolution, but very difficult to understand. Believe me, I can't explain the most important evidence to you right here, because you require a lot of basic knowledge (unless you know some DNA stuff aswell).

 I've had some various discussions with religious people on the internet. They criticize me for the fact that they don't understand science. But they really don't. I don't blame them because you need education to understand, but at school, every day I learn about new evidence for evolution. Some things are really undeniable, but religious people still deny it because they don't understand this complex system.

Also: there are atheist people who believe in evolution, but don't really understand it. And for me thats even worse. If you think something is right, you've gotta to explain it.

I don't believe religion is beneficial any longer. It played an important part in society and human psychology in the past, but nowadays it does more harm than good. People really don't need a god to be happy, that's a misconception.

Also I think that religious people are more me-centric because it's all about 'my religion', 'I'm going to heaven, you're not'. Isn't that kinda egocentric?  Thinking that you know the answer to eternal happiness and a happy life hereafter, while the rest of us is gonna burn for eternity. ..

not anymore