Religion's Purpose?

I am not a church-going person but believe that religion has an important purpose on this earth. I believe it came about back in the dark ages as a primaive 'legal system'. By providing 10 basic commandments with a threat to police them, that being the threat of hell, people were controlled into behaving more civilised.

Any thoughts?

Religion has been around waaay before the Dark ages.
However, yes, religion is an exellent way of providing moral justification (for just about anything from aggression, human sacrifice or benevolence) as well as giving justification for some of societies laws.

There's nothing worse than a self-righteous azzhole feeling the warmth of some false prophet while he blows himself up or snipes a doctor or defeats a barbarian. Its all just masturbation with a cum$hot in the eye of logic and reason.

Uneasy - I agree. That's why it is important that those of us who do believe in God do not hide in shame but make ourselves known so that people can see the difference. But the unfortunate thing that happens is. I know my faults, and will humble myself when faulted. Some will see this as a weakness, believing that I am less or smaller than. But the self righteous do not realize their falsehood and will not humble themselves. Those who are foolish or imature will glory in the self righeous, not seeing the deception, and will give them the power to become the destructive force that they are.

So how do we make this world wise up and or grow up?

I do believe religion has a purpose on this earth, no matter that I don't believe in God. Religion is a very powerful support system for people. It can help them through very tough times, if they haven't the personal strength to make it through on their own.
However, taking morals and laws from religion is foolhardy. Religion evolves much more solwly than religion, and as thus, the religious set of rules do not always apply in today's world. I'm going to quote myself from another thread, because it is entirely relevant:

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Religion is static. Both morally and spiritually. It is based on the beliefs of those over 2000 years ago - to fulfil their need for something bigger. "Truths" in religion are archaic and do not always relate to the world today.
"Do unto others", the so-called Golden Rule, need not be a religious thing. It is quite easy to come to a conclusion that you wouldn't want something done to you, so you wouldn't do it to someone else. Why do people NEED religion to dictate their morals, when they are separate entities? Morals and religion evolve at different speeds. One is used to live a life of "good", and the other to fulfil a person spiritually.
Surely, people can follow the set of morals that their religion sets out, if they are so fundamentalist in this day and age, but they have no need to impress this onto others.
Personally, I have no problem with religion as a spiritual system. I believe it can do so much good in consoling people and helping them to grow. It is only when religion is paralleled to morality that I find fault.
Now, the truths in religion may never change, but is this a good thing? In an ever-evolving world, is not change needed to keep up? How many people stay virginal until marriage nowadays? how many people divorce? How many people have extra-marital affairs? How many people gamble, and drink to excess, and use prostitutes? And legally, might I add. This may very well be against religious teachings, but in a modern society, people no longer see these things as severely taboo.

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So, religions as spiritual systems have a valid and purposeful place in society.
Religions as moral and legal dictatorships have no place, and are archaic. People subdued by such a set of "God-given laws" who do not prescribe to that certain faith feel stifled, and it is these people who become the "activists" that create forward (or backward, in contemorary cases of religious activists opposing Gay Marriage) movement.

Basically: Religion should keep to the spiritual aspect of our lives, and leave the lawmaking and the morality of the people to the people.

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Religion evolves much more solwly than religion, and as thus, the religious set of rules do not always apply in today's world.

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Maybe you meant science.

I believe that science has not evolved as far as it should have. Within the scientific community there are prejudices to certain theories, ideas and ways of thinking that have stunted its growth. All theories are relevent until proven false and should not be mocked as non sense. With this mind set, science may have gone further. Also, the creations of science frighten people. If only the humanist code was a requirement of science, but reality tells us that capitalism is its driving force. It takes money to pay for science. Some of it may come from donations, most of it comes from capital investments that seek a return of more capital. The non sense could never gain capital, so it is mocked.

Science has created the Atomic Bomb, the automobile and water pollution that could very well lead to the destruction of this world.

A government system without religion (communism) collapsis while systems with religion live on.

You are right though, religion is needed. Most of us will follow something, a few of us will lead. This is just the way are minds are created. The leaders will claim to have the truth and the rest will follow. Science and religion have nothing to do with this, its just human nature.

" All theories are relevent until proven false and should not be mocked as non sense."
A theory is true so long as it can make verifyable predictions. What your describing is religion. (sun turns around the earth until Gallileo proves otherwise.

"A government system without religion (communism) collapsis while systems with religion live on. "
No, communism is a religion of its own. Fundamentalist at that. The taliban destroyed giant bhudda statues in the name of God, the Russians destroyed a 500 year old Hohenzollern palace because it was a symbol of bourgeois oppression.

Those governments which have lived on are those which have been the most secular and support religious freedom, but not those states which are dictated by religion. Examples include the United States at one end and France at the other.

"I believe that science has not evolved as far as it should have."
Hmm... Well, frankly, I think its pretty damn fast. 200 years ago there were no vaccines. 100 years ago no cars. 50 years ago no PCs. Hell, 10 years ago no mobile telephones.

If anything, perhaps science is going TO FAST, as our societies must change with each discovery.

Actually, the missing word was MORALITY. Thus, we should have religion for a spiritual basis, for those who don't believe in scientific evolution etc, but as a system of moral rules, religion is outdated. it would have made sense over two thousand years ago, but today, when we have more information regarding certain things, the rules are simply archaic (like why some Jewish people still don't eat pork).

The real rules of the bible include some nasty stuff. No one obeys them because people only obey the bits of the bible that make vague sense. I think it was in Leviticus, things along the lines of punishing zoophily by death (including the animal).

Indeed. Leviticus. Many crazy rules, including the statement that a bat is a bird.

Dumbteen - You might have me on the science, it is not my expertese. But neither you nor protege understand religion.

But I will give you this. The scriptures are jaded and will get us lost when we call it the word of god. The word of God cannot be found on a piece of paper, but the paper helps us find it, but only when we can get past the paper will we find the real word of God. The scriptures are good for reproof, even the scriptures themselves tell us that. From them you can learn a lot, but when you take them as technically factual its like turning out the lights. Many who follow religion make this mistake. I did, its like the first step. Is it right that a child should fall down, but if they don't, they won't learn to walk. Most of the time to learn something great we have to make a mistake. There are exeptions, and there are exceptional people, but most of us are not the exception. I certainly am not.

No I don't think I understand

Why has God made it so hard for people to believe in him?

Science and evolution have taken on so many other definitions, just as religion is sometimes pigeonholed by skeptics and the godless. Evolution is a process of change, I don't believe its definition stretches farther than that (including Darwin's works). Science is just a system of organization and identification.

Maybe, through our pursuits using scientific method, we've discovered things like atom bombs, but look at nature and see how it changes to survive. Its not natural to stagnate and that is a concept that most religions seem to embrace (don't question religion or faith, don't taste the apple b/c it might be dangerous, you're weak and undeserving so find solace in God, follow some written text that's thousands of years old). It takes sacrifice and death and rebirth to "ride the spiral to the end". Let's see where it goes (or shouldn't we try the metaphorical apple and taste the curiosity that killed the cat? <insert propaganda here> ).

Religion is distroying the world. we have wars and kill eatch other over somthing we dont even kno excists. most of it is all based on fear. we are so into somthing that we dont even kno exist that we make laws and banned things. we are like little kids with imaginary friends.

the bible is just a big metaphore. the devil represents bad or sin and jesus or god represents the good. but a bunch of people coundent figure that out. and hell represents the consequenses of what uve done. there is not rilly a big cop in the sky who watches evry thing you do and if you dont obay he is going to send you to burn forever. you need to just lirn to be good in ur hart not in fear of going to hell. its like if some one is inoying you you dont putch them in the face. not because jesus toled you not to and if you do ur going to burn. but because it is rong. and the consequens of punching them is that they probibly are going to putch you back.

and sorry if i efended eny one i did not attend to. im just saying what i think