Do We Need God? No. Thank you. Okay, seriously, there are at least 10 reasons why we do not need God…

1.Ben Carson, or Religious Ignorance. Only belief in God could infect a brain as smart as the renowned neurosurgeon and prominent Presidential candidate Ben Carson to mangle the Big Bang theory and preposterously propose that Darwin’s theory of evolution is a trick of Satan.

2.Kim Davis, or Religious Bigotry. Only belief in God could convince an otherwise decent and loyal civil servant that her personal interpretation of the Bible trumps the U.S. Constitution, the Supreme Court of the United States, and the law of the land.

3.ISIS, Al Qaeda, & Islamism, or Religious Extremism. Only belief in God could lead large groups of people to believe that the most moral thing they can do is to murder people in the most gruesome manner imaginable—beheading—anyone who does not believe their barbaric and primitive religious tenets, such as capital punishment for apostasy.

4.Crusades, Witch Hunts, and Wars, or Religious Violence. Only belief in God could lie behind these catastrophic moral blunders: the Crusades (the People’s Crusade, the Northern Crusade, the Albigensian Crusade, and Crusades One through Nine); the Inquisitions (Spanish, Portuguese, and Roman); witch hunts (the execution of tens of thousands of people, mostly women); Christian conquistadors (extermination of native peoples by the millions); the interminable European Wars of Religion (the Nine Years War, the Thirty Years War, the Eighty Years War, the French Wars of Religion, the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, the English Civil War); the American Civil War (in which Northern Christians and Southern Christians slaughtered one another over the issue of slavery); and the First World War (in which German Christians fought French, British, and American Christians, all of whom believed that God was on their side—German soldiers, for example, had Gott mit uns—God with us—embossed on their belt buckles.) And that’s just in the Western world. There are the seemingly endless religious conflicts in Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, numerous countries in Africa, and of course Islamist terrorism.

5.Slavery and Civil Rights, or Religious Intolerance. Only belief in God kept the slave trade alive through religious and biblical arguments that blacks were inferior to whites, that slavery was good for black souls, that slavery gave blacks civilization, that blacks liked being enslaved, or, later, that blacks should not have the same civil rights as whites (such as equal treatment under the law—interracial marriage was illegal until 1967) simply because the pigment in their skin was darker.

6.Women’s Rights, or Religious Suppression. Only belief in God would lead otherwise good men to think that women should not have the same rights as they, which is what almost all Christians believed until the women’s rights movement of the 20th century (and many today still believe in wanting to control women’s sexuality and reproductive choices). Like the meddling Puritanical control freaks of the Early Modern Period there are still men today who think they should decide what women do with their vagina. Women flourish in societies that are either not very religious or those, like the United States, that have separation of church and state; i.e., less religion equals more rights and equality.

7.Gay Rights, or Religious Moralizing. Only belief in God could cause otherwise decent Christians to become perversely obsessed with what other people do with their genitals in the privacy of their bedrooms, and that if these people don’t insert their genitals into the biblically correct orifice, or if genitals are stimulated in a biblically unapproved manner, they should not have the same Constitutional rights as straights.

8.Tribalism, or Religious Xenophobia. The world’s religions are tribal and xenophobic by nature, serving to regulate moral rules within the community but not seeking to embrace humanity outside their circle. Religion, by definition, forms an identity of those like us, in sharp distinction from those not us, those heathens, those unbelievers. Most religions were pulled into the modern Enlightenment with their fingernails dug into the past. Change in religious beliefs and practices, when it happens at all, is slow and cumbersome, and it is almost always in response to the church or its leaders facing outside political or cultural forces (slavery, civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights).

9.Absolutism, or Religious Dogmatism. The foundation of the belief in an Absolute Morality is the belief in an Absolute Religion grounded in the One True God. This inexorably leads to the conclusion that anyone who believes differently has departed from The Truth and thus is unprotected by our moral obligations; even more, they must be forced to see the Way, the Truth, and the Light. Unlike science, religion has no systematic process and no empirical method to employ to determine the verisimilitude of its claims and beliefs, much less right and wrong, so it can never self-correct its mistakes, which are legion.

10.Preposterous Moral Rules, or Religious Immorality. The morality of holy books—most notably the Bible—is not the morality any of us would wish to live by. Put into historical context, the Bible’s moral prescriptions were for another time for another people and have little relevance for us today. In order to make the Bible relevant, believers must pick and choose biblical passages that suit their needs; thus the game of cherry picking from the Bible generally works to the advantage of the cherry pickers.

In the Old Testament, for example, the believer might find guidance in Deuteronomy 5:17, which says, “Thou shalt not kill”; or in Exodus 22:21: “You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” But the handful of positive moral commands are desultory and scattered among a sea of violent stories of murder, rape, torture, slavery, and all manner of violence, such as occurs in Deuteronomy 20:10–18, in which Yahweh instructs the Israelites on the precise etiquette of conquering another tribe:

When you draw near to a city to fight against it, offer terms of peace to it. And if its answer to you is peace and it opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you and shall serve you. But if it makes no peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it; and when the LORD your God gives it into your hand you shall put all its males to the sword, but the women and the little ones, the cattle, and everything else in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as booty for yourselves….
Nice. Or consider what Moses did with an army of 12,000 troops Numbers, 31:7–12:

They warred against Mid′ian, as the Lord commanded Moses, and slew every male. They slew the kings of Mid′ian … And the people of Israel took captive the women of Mid′ian and their little ones; and they took as booty all their cattle, their flocks, and all their goods. All their cities in the places where they dwelt, and all their encampments, they burned with fire, and took all the spoil and all the booty, both of man and of beast. Then they brought the captives and the booty and the spoil to Moses.
That sounds like a good days pillaging, but when the troops got back, Moses was furious. “What do you mean you didn’t kill the women?” he asked, exasperated, since it was apparently the women who had enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful with another God. Moses then ordered them to kill all the women who had slept with a man. “But save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man,” he commanded, predictably, at which point one can imagine the thirty-two thousand virgins who’d been taken captive rolling their eyes and saying, “Oh, God told you to do that, did he? Right.” Was the instruction to “keep the virgins for yourselves” what God had in mind by the word “love” in the “love thy neighbor” command? I think not.

Of course, the Israelites knew exactly what God meant (this is the advantage of writing scripture yourself—you get to say what God meant) and they acted accordingly, fighting for the survival of their people. With a vengeance.

What about the New Testament? The angry, vengeful God Yahweh of the Old Testament, Christians claim, was displaced by the kinder, gentler New Testament God in the form of meek and mild Jesus, who two millennia ago introduced a new and improved moral code. Turning the other cheek, loving one’s enemies, forgiving sinners, and giving to the poor sounds like a great leap forward in moral progress.

Yet, nowhere in the New Testament does Jesus revoke God’s ludicrous laws. In fact, quite the opposite (Matthew 5:17–30 passim): “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” Jesus doesn’t even try to edit the commandments or soften them up: “Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven.” In fact, if anything, Jesus’ morality is even more draconian than that of the Old Testament: “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment.”

In other words, even thinking about killing someone is a capital offense. In fact, Jesus elevated thought crimes to an Orwellian new level (Matthew 9:28–29): “Ye have heard it was said by them of old time, Though shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” And if you don’t think you can control your sexual impulses Jesus has a practical solution: “If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.” May I see a show of hands of those who agree with this moral precept?

As for Jesus’s own family values, he never married, never had children, and he turned away his own mother time and again. For example, at a wedding feast Jesus says to her (John 2:4): “Woman, what have I to do with you?” One biblical anecdote recounts the time that Mary waited patiently off to the side for Jesus to finish speaking so that she could have a moment with him, but Jesus told his disciples, “Send her away, you are my family now,” adding (Luke 14:26): “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”

Charming. This is what cultists do when they separate followers from their families in order to control both their thoughts and their actions, as when Jesus calls to his flock to follow him or else (John 15:4–7): “Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.” But if a believer abandons his family and gives away his belongings (Mark 10:30), “he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands.” In other passages Jesus also sounds like the tribal warlords of the Old Testament:

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. (Matthew 10:34–39)
Even sincere Christians cannot agree on Jesus’ morality and the moral codes in the New Testament, holding legitimate differences of opinion on a number of moral issues that remain unresolved based on biblical scripture alone. These include dietary restrictions and the use of alcohol, tobacco, and caffeine; masturbation, pre-marital sex, contraception, and abortion; marriage, divorce, and sexuality; the role of women; capital punishment and voluntary euthanasia; gambling and other vices; international and civil wars; and many other matters of contention that were nowhere in sight when the Bible was written, such as stem-cell research, gay marriage, and the like. Indeed, the fact that Christians, as a community, keep arguing over their own contemporary question “WWJD” (What Would Jesus Do?) is evidence that the New Testament is silent on the answer.

Middle Statement
Empirically speaking we can see why we don’t need God:

Millions of Americans have no belief in God whatsoever, and 10s of millions have no religion and they’re doing just fine. There are no measures that believers are more moral than non-believers.
Tens of millions of people in many Northern European countries such as Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Holland, and Germany have no belief in God or religion and not only are they doing just fine, by any measure they are far healthier societies than the most religious nation in the Western world: America.

http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/15-10-07/#feature

Reading....

Op, your signature though

Why re so called Godless men like the ruler of North Korea, former Cambodian leader and Josef Stalin renowned for atrocities. I mean they are atheists, so they should have more common sense and human sympathy, right?

is this the resvlt of over-consumption of Daura raw kunu?

is this the result of over-consumption of Daura raw kunu?

vfactor:
Why re so called Godless men like the ruler of North Korea, former Cambodian leader and Josef Stalin renowned for atrocities. I mean they are atheists, so they should have more common sense and human sympathy, right?

This is the only thing you could phantom from the post.
What a naive sort of contribution.

First of all, those leaders did their horrible acts not in the name of atheism. Hitler as a Catholic perpetrated horrific and inhuman acts not in the name of christainity. Is like saying that the most hideous crime ever committed in the world are perpetrated by people who doesn't believe in a god. Contrary is the case, citing Japan, and most secular countries in euro Europe as a case study.


The more positive and intellectually fulfilled atheist, the more likely for one to be more benevolent. The more religious one is, the more susceptible one is to committing grisly acts.









Skeptic magazine.


Endeavor to give credit.


Nice one

hahn:
Reading....

Op, your signature though

Wetin do my siggy, Mr Hahn.

“Kongo came into intense contact with the Portuguese after it was first visited by the mariner Diogo Cão in 1483. At the time, Kongo was a highly centralized polity by African standards, whose capital, Mbanza, had a population of sixty thousand, which made it about the same size as the Portuguese capital of Lisbon and larger than London, which had a population of about fifty thousand in 1500. The king of Kongo, Nzinga a Nkuwu, converted to Catholicism and changed his name to João I. Later Mbanza’s name was changed to São Salvador. Thanks to the Portuguese, the Kongolese learned about the wheel and the plow, and the Portuguese even encouraged their adoption with agricultural missions in 1491 and 1512. But all these initiatives failed. Still, the Kongolese were far from averse to modern technologies in general. They were very quick to adopt one venerable Western innovation: the gun. They used this new and powerful tool to respond to market incentives: to capture and export slaves.”

Excerpt From: Acemoglu, Daron. “Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty.”

TheDauraMallam:


Wetin do my siggy, Mr Hahn.

Nothing o. If only stupid people could think

menesheh:



This is the only thing you could phantom from the post.
What a naive sort of contribution.

First of all, those leaders did their horrible acts not in the name of atheism. Hitler as a Catholic perpetrated horrific and inhuman acts not in the name of christainity. Is like saying that the most hideous crime ever committed in the world are perpetrated by people who doesn't believe in a god. Contrary is the case, citing Japan, and most secular countries in euro Europe as a case study.


The more positive and intellectually fulfilled atheist, the more likely for one to be more benevolent. The more religious one is, the more susceptible one is to committing grisly acts.









Skeptic magazine.


Endeavor to give credit.


Nice one

I made those examples to prove that Godless fellows are no better than religious fanatics. I know about more than a million persons whom religion/God has improved their lives significantly. So atheism doesn't make people more likely to be benevolent.

johnydon22:
This is correct… Religion or irreligion is not synonymous to Morality or immorality or placed the reverse.

Morality or immorality is just actions towards others and is found in humans . .religious and irreligious alike...

Hhhhmm.

It's not so clear cut.
Religious beliefs are anchored in absulutism.
Absulute god, absolute and rigid moral beliefs or pretenses.
This tends to confer on the believer, a deluded sense of absolute right and wrong, and of course, the arrogance and sense if duty to suppress, brutalise and murder in the name of upholding the absolute god's will.

Just look at the middle East and see for yourself.

vfactor:
Why re so called Godless men like the ruler of North Korea, former Cambodian leader and Josef Stalin renowned for atrocities. I mean they are atheists, so they should have more common sense and human sympathy, right?

Despite how godly Nigeria is, she is still way back by at least 100years in terms of infrastructural development as well as economic and political prowess. At least 98% of our law makers are either Christians or Muslims and they are all corrupt.

Countries with a large population of atheists are better off than religious countries by far. Check out the middle east and all you see if war. Israel and Palestine have been going at it for years. God hasn't seen it fit to cause peace in those lands

Check nairaland fp and all the cases of rape, drug smuggling, armed robberies etc are all committed by theists.

There is no correlation between religion and morality. As a matter of fact, the more religious a country is the worse it gets as regards peace and basic infrastructure. Religious countries are also known to NOT have fair structures as regards human rights. They show no tolerance towards the religion and belief of other people and it is most times either you adhere to their rules or get killed. However, they are quick to impose their religion on other societies they migrate to.

Israel, the supposed nation of god, has engaged in war for so many years against Palestine you would expect them to know better.

These are plain evidences that god is useless.

hahn:


Despite how godly Nigeria is, she is still way back by at least 100years in terms of infrastructural development as well as economic and political prowess. At least 98% of our law makers are either Christians or Muslims and they are all corrupt.

Countries with a large population of atheists are better off than religious countries by far. Check out the middle east and all you see if war. Israel and Palestine have been going at it for years. God hasn't seen it fit to cause peace in those lands

Check nairaland fp and all the cases of rape, drug smuggling, armed robberies etc are all committed by theists.

There is no correlation between religion and morality. As a matter of fact, the more religious a country is the worse it gets as regards peace and basic infrastructure. Religious countries are also known to NOT have fair structures as regards human rights. They show no tolerance towards the religion and belief of other people and it is most times either you adhere to their rules or get killed. However, they are quick to impose their religion on other societies they migrate to.

Israel, the supposed nation of god, has engaged in war for so many years against Palestine you would expect them to know better.

These are plain evidences that god is useless.

Now tell me about Godless countries....how better to they fair?

vfactor:


Now tell me about Godless countries....how better to they fair?

Consider, for example, a March 2009 academic article in Sociology Compass that extensively researched the subjects raised by Plante. The article, by Phil Zuckerman of Pitzer College, is entitled "Atheism, Secularity, and Well-Being: How the Findings of Social Science Counter Negative Stereotypes and Assumptions" (link is external) and, unlike Plante's article, it cites detailed studies of the areas in question.

Zuckerman analyzed a wide array of data comparing religious nations to less religious nations and also, interestingly, religious states within the United States (i.e. "Bible-belt" states) to less religious states. While I encourage readers to examine the article directly through the link above, here are just a few of the highlights:

Criminal Behavior:

Citing four different studies, Zuckerman states: "Murder rates are actually lower in more secular nations and higher in more religious nations where belief in God is widespread." He also states: "Of the top 50 safest cities in the world, nearly all are in relatively non-religious countries."

Within the United States, we see the same pattern. Citing census data, he writes: "And within America, the states with the highest murder rates tend to be the highly religious, such as Louisiana and Alabama, but the states with the lowest murder rates tend to be the among the least religious in the country, such as Vermont and Oregon."

And these findings are not limited to murder rates, as rates of all violent crime tend to be higher in "religious" states. Zuckerman also points out that atheists are very much under-represented in the American prison population (only 0.2%).

Marriage and Family:

Zuckerman cites a 1999 Barna study that finds that atheists and agnostics actually have lower divorce rates than religious Americans.

He also cites another study, in Canada, that found conservative Christian women experienced higher rates of domestic violence than non-affiliated women.

Unprotected Sex:

As for Plante's claim that studies have "consistently " found that religious people are less likely to engage in unprotected sex, that claim is directly refuted by a 2009 study that found the reverse - teens who make religion-inspired "virginity pledges" are not only just as likely as their non-pledging peers to engage in premarital sex, but more likely to engage in unprotected sex.

Other Findings of Interest:

Happiness: The most secular nations in the world report the highest levels of happiness among their population.

Altruism: Secular nations such as those in Scandinavia donate the most money and supportive aid, per capita, to poorer nations. Zuckerman also reports that two studies show that, during the Holocaust, "the more secular people were, the more likely they were to rescue and help persecuted Jews."

Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/our-humanity-naturally/201103/misinformation-and-facts-about-secularism-and-religion