religion is really2 essential for human to give some path way in his life. without it you will feel like no direction..like meaningless to live in this world. although, we as a human has the responsibility to our creature..we must to obey Him and follow His lead...we need to praise Him in no matter in time.. through this u will be blessing by Him and we will be given a Heaven as our immortal life after this..i know some of u will think that this is ridiculous or whatever,but bear in mind that our life in this world is not a game, there will have a Judgment Day, a day that we will be asking what we have done in this world, good or bad.. if u is good man , Heaven is your place otherwise Hell is your place to live FOREVER.

hope we will find our right path..

I'm a little confused.

What exactly is "religion" ?
(a)Does having a religion = believing in a supernatural deity IE God?
OR
(b)Does having a religion simply mean having a set of principles which we follow in our daily life?

If its (a) then I think religion is not needed
1. Having someone who can forgive all our wrongs, is just a bad excuse for people to commit wrongs in the first place.
2. Having an extra "person" to protect/defend is just an extra cause for disputes. Some may say that "god" does not need defending.. tell that to someone who has insulted your "god". Even insults to friends have caused major disputes, what more a "god", a figure you respect, uphold, love.
3. Having a "god" but requiring other HUMAN beings to dictate what the "god" requires is like having to ask your sister/brother what your parents want you to do. Your parents might not have wanted you to do anything, but your brother/sister could make you do things for them by just saying "mum/dad said", without you checking with your parents.

If its (b) on the other hand, the answers get a little more complicated.
This is because, misinterpretation of the fundamental teachings occur.
Nearly ALL religions have the same fundamental teachings, which stems from basic human nature which is to coexist with each other and the world. That part of religion is NEEDED. But all the extra, is UNNEEDED.

All,

Of course, HUMAN need religion.  We need it to

A) Treat people UNFAIRLY and claim that God tell us to do it.

B) Kill one and another in order to save each other souls.

C) Confused ourselves in order to misunderstood some simple rule like treat others like how you like to be treated

D) Claimed that we need to learn to read some book in order to learn MORALITY.

E) So that we do not need COMMON SENSE.  All we need is to read and interpret what a book says and follows.

F) Or even worse, do not even learn to read that and just follow whatever someone says what the book says??

End of story.

Dreamer

P.S.: In summary, RELIGION is IRRELEVANT.  It may be important to a person INDIVIDUALLY.  But, as for MORALITY and so on, it NEITHER play a POSITIVE or NEGATIVE role.

A BAD person is a BAD person.  A GOOD person is a GOOD person.  This is INDEPENDENT of whether the person is RELIGIOUS.  There are ENOUGH LOOPHOLES in every religions to let people do EVIL things and still claim that they are RELIGIOUS.

So, why don't we JUDGE a person based on UNIVERSAL MORALITY like the GOLDEN RULE?  We do not NEED any book to tell us RIGHT from WRONG.  Or, that is TOO SIMPLE?? Hence, we cannot HIDE behind RELIGION and do our EVIL stuff??

lin00b,

<<the golden rule is too vague >>

1) As compare to believing whatever someone says that a  book contains??  Which is WORSE??

2) Or, the book is written in some ancient language that only some priest can read?

Golden rule + Common Sense.

<<masochist going around torturing people because he likes to be tortured?>>

3) There are cultures where torture is part of the culture.  Everyone like torture.  So, when in Rome do what Roman does. 

<<or some bully who subscribe to the might is right mantra.>>

4) The BULLY can be bullied too.  What goes around and comes around.  Then, it will stop.

<<or a psycopath killer, who goes around killing because he feels life (even his own) is worthless>>

5) Then, there is NOTHING WRONG to kill this killer too.

There are FEEDBACK mechanism to stop all those stuff.  And, it has NOTHING to do with religion.

Dreamer

Religion does exist and only one God that exist. The earth does not created by itself. Here a simple trick, take a small glass, throw in into mid air, and let it fall down as the gravity pull it, Leave it for 10 Years. come back and see what happen. Yes, it does not move even abit! Dont worry, leave it for even thousand years, nothing will happen to the glass. Just the same ol glass.

So, there are someone 'upthere' who create everything.

In conclusion, yes human do need religion.

if there are many gods, gods will have war with each other and us, humans = kaputt.

they will try to figure out which one is the most powerful, as people worships them.

that's why there is only one god, the ultimate creator. The One who create mass, time and space. We're been bounded by those 3 from the day we've been created in wombs until the day of our last breath.

You cannot make a comparison human = computer. If we created computer to worship us, it will worship us. But computer didn't, because now we created it to work for us, humans.

We need religion, as the religion teach us to a better person. ALMOST EVERY RELIGION teach that. Including respect for other people religion. People who insulting other people religion in any way isn't considered really practice the religion itself.

People created many extraordinary things, but who create the sun? The earth? The gravity? Or some kind of biological tissue which we call brain which can produced something we call emotions? That's god work.
There is evil. And there is good. That's why heaven and hell exist.

God does show where is heaven, where is hell. How does it look. The existence of both. But when? Second last breath of every human being. And then the last breath, and bye-bye.

Who dictates the golden rule? Who dictates the universal morality? If universal morality says it's good for health to eat our own shit because it's still have some nutrition in it, will you do it?

People who do evil stuff and hide behind religion is the person who does not understand the religion at all or pretend it is his/her religion for their own mission/target.

Every person is good from birth. Maybe there's some ups and down in their life, but we need to find the good side of us. I didn't see any religious book says prostitute or bank robber or cheaters can't enter heaven if they asked God to forgive their sins.

Loopholes in religion is misinterpretation of others regarding certain religion. If you study well about religion, you will understand. Don't just by have a snippet or hear some hearsay, you ultimately decide you belief. Thats just so immature.

Why God need us to worship Him? Simple. To let us realize how weak we are and need God help in things we need to do or accomplish. We're not perfect. We not strong as elephant. We cannot fly like birds. We cannot swim as deep as blue whale. We cannot hear some thing like bats hear. We cannot see some things that cats and dogs did. Plus many other things.

God doesn't even need us to worship Him. His power and greatness doesn't even reduced by a micron or even smaller even when we doesn't worship Him.

Let's see. Numbers. If its true human created it, the why until now we do not find the beginning of numbers? The end of numbers? We humans just found it and use it for our comfort. Until now we only know the middle of number which is zero.

Some people says this religion is ridiculous, some say it fallacy, or to be exact, its human who preach the religion. Not from God Himself.

I think if there's a sentence written on the moon where we can see it but not reach it since old times and it says:

"Dude, God dos exist. You know that? I tell you, God do exist. It's somewhere. Find it and you will found it. Duh."

People will 100% believe there is God.

I believe in religion because:
-Religion content me from doing anything bad. Although sometimes our own natural desires surpass the limitations of religion, there's always a chance to redo it as long I believe it.
-I know who am I. I am weak. And I need God's help and protection in evitable/unevitable, unforeseen circumstances.

The core of morality itself come from the religion. Religion teach us to bury the dead, or burn the body to ashes, or other things, and people treat it from time to time and came out 'COMMON SENSE'.
Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

Who created God? Simple. God doesn't need to be created. God just exist. He is there. There's no beginning nor an end to Him. Every single part (even I don't know this can be call 'part or not) of Him are not same as us. Its power, its existence cannot be compared to anything. Because He is the Almighty, The Ultimate Creator. He does't have partner. limitations, emotions and such. New or old can't be related to God at all. He is there. And he's not be bound by mass, time and space. Since He is the One who create those three.

That thing can't be questioned. Every single existence has its own purpose in this world. People will asked 'why do we here?" and I believe that question is only can be answered by religious teaching. We do exist to follow the way of God and harness the goodness of Earth as good as we can. Mosquitoes have its own purpose. Flowers have its own purpose. Rocks have its own purpose.

Why do you need religion to lead a good life?
I lead a good life.
I don't commit crimes
I don't steal
I don't kill
I don't do things that will affect others adversely
I am not an *******.
Not enough?

To lead a good life must you pray every sunday or everyday for five times if your a muslim?
Must you give 10% of your salary to the church even though they are wealthy enough to feed the whole of africa? (Vatican)

So what if they have anal sex? They didn't force you to have anal sex with them right? Did they screw your ass hole? Is that why you are so homophobic?

I don't do any of the above cause it harms people.
Not because of parents, society norms, moral studies, books, movies or any others.
I do it because it comes naturally to me. It is in our nature.

A study was conducted recently on how a religious mind and non-religious mind reacts to a certain moral situation.
The results show that 90% of the people had the same answer.
Why do we need a book to tell us how to lead our lives when our basic human instincts are sufficient?

P/s: Morality came before religion.

in lord of the flies the kids become wild because they arrive at a place with no authority that enforce law and order, they did not become atheist and turn to violence due to godlessness. like how people turn to looting after earthquake in Chile when the police force are ineffective, but soon when order is restore, many of the looted items are returned during an amnesty period. the people of Chile does not become more religions and thus return the stolen good, they return it when law and order are restored.

alturism is not product of either civilization or religion, even insect have alturist society like ant colony.

Hmm, that is what you believe . . . and this is what I believe =D no offense .. er..I pray so that my family is safe, nothing bad happen to them? never ask for $$ from GOD.  Yea, I agree with you, mostly people like to ask something from their GOD during prayer especially chinese eg. wealth, knowledge, safety(like me) and etc. About that, I believe GOD wont help us on that, we have to work it out by ourself. =D nothing in this world belongs to you, if you're not hardworking enough to get it.

A man can claims that he's a buddhist, islam, christian or etc, doesn't mean he's a religious man, kind-hearted person, good man that doesn't do bad things.
Nowadays, monks, bomoh and etc uses religion to con people end up girls getting rape by those idiot monks or bomohs. This is not religion's fault. Is WE as a HUMANS's fault. So, don't blame religion, start blaming ourself. = )

Have you ever heard or see any religion says " you can kill, you can do whatever bad things you like and etc? " If got, you are allowed to blame that religion =D and I will be supporting you for 101%.
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If you're from Malaysia I bet you've studied moral subject from primary till secondary school. 1 question, those moral value come from where? ..