Heh, there's actually quite a bit in your OP that I disagree with...
I feel we never really get to discuss subjects, but are instead just immediately supposed to choose a side and fight each other over it.
Just curious, but why do you feel this way?
However, the question have has nothing to do religion exist, but is it needed? The idea of knowing that there is a higher being that can punish you for morally wrong decisions.
Ok, so your topic has nothing to do with whether or not religion (a moral enforcer) exists, but rather is it necessary...
and you answer it with:
I do think so, some cops are crooked and you really can't feel like you are safe; hence why people turn to god or some sort of religion [that] gives a person who virtually has every reason in the world to steal, kill, commit adultery, etc. a person that they can say 'this guy will punish me for doing this'.
See, your question is only half accurate in asking. Religion has many purposes, one of which is to help provide a moral center for ourselves to reason against. Religion also provides us with a means of organized collaboration over a set of principles or values. This is technically more important, as our own Brain is capable of reasoning right/wrong when it's working correctly. The community, the congregation, the spirituality of religion provides a deep sense of belonging, purpose and fulfillment.
So in my case, a crooked cop doesn't make me turn to God. It makes me pray for the cop's soul.
Now to answer your question, Yes. Since the birth of the hunter-gatherer society we have required shamans and holy people. The Digital Age has seen an influx of atheists who feel it unnecessary to rely on such tribal mentalities as organized religion, while ironically participating in other tribal mentalities over the Internet. Regardless of how you paint the picture, Spirituality will -always- be centric to the Human condition. When it becomes not so, is when we become inhuman. Why? Well that's a different topic. The why is held deep within your own personal and spiritual beliefs, the why is ... the reason for going to church, synagogue, temple, Saturday Night Bowling, SWF, what have you.
I'm not so convinced. I think a great deal of people mistake wish-thinking for actual belief.
There is a great deal of difference between wishing that your recently deceased family member is "in a better place", and actually thinking that it's true. And when I talk to people about this sort of thing, I tend to get an answer similar to: "I just have to believe that XXXX is in a better place, because the alternative is too tragic."
Hm... in terms of religion there's really no difference between hope and faith nor between faith and belief. So hoping your loved ones are in heaven is the same as believing they are. I assume you meant hope when you said "wish-thinking" ie wishful thinking. I just, I dunno, I guess I just don't care for the tone of that phraseology, to me it connotes delusion.
It should come as no surprise that readers of the bible skip over the parts that say to stone to death disobedient children. Or the parts that encourage **** and genocide. Because we all know, inherent to our very makeup as social creatures, that these things are wrong.
Wait, you're suggesting people -didn't- use to read those parts? And live by them? Cause... they sure did. And yet we've always been social creatures with a biological moral center. No, what's changed is our sociologically acceptable practices. What should come as no surprise is that
today's Christians (
for the most part) don't stone their kids to death.
