What would happen if we ALL shared the same religion?

[Botellines 0]

I have wondered often what would happen if we all shared the same religion. It doesn´t matter which, just as long as we all had the same.
I think that religion doesn´t focus on bringing people together, but bringing them apart. It focus on how we are right while theyare wrong. If we were all right, how right could we be without making the rest wrong? this is specially true for JW, but islamism and catholism are not far behind.

I think the religion would branch into diferent ones so we could keep fighting eachother.

Edited to fix some spelling because God told me to.

[mr2mk1g 10]

I think the Red Dwarf Cat-People episode is a great example.

The cat people arose from the pregnant Cat Frankenstein Lister hid in his laundry before being put into stasis. They evolved a religion based on the stories Lister used to tell Frankenstein about how he dreamed of opening a burger bar on Fiji, deifying Lister as “Cloister”.

After millennia of evolution the cat people were finally destroyed by wars between two factions of this one religion – one side believing that the little paper hats to be used in the burger bar would be blue, the other red. (Lister lamented on this fact as they were in fact to be green). Finally, after many years of war, each faction set out from Red Dwarf in giant arks in search of the Promised Land – Fushal.

One ark was almost immediately destroyed when the occupants made use of a sacred text handed down by Cloister himself as directions to the promised land. This text was in fact Lister’s laundry list.

Whilst this was of course merely a geniusly funny act of comedy, I feel it provides a nice little commentary on humanity and religion. No matter what way you look at it (from the atheist or theist point of view), mankind will always pervert the true meaning of things and find reasons to kill each other and argue over the trivial detail.

How different is an argument over the colour of paper hats in the promised land to an argument over whether our churches are to be gordy and decorated or plane and somber? Both have killed thousands (ie in the Cat world and in humanities centuries of strife between protestant and catholic)

At the end of the day, whether religion is a figment of our imagination, or truly a work of the divine, we will always find ways to fuck things up and turn it into a reason to kill one another.

(and yes I do now feel sad for being able to recite the entire plot of a single episode of Red Dwarf)

[miked10270 0]

The "Cat-People" wars are covered slightly differently in the book "Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers".

The religious war exploded when one faction believed that they awaited the return if Clister who would take them & lead them back to the promised land; Bearth. The other faction believed exactly the same thing but called him C'Lister!

Then there's the whole "Life of Brian" sketch. "Follow the Cap!" "Follow the Sandal!"

I'm not sure that all having the same religion would really matter all that much. There's still skin colour / Accent / Nose shape / Eye shape / Hair colour /What your ancestors did to my ancestors / They stole our sheep / They talk funny / They're WELSH!!! (No... Wait a minute... That last one is justified.)

Mike.

Mike.

Taking the piss out of the FrenchAmericans since before it was fashionable.

Prenait la pisse hors du FrançaisCanadiens méridionaux puisqu'avant lui à la mode.

[airdweller 0]

What would happen if we ALL shared the same religion?


Life would be boring

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"From the mightiest pharaoh to the lowliest peasant,
who doesn't enjoy a good sit?" C. Montgomery Burns

[Tonto 1]

Well - look at Ireland. They're all Christians. Doesn't stop the bombs though, does it?

t

It's the year of the Pig.

[pajarito 0]

Sharing the same religion doesn't eliminate the underlying problem of people's basic selfish nature. We are all imperfect and problems will most assuredly continue.

[GARYC24 3]

If we all shared the 'same' religion.
I think there would be more accountability held with our brothers and sisters.

[JohnRich 4]

Quote

I have wondered often what would happen if we all shared the same religion.

Any time you put three people together, two of them will gang-up against the third...

The ability of humans to find ways to hate and discriminate against others is boundless.



Have a nice day!

[Andrewwhyte 1]

Europe used to enjoy that homogenaity; it was called the dark ages.

[complexity 0]

TO be honest, my first thought... we'd be WAYYYY overpopulated... as most of the wars through the centuries have been due to religious differences and in the "name of God" or whatever side one was on...

[SpeedRacer 1]

It's always puzzled me how easily people are distracted by religion, thinking that if we didn't have it, there would be no more reasons to go to war.

The 20th century proved otherwise. The worst wars & purges the world had ever seen, and none of the major ones were about religion at all.

Take religion away entirely, and there are still assholes out there who start wars.

Speed Racer
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[billvon 2,450]

> TO be honest, my first thought... we'd be WAYYYY overpopulated...

We'd still find ways to kill ourselves. One day a group of East African christians would discover that Norwegian christians ate their eggs small end first, and there would be a glorious crusade to rid the world of the perverts who flout God's laws in that way. The Norwegians, of course, would retaliate against the Big Endians.

Fast forward 1000 years, and the Big Endians would be launching endless terrorist attacks against the Small Endians who now occupy part of East Africa, which was given to them as recompense for the original Big Endians' aggression. "It's our land! We were here first!"

"Ancient history!" the Small Endians would say. "We've been here for a generation, and we were here eons ago anyway."

Religion would, of course, be the big issue. The Big Endians would claim the Small Endians are suicidal religious-extremist lunatics because they sing a hymn with the lyrics:

". . . As he died to make men holy
Let us die to make men free
While God is marching on!"

The Small Endians would claim that the Big Endians were out to take over the world, and that they want to subjugate woman and kill all gays and mental defectives. They'd point to Leviticus to prove their point.

And if they didn't have eggs to argue over, they'd discover that they clip their toenails from largest to smallest. And if they don't clip their toenails they'd part their hair on the wrong side. Only the details change.

[SpeedRacer 1]

hey, c'mon now bill, wasn't there a 17th century author that thought of that first?

Speed Racer
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