mike_decock

There are laws prohibiting adultery but that probably isn't related to disease.

If I remember correctly, the Greeks did suffer from plagues, but I don't know what era that referred to.

They may have blamed the disease on evil spirits, but many of the rituals that were most widely practiced were scientifically sound: burning the bodies of the dead, etc. There was also certain superstitions: tea was "healthy", but it was really because they boiled the water, etc.

I'm not convinced that we'd be toast by now. So far we've gotten away with having nukes and we're not toast, right? I've spoken to a few experts on nuclear warfare, and even at the peak of the cold war, we wouldn't have been able to destroy all life on the planet if we wanted to. Even so, where the nukes were aimed would not have ended all human life. If it had happened, it probably wouldn't have set mankind back to the dark ages, most scientific knowledge is fairly well documented and distributed.

Many of the greatest technological advancements were developed for warfare. This is still the case today (internet, microwaves, etc).

The Greeks were the first civilization I can recall that demonstrated a real interest in discovering scientific principles out of curiosity. What non-scientific purpose was there in calculating the circumference of the earth or determining that the earth revolved around the sun? This knowledge was lost for about 2,000 years and the advances in the past 500 years eclipse the advances in the previous 5,000 years.

Let me put it this way: assuming we don't self-destruct, how far will science and technology be 2,000 years from now? Had we not taken a 2,000 year hiatus, that's where we would be now.

-Mike...

johngalt

The way i look at it, religion has held back science the most out of any field of study. I think that our present civilization would be hundreds of years ahead than it is now today if it weren't for religion. A few of the examples that come to mind are Copernicus and Galileo.

Infidelettante

Please don't go to any trouble on my account. Really. Please.

Infidelettante

He is one of my most admired people so I think you are right GD.

Jamie_L

People can clearly be good or bad and be religious. That would indicate to me that religion is not a determining factor in whether or not someone is good or bad. They are good or bad for other reasons, and they bring that to their religion.

IMO, religion is a forum wherein people are discouraged from critically examining moral choices and encouraged to rely on the judgement of authority figures. This is why I believe people in general would be morally better off without religion muddying the waters.

Jamie

yguy

As I see it, it would depend on why we abandoned religion. There appear to be two reasons to do so: because you don't want it, as a child doesn't want to be told to clean up his room; or because you don't need it, being mature enough to clean your room without being told. If we ditch religion for the first reason, we'll have Hell on Earth; if we ditch it for the second reason, we'll have Heaven on Earth.

fatherphil

not much different than it is today.

lpetrich

Radorth bragging about how irreligious he is.

lpetrich

mike_decock:
Wouldn't the religious disapproval of promiscuous sex have been replaced with a "social" disapproval of promiscuous sex? Even if STDs weren't technically understood, the effects would have been observed and a link between disease and promiscuity would have been detected.

Seems like an attribution of too much rationality -- I think that there might be some psychological quirk behind hostility to perceived indiscriminate sex.

It may be something like the way we like love affairs for ourselves, but not for our partners.

Eudaimonist

Well put!