by After learning about many religious conflicts, I would always think why we need religion in 21st century. We can have law and order maintained by law enforcement and most natural phenomenons can be explained by science today. However, they both fall short at some place and thats where I think we need religion.
Science and religion explains very different things. Science would explain how and what a structure is made of e.g. science can explain what our body is made of and how our heart or other body parts function. However, it would not explain what should be behavior of a person in the society. The behavior is very important because if we do not have co-operation in the society, its going to fail.
Co-operation has been really essential for human evolution. Humans would hunt in groups and would take down powerful animals in hunting. They would also farm in groups making agriculture possible. If we did not have co-operation in our society, we might have not been able to survive initially in the wild. Religion helps us build a co-operative society wherein people can meet at religious gathering and help each other wherever possible.
Religion also helps us to make better decisions. Religion has a lot of stories which are deeply ingrained in our heads which teach us experience of others. When making decisions in real life, a lot of times we rely on our’s or someone else decisions in similar situation. Religion has series of records of solutions or ideas which have worked previously. Some would really argue that circumstances in 21st century are unique and solutions cannot be derived from religion, sure use science to figure out the best way-out.
However, I also believe that even in 21st century we face a lot of challenges where we can find some common grounds with problems or situations explained in religion. Further, religion has been around for thousands of years and I am sure we can still learn something from it. At-least, it deserves some credit of leading us to where we are today.
Now, what about the bad things which are done in name of religion? I believe that religion is just an excuse given by people to do bad stuff. Further, every religion is different and there are various flavors of one religion. There will be bad people doing bad things like abusing power and corruption and brain washing kids. I believe, we cannot get rid of these behaviors with or without religion.
There are various other aspects of religion too like god, after-life etc. Let’s park them for the time being.
Well written mate
Thoughtful!