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POLL Do you believe religions are a way of population control?

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Do you believe religions are a way of population control?

  • Yes

    Votes: 21 72.4%
  • No

    Votes: 5 17.2%
  • Not sure

    Votes: 3 10.3%

  • Total voters
    29
Do you believe religions are a way of population control?
yes, like all the belief systems...

for more about how the so called "society" works I'd recommend Konrad Lorenz - Das Sogenannte Bose (On Aggression), in more popular form Harari - Sapiens and especially latest stuff by Jason Lowery
 
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I think religions can be used to increase or decrease a population.
If you favor imigration or benifits for one or more religions you can predict changes in the future due to this. Even conflicts can be triggered by religion to kill off large portion of the population.
History has many examples were religion was the focal point in many wars.
 
Religion in all its forms is a type of mental illness, but religious people will call it "having faith."

Having said that, people should be free to believe and worship whomever, or whatever they choose (feel free to worship a rock, a frog, or anything your mind desires) as long as you don't hurt anyone, or judge others for having different believes, or not having a particular belief. Sadly this is rarely the case (too many people have died fighting for their faith.)

At the same time, religion has become a business that in some cases can be extremely profitable (I won't name anyone out of respect for their followers.)

*I hope I didn't offend anyone, but choosing to believe in something or someone that only exist in your mind is a type of mental illness, which is not necessarily a bad thing (I have a long list of mental illnesses as well, being religious is just not one of them.)
 
Can you give some examples of each? (and maybe their definition)
What I mean is that most of the famous religions are based on helpful principles, for the most part. The problem is, how to actually apply those in regards to one situation and how "think" within them.

Many principles get taken out of context, things get adapted to be more "commercially viable" and digestible and strip out the critical thinking part in them. If one's lucky, and can find an helpful Priest or Rabbi or equivalent figure, in a closed setting, non mainstream, one can sensibly integrate the teachings of religion. And this over the long term, creates more stability and longer term success in my view.

I see it's a bit of a controversial opinion, however I hope someone can relate to this
 
Yes, it's also the number 1 reason why people are divided. One will hate another mans religion but not the billionaire that's dumping radioactive waste in their backyard.
If it was not for religion people would find another reason to hate each other. Color of their skin, color of their hair, their culture. Whatever. Religion just makes it easy because it's so popular. A small example is sports. Extreme fans will often hate fans of other teams for no more reason than that they're a fan of another club. Same thing, smaller radius.

That being said religion is just one of many ways individuals use to control a large crowd of gullible/scared people. Again this is not a thing that is exclusive to religion and also any religion is often very divided in how they understand and exercise their beliefs. There is no real leader who acts as an entity for an entire religion. It's split up upon thousands of small communites who all have their own leader who in many cases pursue only their personal wellbeing.

Whenever there's a group of people who follow the same interest you'll find someone who will try to take the lead only to feed their need of attention and worship. That's just the human nature.
 
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It's amazing how you guys can get off topic on a simple question. Religion's for obvious reasons will be a endless topic but the power to control a population via a belief can alter the politics of cities or even nations. You could also argue this is one way to conquer over generations without the need to fight. I would argue our world is driven by power and money.
 
I hope I didn't offend anyone, but choosing to believe in something or someone that only exist in your mind is a type of mental illness
Well, by that logic believing in most societal constructs (for instance, laws - which are just ideas that people agreed upon) is a mental illness

It's amazing how you guys can get off topic on a simple question. Religion's for obvious reasons will be a endless topic but the power to control a population via a belief can alter the politics of cities or even nations. You could also argue this is one way to conquer over generations without the need to fight. I would argue our world is driven by power and money.
The topic is pretty weird. OP might as well ask if people believe 2x2 = 4. These days even kids understand that religion is a form of control. What makes religion tempting despite that realization is simply fear of death/desire to have a higher entity that would make things right, like our parents used to do for us when we were kids. Religions are simply stories we as humanity tell ourselves to cope with reality, if we weren't naturally predisposed to desire those stories, they wouldn't have existed. But once those stories emerged, of course, people figured out they are too good of a tool to ignore and not to co-opt
 
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