If religion were wiped out tomorrow, human beings would find substitute communities for the churches. You, or others, have stated that religion is a source of a lot of human suffering. I contend that the real cause of the fighting in the name of religion is communities feeling threatened by those that are different.sleeper;1385154 wrote:I'll ignore the unproven assumptions that the afterlife is infinite because a statement that states the afterlife is "X" has the same validity and proof no matter what you make X.
To answer your question, no I still will not murder regardless if the law of the land allowed me to do so. I find it to be a broken question because there would be social reprocussions since killing someone else who have a material impact on your ability to achieve happiness in life. For example, if I kill someone from family "Y", they might have a vested interest in making sure I don't have a happy life. In reverse, if I prevent someone from family "Y" from getting killed they will likely have a vested interest in keeping me happy and protected.
There is a social fabric that binds us as human and being religious accomplishes none of that sort. In fact, being religious inbreeds a sense of division since one is simply an infidel if they don't maintain the same belief system. A world without religion would be much better off as those who choose to murder, steal, etc. would have a bad time and be unlikely able to survive long enough to reproduce; whereas those who treat their fellow humans well would have the ability to reproduce more causing more and more self-reinforcing societal norms to become prevalent.
Whenever humans count themselves as members of a community - a religion, a country, a sex, a school, etc., they inevitably find enemies of those who are not members. The cause of war is this human primative instinct. Wiping out religion would do nothing to eliminate it.
