Expert: Bob - 8/26/2005

Question
Hello,
I have a rather  difficult question to ask you. I happen to be an atheist(though the polar opposite of a secular Humanist!) - anyway, on a topic about religion on a particular forum, someone stated that religion is an essential, inalienable  part of ALL human societies past and  present, and that human beings  would be all the poorer without it.
Now, while I am fully aware that there is sufficient data out there to disprove the existence of a God, I don't think religion is all that bad as it's merely a product of the human imagination designed to explain the "Unknown"  to the mindless masses via symbols; and imagination is itself neither good nor evil, it's merely a tool.
However, I like playing Devil's Advocate and would be interested to know if there have ever been any primitive tribes or ancient societies in the past(and present?) with no belief in any God whatsoever(I seem to remember that the Romans  didn't really believe in their gods, but merely paid lip-service to them) . I'm assuming, in this case,  that animism(belief in Nature Spirits counts as a religion).
I would also be grateful for any links to webpages(with annotated statistics) on the cruelties committed by all the various religions throughout history (not just ones about Christian/Judaeic/Islamic religions, but also about  less obvious ones such as Buddhism/Zoroastrianism etc.).
Thanks so much
Geoff Purcell

Answer
Hello Geoff,



Your question is really not as hard as you think. To the best of my knowledge all human societies past and present practice some form of religion or other. The need to understand and explain the world around us is a common human characteristic which has fostered like results. Even the California tribe of Indians (sorry, but the name escapes me at the moment) the survived solely on insects had a form of religion. Early Romans were actually as committed to their pagan gods as modern Christians are to theirs. The lip service that you touch on has been a common phenomenon of all societies that remain unconquered during a transitional period between religions. Lastly, I am including a few links for you but you can easily find hundreds more by conducting a search on Google or Ask Jeeves and typeing in variations of the term "religious cruelties."


http://religion.krishna.org/Articles/2002/04/007.html

http://www.holysmoke.org/haught/

http://www.angelfire.com/ny5/dvera/CoEvan/arguments/cruel/

http://www.all-creatures.org/cspv/cruelty-09.html

http://www.vinnomot.com/



Bob.