It’s difficult for me to write a paper that is largely based opinion without inserting some biased conclusions. With that being said, I have made some mistakes in drawing some of my conclusions. Just to reiterate, my topic is on religion (mainly organized religion) and what I’m attempting to examine is whether it is helping or hindering the advancement of human society as a whole. Or, to put it another way, would society be more humane without organized religion(s). My opinion is yes. I think that the organized religion was something that was created by people in the upper class to keep the commoners in line. After watching Intelligence Squared debates, TED Talks, and reading articles online, I believe that government (statutory law) and religion (divine law) originated at the same time. The statutory laws were implemented (often by a legislation) to maintain order. But what happens when government officials aren’t watching? That’s where God comes into play. A higher being that sees everything you do and if he sees you do bad things, you’ll be punished in some way or another.
The flaw in some of my arguments (and those of athiest scholars) is that when I’m crtitiquing Holy Books and their followers, I’m using a literal translation of the books. This is detrimenal for a couple reasons. The first is that the books have been translated and re-translated and translated some more. This makes for inaccurate renditions of excerpts. The second is that a good portion of people who are affiliated with a religion don’t read it word for word and take the books literally. This argument was used by Dinesh D’Souza in the Intelligence Squred debate on if “The World Would Be Better Off Without Religion.” The side that was for the motion was critisizing the use of religion by reading sections of The Bible word for word, whereas the side against the motion was paraphrasing. I feel as though I have made a similar mistake in taking a Biblical Literalist approach to this topic.