Quote Originally Posted by Gillamobster View Post
...dude... seriously? Here's something that keeps people from doing bad shit: THE POLICE. Society is constructed in such a way that bad shit gets punished and morality is spoon-fed to us.
Ah seriously man, the police aren't powerful enough. They're reactive rather than proactive with how they deal with crime for the better part. They get called after stuff in society happens.

And, by the way, it's called burden of proof. If you claim something exists, the burden of proof is on YOU to prove so, not on me to prove it doesn't. So cut the melodramatic emo crap and use some logic:
Trouble is most logic used to explain religion and the like is belief based. It defies most scientific logic, and that's what most seem to be after.

The notions of Heaven and Hell just reflect the primitive notion of binary morality: this is GOOD, GOOD things are GOOD, you do GOOD you go to GOOD place.
Can you prove the above from your previous post? That's just another belief, isn't it?

1. There is no evidence of any sort of afterlife
2. The notion of Heaven/Hell represents a very basic form of moral duality obviously necessary for societies that lacked he sort of enforcement abilities we have today
3. Societies can function without religion
1. Nothing concrete, no. But many believe it and do have a right to their own beliefs and opinions.
2. Maybe so, BUT it can't hurt in terms of people believing that their sins will be punished. Regardless of whether or not their sins will be punished. It's more proactive in that the fear may stop some from committing the crime.
3. That's debatable. For most if not all societies do involve religion to a huge extent. There's also that religious teachings often seem to become seen as morally correct and have entered our legal systems.

I'm pretty sure in Soviet Russia and the People's Republic of China, people don't wantonly murder each other any more than they do in the good 'ol Christian USA.
I'm pretty sure there would be a difference regardless. Different attitudes, different social taboos. Even without religion I believe the numbers would be quite different. I won't even pretend to know which are better or worse though.