No, those are garbage. :tongue: God took care of those two.
Duly expected, noted, and disregarded.
Interesting to discuss, but this coule never happen. Even if contemporary religions were all eradicated, humans would construct something else to replace it, and that new creation would be religion of some sort. Look at the Native North American society - they had no Christian contact, but had created various intricate religions. Their religions, which developed through the generations, were central to their society. Nearly everything had a religious significance.
I've read at the periphery about a 'God-gene' (or whatever it's being called) that's hypothesized to instill humans into believing in something; something like that would certainly explain how, as in your example, almost every civilization came up with their own 'Gods'. That Yalweh/Jehovah still survives past Zeus, Jupiter and the tricky Raven is simply a product of which believers had the bigger guns, so to speak.
It's curious to ponder what the evolutionary reason for such a thing could have been. Regardless, I think it's obsolete now, like our appendix. Of course, evolution has left us with many obsolete things, and just because they're obsolete doesn't make them any less a part of us.
Those who believe they have no religion are deluded. Everyone ascribes to some type of religion, be it Christian, Muslim, Humanist, etc. etc. etc.. Something is central in your life, and there is some form of worship. For many people, work fulfills this basic need.
I disagree, mostly semantically; I see 'religion' as a dogmatic doctrine characterized by a faith in something of a higher power. Everyone has at least a philosophy, however - the main difference, as I'm using it, is a philosophy requires no faith. A religion is a philosophy, but not all philosophies are religions...this is how I see it, anyway.
So, I think that a world with no religion would be a pretty scarey place. Everyone would be seeking desperately for something to believe in, something to cleave to, and those who seek to exploit and take power would have an easy way to do so. Think **** Germany, and you'll get some idea of that which I speak.
As much as I'd like to disagree, I'm not sure that I can; all I can do at this point is ask why: Why aren't people strong enough to stand on their own?
Sigmund Freud wrote a whole book more or less on the subject:
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. I read a couple excerpts some years back when I was studying this topic, but never got around to reading the whole thing. I should fix that...