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Topic: What do you think is the most important idea put forth by judaism, christianity or islam to western society and why?

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11

"You shall have no other gods before me" pretty much sums up a me first attitude.  I think there are too many contradictory scenes in most religious works, that while some may say "love one another," in another passage directly following it, that might not be necessarily so. 

In light of the sense we get from reading religious works and finding individual advice, the most important is still one god, and no others (before.)

12

In an ideal world, the point of any religion is to nourish the social side of human nature.  All religions divide the world into good and evil, right and wrong, do's and don'ts. And the purpose of religion is to reward good behaviour with feelings of approval, support, security and well-being and an ultimate promise of a happy-ever-afterlife.

We all experience moments in our lives that we could call 'spiritual' or 'divine'. Love, beauty, truth, happiness, one-ness and so on. These moments are wonderful, but they are fleeting and easily lost. Religion should help us focus on this spiritual side of our humanity and encourage us to develop our emotional intelligence and empathy, sympathy, self-awareness, etc.

The central message of the three Abrahamic religions, when you have stripped away all the voodoo and tribal stories and proto-legal systems is very very simple social contract...

Love thy neighbour.

(because this instruction contains a simple appeal to reason; the unvoiced quid pro quo that you, as your neighbour's neighbour, will then also be loved.)

The most important idea of religion is to make me realise that killing you and stealing your things is ultimately not in anyone's long-term best interests, not even mine.

13

Religions are memes.

There is general agreement among cognitive scientists that a propensity to follow religions evolved early in human history. However, there is disagreement on the exact mechanisms that drove the evolution of the religious mind. There are two schools of thought. One is that religion evolved due to natural selection by directly conferring some sort of evolutionary advantage.

The other hypothesis posits that religion is an evolutionary byproduct, a neurological accident. Stephen Gould believed that religion was a byproduct of other psychological mechanisms that evolved by conferring evolutionary benefits, but that religion itself confers no particular benefit on its followers.

Religious memes are particularly strong memes.  They pass from parent to child and across a single generation through proselytism. Most will hold their parent's religion throughout their life. Many religions feature adversarial elements, punishing apostasy or demonizing infidels. Believers view the conversion of non-believers both as a religious duty and as an act of altruism. The promise of eternity in heaven to believers or hell to non-believers provides a strong incentive to accept and retain Christian faith.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme

14

dkgarran

It's important to not lose sight of the fact that these are the world's three Abrahamic religions and the world's only monotheistic religions. The most important idea put forth by all three religions is the belief in a single, all-powerful diety.

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