what is the greatest threat to mankind???
Great question.
So I thought about it .. What is my answer to what is the greatest threat to mankind?
I think it might be people’s lack of thinking for oneself.
Bad things happen when people don’t think for themselves. When people outsource their thinking to others, genocide happens.
There is a school of thought that most people CAN’T think for themselves and that the masses should be governed be the elites. Not only do I think that is wrong but that line of thinking is also extremely dangerous. Because once you convince people they shouldn’t think for themselves and they should think what you think … then that person is very susceptible to be easily influenced by others. Cults are generally not good … even cool Silicon Valley cults (like Google) can have their drawbacks.
When people think for themselves they need to take the first step and assume that they might be wrong and that some of their prejudices might be wrong. For thinking for oneself means evaluating the data available and coming to a conclusion. One could still reach a very bad conclusion … but one has a much better chance of helping themselves and helping society of they just think.
I think what you’re saying is closer to Sam’s reasoning than you realise: Religion is all about surrendering your individuality to a larger group and relying on the ideology or dogma of your religious leader.
One thing that perhaps makes religion more dangerous than a non-religious cult (like Google 😉 is that a religion is harder to break out of due it its deeper roots, i.e. it might have a hold on your family and friends, too.
But the question goes way beyond religion, and I agree with you on that point. If we abolished organised religion without giving anybody the ability to think for themrselves we’ll have gone exactly nowhere. Yes, individual thought is good.
Like your notion of the perils of “outsourcing thinking”, but I think the problem may run deeper in that ultimately as selfish primates we tend to do what we want to do and rationalize that behavior in various ways later.
There are many example of barbarity by very religious groups (e.g. Taliban, crusades) and very atheistic groups (e.g. Stalin, Mao).
Unfortunately I’m not sure you can say that “individualistic” thinkers are less prone to violence, they are just less prone to get the critical mass needed to incite mobs to riot… but maybe that is a virtue?
Greatest threat to mankind is the attitude that people are expendable.
In disregarding death, all manner of presumptions concerning life are possible – including abortion, suicide, murder, or physical and emotional neglect.
It would be a profound inside out interpretation of the human condition that would discredit the concept of “brotherly love” long rooted in every religion that permits selective survival, the ultimate Darwinian premise of humanity in a jungle of its own making – to determine the fittest. It would be the equivalent of a wholesale war upon each other, the ultimate predatory society – where anything goes.