Which Historical Figure Would You Erase From Existence?

Dreamer's Aly Cat:

What I meant was not the creation of man (which I'm totally on the fence about), but more that humans advanced with religion—something to "believe" in other than what we know for facts.

I wouldn't say advanced... I'd say it was humans' first ever attempt at philosophy. And then we had.. well, philosophy. Just like we had alchemy and that turned into chemistry. And astrology -> astronomy. Etc. I wouldn't say religion has helped the human race a great deal, other than being used to mindlessly fill gaps in knowledge that were too complicated to even begin to try and explain.

@ of dru's being.
From what I understand of the human race, humans are profoundly illogical for the most part. Besides, if God does not and did not exist then humans would simply invent it and get irked at others who do not follow the same path.

@ The Master.
Well, in my post I was implying humans would not invent God and without the invention of such, the world would be a better place.

@ of dru's being.
Trouble is...I already do not believe that God exists therefore it was essentially invented. Even if you do believe in God, there are a trillion gods out there that were essentially made up. It's part of our culture and even if you erase the real deal, the echo still forms.

hear dru's song.:

I would personally, even as a Christian, erase God. I think we would have less wars, hatred, and discrimination. I know this is an unusual answer because there's no proof he exists, but there is proof of the war waged in his name, which makes him exist at least as an invisible figurehead, if that make sense.

AMEN, SISTA!

I think someone else has already said it, but everything that's happened and all the people that have existed on this planet, good or bad, have led up to where we are today. I mean, go back in time and kill an ant and maybe WWII would never have started. Or, cut down a tree and we'd be on the brink of World War Seven or something. You have no idea what could happen by erasing God, Hitler, or Stalin from history. Maybe it would in the long run make everything much worse than if they had existed.

@ Zee's Lost Her Wits!
That's only if we assume that causality is strictly deterministic which I would argue is not entirely true.

Well, I wouldn't erase the concept of God personally. I'm an atheist myself, and believe strongly in evolution. As such I like to think that religion, being such a prominent part of human behavior, has some sort of survival benefit that helped us back when we were hunter-gatherers and subject to the full force of natural selection. From what I can tell, there are two major benefits.

The first is that it brings people together, at least people who belong to the same faith. It's kind of the glue that stuck the smaller tribes together. Sadly this system fell apart when explorations and culture-clashing started. (A side note, I also think this is one of the underlying drives behind the urge to convert people to your religion. More believers = stronger tribe.)

The second is that it gives people hope for the future in tough situations. It's a stress reducer, basically-- praying to a god or spirit or whathaveyou and believing that they will solve the problem tends to put people at ease. This is especially good for situations that we couldn't really do much about back then, such as famine or plague; the people who expended energy in a futile attempt to fix it themselves, or just gave up with no hope, had less chance of survival.

(Well, the third possible major benefit is that there is some sort of higher power and people who pray to it tended to get what they wanted more, therefore had a better chance at passing on their genes. But how the heck would I know?)

Anyway, what I think I'm saying here is that removing the concept of God from human history could very well have caused us to crumble before we even started farming. So removing it would be a bad idea, in my opinion.

More on topic, if I was going to erase anyone it would probably be Christopher Columbus, because he was a genocidal jerk who didn't even really discover America. Leif Erikson FTW. :P Although honestly I probably wouldn't erase anybody, who knows what could wipe you or a loved one or your favorite TV show out of existence?

@ Shiznit

I doubt it would have stopped the events of WW2, though.

On the topic of God, I feel like one of the worst things that could happen in the future is proving or disproving his existence.
All I can see erupting from that is total chaos & bloodshed.

This might sound racist as fuck...
Any European who came to America. I have a love hate (mostly hate) relationship of America and I think the Europeans who came here shaped it to be what it is today very well.

Ayana Sioux:

Any European who came to America. I have a love hate (mostly hate) relationship of America and I think the Europeans who came here shaped it to be what it is today very well.

So you'd erase the European settlers of North America, even though you also think they did very well shaping it? I'm confused.

@ Alex; periphery.
I said shaping it to be what it is today. Yes, they did that very well.

@ Ayana Sioux
So you like the way they shaped it to be what it is today? Or not? I'm still confused.

@ Alex; periphery.
I don't like it. I mean, I said if I wanted to erase them, that wouldn't mean I liked the way they made it to what it is. Basically I was sugar coating what I wanted to say.

@Zee: I agree completely.
Honestly, I'm not fond of erasing anyone. And as for erasing God, whether you believe there is one or not, where would we be without Him? And if you don't believe in Him, why bother erasing Him? Erasing God would not erase the concept of God, which is a lot of the time the cause of conflict.

I don't see God/god as a historical figure. Most religions view their god/gods as eternal, so they exist outside the limits of time. No beginning and no end. A constant. And like @ J.R.Ruthe said, erasing god won't put an end to religion. Especially since there is no way 'prove' he exists. And as for the wars and such that were/are caused by religion, I don't like removing religion from the equation would have prevented much. The Crusades could have very well been fought of trade routes.

And the idea of erasing people from history...just doesn't sit right with me. Whatever happened, happened.

J.R.Ruthe:

And as for erasing God, whether you believe there is one or not, where would we be without Him?

What do you mean by that?

J.R.Ruthe:

And if you don't believe in Him, why bother erasing Him? Erasing God would not erase the concept of God, which is a lot of the time the cause of conflict.

Well if one doesn't believe in God, then it's the concept of God that one would be talking about erasing. I don't believe in God, so it would be illogical for me to talk about erasing him/her/it as if he/she/it were real.

@ Alex; periphery.
I mean where would we be without some sort of religion. It's the basis for so many things, even anti-religion is a huge deal.
As for the second thing, you're right, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.