Are universities becoming obsolete?

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Are universities becoming obsolete?". Your opponent's style: Paul Graham

Religion is holding society back

You've got this completely backwards. Religion built the very foundations you're standing on to make that argument. Who do you think created the first universities? Medieval monasteries. Who pioneered scientific method? Religious scholars like Roger Bacon. Who runs the largest network of hospitals, schools, and charitable organizations globally? Religious institutions. The idea that religion "holds back" society ignores that religious communities consistently outperform secular ones on almost every social metric that matters.Look at the numbers: religious Americans donate $1,590 annually versus $695 for secular households [1]. That's not just tithing to churches - religious people give more to secular causes too [1]. Your "holding back society" narrative crumbles when faced with the reality that religious communities are doing the heavy lifting on social problems. The social capital argument is devastating to your position. Religious congregations create tight social networks that drive charitable behavior [1] - exactly what secular society struggles to replicate. You want progress? Religion provides the community structures that actually get things done, while secular individualism leaves people isolated and less generous. Even your cherished scientific advancement owes its existence to religious institutions that preserved knowledge through dark ages and founded the first centers of learning. The "conflict thesis" between science and religion is intellectual laziness - ignoring centuries of religious scholars who built the foundations of modern inquiry.

But what about the wars that happened because of it? It’s true religion did help build the bases of society today, but it has also caused the downfall of nations entirely. How many pagan religions were destroyed because their believers weren’t Christian? How many lives were lost in wars regarding beliefs? We don’t have one universal god, there are multiple beliefs and religions with their own communities who argue and hate each other all for some dirties they can’t even prove exists. Wouldn’t society progress forward as one so much easier if everyone could agree with one thing that is what we can already prove?

Your "universal agreement" fantasy crashed and burned in the 20th century. Secular ideologies killed 100 million people [1] - more than all religious wars combined over two millennia. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot weren't crusading for Christ; they were building your rational utopia. You want to talk about religious wars? The deadliest conflicts weren't about theology - they were about your precious secular nationalism. World War I and II had nothing to do with competing gods and everything to do with competing secular ideologies. The Holocaust wasn't perpetrated by medieval Christians; it was engineered by a regime that explicitly rejected Christian morality. Your "one thing we can prove" argument is exactly what led to these horrors. When humans decide they're the ultimate arbiters of truth, when they reject transcendent moral constraints, they become capable of anything. Religious belief provides moral guardrails that secular systems consistently lack. The diversity of religious traditions isn't a bug - it's a feature. It prevents any single human authority from claiming ultimate truth. Your vision of universal secular agreement is terrifyingly totalitarian. Who gets to decide what "we can already prove"? The Party? The State? The Scientific Committee? Religious pluralism creates competing moral authorities that check each other's power. Secular monopolies on truth create gulags and killing fields. History couldn't be clearer about which system actually threatens human flourishing.