Religion isn't Bad -

[)O( Hytegia )O(]

There's one thing I despise as much as zealot fundies...

People who are stuck upon the definition which says (without fail):
"Religion is a detriment to society, has never done any good, has cast out human rights, only creates conflict and wars, and should be stomped out in it's entirety."

Just because most religions do does not mean that every person of that faith does - and not even all religions do. Religion has done plenty of people good in the past, and it will continue to do people good in the future if handled with care and as a worldview.
Not ALL Christians are ridiculously fundamental. Not ALL Muslims are strapping bombs to themselves. Not ALL Priests enjoy alter boys. Not ALL Mormons are peeking over your fence and badgering you to death.

This is an example of why one should not judge the entirety based upon the actions of the uneducated and fueled by the supreme. People have brains, and it gives me hope for humanity to see people use them. If taken from an educated and modern person, a Christian can become a biologist, a Muslim can be an advocate for human rights, a Priest can be abstinent, and the Mormon can mind their own business and do good in the rest of the community as a whole.

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On this board at least once, I was told that I am mentally incompetent compared to an atheist, and that my mental reasoning was inherently flawed because I am Religious. I was not only offended, but baffled that someone could stake the claim that I should be treated lower than an atheist in regards to job status and pay (no matter how well I performed).

Please, everyone post at least one GOOD thing religion does for society in general.

 

[AdmiralPeacock]

Please, everyone post at least one GOOD thing religion does for society in general.

They eventually go extinct.

 

[RedYellow]

I agree to an extent, but I don't think there's a point in saying what religion does that's good, because we all know why it does good things when it does, and that's usually out of obligation toward a deity. I only care about people and why they do things, not religions.


I'm not impressed that religion coerces people into being good. The point of morality to me is that there doesnt have to be an external incentive to help people. You can do it simply because you choose to.

 

[FaithlessThinker]

Racking up good things about something doesn't make it good as a whole either.

Perhaps religion isn't 100% bad, but religion is unnecessary for humankind. If the whole world says goodbye to religion, the world will still go on as normal without it. But the same cannot be said for food or politics, for example.

Also, religion could be a by-product of evolutionary mechanisms that are utilized by human beings as a species. A few of such mechanisms which could have produced religion as their by-product has been quite nicely described by Dawkins in his book The God Delusion. I suggest you give it a read.

While I sympathise that you have been regarded as ignorant because you're religious (because correlation does not mean causation), such wrong regard from atheists comes directly from the effect religions have on their adherants. Religions tend to put a pause, or even a complete stop on the critical thinking process of a human being that follows them.

And I agree with AdmiralPeacock, religions will eventually go extinct as the extent of human knowledge increases, and as future generations become less vulnerable to blind acceptance. I'm just sad that I may not live long enough to see that day.

 

[lrkun]

There's one thing I despise as much as zealot fundies...

People who are stuck upon the definition which says (without fail):
"Religion is a detriment to society, has never done any good, has cast out human rights, only creates conflict and wars, and should be stomped out in it's entirety."

Just because most religions do does not mean that every person of that faith does - and not even all religions do. Religion has done plenty of people good in the past, and it will continue to do people good in the future if handled with care and as a worldview.
Not ALL Christians are ridiculously fundamental. Not ALL Muslims are strapping bombs to themselves. Not ALL Priests enjoy alter boys. Not ALL Mormons are peeking over your fence and badgering you to death.

This is an example of why one should not judge the entirety based upon the actions of the uneducated and fueled by the supreme. People have brains, and it gives me hope for humanity to see people use them. If taken from an educated and modern person, a Christian can become a biologist, a Muslim can be an advocate for human rights, a Priest can be abstinent, and the Mormon can mind their own business and do good in the rest of the community as a whole.

--------------

On this board at least once, I was told that I am mentally incompetent compared to an atheist, and that my mental reasoning was inherently flawed because I am Religious. I was not only offended, but baffled that someone could stake the claim that I should be treated lower than an atheist in regards to job status and pay (no matter how well I performed).

Please, everyone post at least one GOOD thing religion does for society in general.

I agree. Not all religion are bad. What's bad is if it is applied in a manner that impedes science and technology.

 

[masterjedijared]

I see the argument in the OP is more to the effect that people aren't bad. I wouldn't say that religious people are de facto unintelligent though. A good friend of mine (not the one I got into a discussion about global warming...) is a very rational and educated person but also a deist who like the Trinity. I respect him more for his overall appreciation for rationality than the one thing he holds on faith.

As far as religions go... well I personally don't see their inherent value AS THOUGHT SYSTEMS. There is generally more efficient methods to do anything that is meaningful secularly than religiously.

So, I guess I'm saying that people don't need religion to do good or bad things. Therefore, I am in complete doubt that when someone -even a religious person -does something good that it's for religious reasons. Religions are not a reason to establish intellectual standards but they aren't good for humanity either.

 

[Giliell]

Christmas, Easter, St. Nick's Day, St. Martin's Day, Halloween.
I love them, all of. No matter which religion invented them, they were still invented by religious people. That's the good thing.

Now the inherently bad thing: Belief without evidence. I think to have people who take some quite extraordinary claims on trust without a shred of evidence is a very bad and dangerous thing, because it always makes those people suceptible to other dangerous faith-based irrational beliefs such as "Jews are greedy", "Black people are less intelligent than white people" "Co2 is natural and therefore not bad for our planet".
This may not be true for the OP, but for a lot of people. Religion creates the slots in the mind for such beliefs.

But nevertheless, I don't care so much about what people believe but about what they do.
I said in a comment that if I had the choice between a world in which everybody had food, shelter, medical care, free speech, human rights, education, a good job and 95% believers, and a world just like ours only with 95% ateists, I'd go for the former.
Of course I'd prefer the combination of good world plus atheism, but just in case I'd have to decide, atheism would lose.

 

[Laurens]

It's inspired some pretty awesome art.

 

[masterjedijared]

Oh, I do have to agree with the art for sure. Some holidays are pretty spiffy too ^_^

 

[televator]

I agree to an extent, but I don't think there's a point in saying what religion does that's good, because we all know why it does good things when it does, and that's usually out of obligation toward a deity. I only care about people and why they do things, not religions.


I'm not impressed that religion coerces people into being good. The point of morality to me is that there doesnt have to be an external incentive to help people. You can do it simply because you choose to.

/thread

As a whole I see religion to be generally detrimental from it's core system of coercion, suspension of critical thought, and the rather strong authoritarian structure of a whole lot of them. SOME good qualities or outcomes (As I'm not a big fan of the "Ends justify the means" school of thought) doesn't do much to gloss over that for me...


Like I"ve said before "whipping out religion" is neither practical, nor pursuable perhaps without ethical compromise. I don't agree with the atheists out there, who attack religion even at the cost of the ideals they claim to uphold, but I don't think an unconditional friendship with religion is any good either...

 

[Aught3]

I think a lot of people forget why pointing out the bad things about religion is done in the first place. After all, you could make similar points about democracy, communism, or humanism. Those ideologies have things in their past that we would consider bad, yet we don't immediately reject them because of that. We realise that they are human institutions and as such can make mistakes. To provide examples of the harm religion causes is to make the point that it is man-made, not god-made, and deserves no special treatment when discussing its tennets.

 

[Daealis]

Decent art, some awesome worship sites from churches and temples to the more "native" stone heaps.

Personally I found the christian youth group in our little town much more inviting and stimulating than the "secular" youth gathering spot. For me it was the perfect surrounding as a shy socially ackward nerd to become a "high on god"-preachy bible-maniac that didn't care for the opinions of anyone else. I've managed to retain the similar kind of "don't like me? Tough shit!"-attitude, but lose the religious parts.

And when I try to remember everyone else in the gathering place, we've gone through a similar thing. Socially ackward, even suicidal and shy teens, that aren't really all that popular, that evolve into more outward and positive in general. It'll be a shame to see that go away.

 

[lrkun]

And when I try to remember everyone else in the gathering place, we've gone through a similar thing. Socially ackward, even suicidal and shy teens, that aren't really all that popular, that evolve into more outward and positive in general. It'll be a shame to see that go away.

That's a nice result. Do secular organizations have something similar?

I hope they're not selling false hopes though or false sense of security.

 

[Giliell]

I think a lot of people forget why pointing out the bad things about religion is done in the first place. After all, you could make similar points about democracy, communism, or humanism. Those ideologies have things in their past that we would consider bad, yet we don't immediately reject them because of that. We realise that they are human institutions and as such can make mistakes. To provide examples of the harm religion causes is to make the point that it is man-made, not god-made, and deserves no special treatment when discussing its tennets.

I think that's an important point. I'm afraid we're often comitting the same error religious people do, only vice versa: They blame people for all the bad things and credit god for the good ones and we blame religion for the bad stuff and people get the credit for the good stuff.

There are a lot of amazing religiously motivated charities out there (who do not preach or have religious preconditions). Of course, in the end they're motivated by peoples' social conscience, they don't stop doing charity if they lose their religious faith.

@Daelis
Hmm, around here there are about a bazillion non-religious youth-groups out there. From the red-cross youth, over the sports clubs (sport isn't usually organized via schools but via sports clubs. I think that is true for a lot of hobby-groups and such. Correct me if my perception of the American school-system is wrong) to the carnival organisations.
And of course you have the religious youths

 

[)O( Hytegia )O(]

If someone gave me $100 out of the blue one day, and said it was because "God wanted you to have this" -

...

Would you really give two shits if you believe in God or not? Does the person's motives for giving you that money matter to you on a grand scale? We all know that people are capable of being kind and genuine without an external deity, so why does the fact that they have one change the fact that you have $100?

Now let's get back to reality and remember that Churches and Religious organizations fund things all the time that are not specifically church-oriented, but are simply soup kitchens, Christmas-for-the-poor, and other such things.

 

[Yfelsung]

Religion does not cause a single benefit that would not exist without religion.

Since religion also creates several detriments that wouldn't exist without religion, there is no reason for religion to remain.

 

[lrkun]

Religion does not cause a single benefit that would not exist without religion.

Since religion also creates several detriments that wouldn't exist without religion, there is no reason for religion to remain.

If we follow your reasoning and apply it to science. Does that mean we should likewise get rid of science? Because some results of science are detrimental too?

 

[Giliell]

If someone gave me $100 out of the blue one day, and said it was because "God wanted you to have this" -

I think I would decline.
Don't think me a wealthy asshole, but I have enough money for my needs. I take money from relatives only if I know they can afford it (or the insult of rejecting it would cause greater harm).
Maybe I'd talk to that person if they'd be OK if we just went to the next bank and process the money to a charity

Would you really give two shits if you believe in God or not? Does the person's motives for giving you that money matter to you on a grand scale? We all know that people are capable of being kind and genuine without an external deity, so why does the fact that they have one change the fact that you have $100?

Now let's get back to reality and remember that Churches and Religious organizations fund things all the time that are not specifically church-oriented, but are simply soup kitchens, Christmas-for-the-poor, and other such things.

Several people adressed that (me including).
I'm more interested in what you have to say about our responses.

 

[Yfelsung]

The results of science are always neutral, their application can be bad or good.

Many religions have results and teachings that are inherently bad.

Also, there are billions of benefits that would not have existed without science. There are none that would not have existed without religion.

Science has no doctrine, no arbitrary rules. It never asks you to do anything, it never tells you not to do something.

You cannot really compare a method of natural observation with a religion.

 

[lrkun]

The results of science are always neutral, their application can be bad or good.

Many religions have results and teachings that are inherently bad.

Also, there are billions of benefits that would not have existed without science. There are none that would not have existed without religion.

Science has no doctrine, no arbitrary rules. It never asks you to do anything, it never tells you not to do something.

You cannot really compare a method of natural observation with a religion.

I'll add something that you may have forgot to mention. Science compels us to test a certain hypothesis via the scientific method (express). ^,,.^ Science teaches us to doubt (implied). Science teaches us not to make conclusions, because it may change (implied). In a sense science has rules, it asks us to do something, and allows us to see things differently via our own observation.