Religion isn't Bad -

[Giliell]

There are none that would not have existed without religion.

The Sixtine Chapel
The Pergamon Altar
The Pyramids (give science a lot of insight)
The Starßbourg Munster (my personal favourite)
Macchu Picchu

 

[Yfelsung]

There are none that would not have existed without religion.

The Sixtine Chapel
The Pergamon Altar
The Pyramids (give science a lot of insight)
The Starßbourg Munster (my personal favourite)
Macchu Picchu

And what benefit do those provide to society?

How many lives have they saved? How have they made our lives easier?

Better yet, how many of them contain resources that could be used to create housing for the homeless?

A single low-income family housing project is worth more than every piece of art ever created combined.

 

[lrkun]

And what benefit do those provide to society?

How many lives have they saved? How have they made our lives easier?

Better yet, how many of them contain resources that could be used to create housing for the homeless?

A single low-income family housing project is worth more than every piece of art ever created combined.

They serve as inspiration and examples of things we can achieve.

 

[Yfelsung]

And what benefit do those provide to society?

How many lives have they saved? How have they made our lives easier?

Better yet, how many of them contain resources that could be used to create housing for the homeless?

A single low-income family housing project is worth more than every piece of art ever created combined.

They serve as inspiration and examples of things we can achieve.

It saddens me that people would look at a giant waste of valuable resources as an inspiration.

When I want to look at humanity's achievements, I look at our live expectancy compared to only 100 years ago. I look at the internet. I look at birth survival rates.

I don't know how a giant pile of rocks is inspirational when compared to the creation of modern medicine or reaching the moon.

 

[lrkun]

It saddens me that people would look at a giant waste of valuable resources as an inspiration.

When I want to look at humanity's achievements, I look at our live expectancy compared to only 100 years ago. I look at the internet. I look at birth survival rates.

I don't know how a giant pile of rocks is inspirational when compared to the creation of modern medicine or reaching the moon.

So you wish for a society akin to equilibrium (good movie - watch it)?

Equilibrium is set in the futuristic and dystopian city-state of Libria. After a Third World War devastated the Earth, a fascist state emerged whose ideology determined human emotion to be the root cause of conflict. All emotionally stimulating material is banned and "sense offenders" are ruthlessly persecuted. Illegal materials are rated "EC-10" for "emotional content" (a reference to the MPAA film rating system[1]), and destroyed by immediate incineration. All citizens of Libria are required to take regular injections of the emotion-suppressing drug Prozium.

 

[)O( Hytegia )O(]

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.

I'm going to play Devil's Advocate for a moment here, and say that Religion was initially caused by the observation of natural forces around the world.....
Like Science? Really? Who'd a thunk?

:/
Ignorance is bliss - but not from someone who claims to not be ignorant.

That pile of rocks is an engineering marvel - so are the methods they used to make the temples and cathedrals of the time with ONLY hand tools. Science. Geometry. Physics. Common Sense. All applied to make technology.
These are the result of building such fantastic pieces of architecture.

 

[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.

I'm going to play Devil's Advocate for a moment here, and say that Religion was initially caused by the observation of natural forces around the world.....
Like Science? Really? Who'd a thunk?

:/
Ignorance is bliss - but not from someone who claims to not be ignorant.

That pile of rocks is an engineering marvel - so are the methods they used to make the temples and cathedrals of the time with ONLY hand tools. Science. Geometry. Physics. Common Sense. All applied to make technology.
These are the result of building such fantastic pieces of architecture.

So let me get this straight. You're of the honest belief that if we had never built the Pyramids that Geometry wouldn't have existed?

Really?

And as for your first statement, I guess by that logic we should hold onto Alchemy and Astrology too, right? I mean they were created from observations of the natural world so they must still be useful, right? I guess in your world we should start putting the leeches to people again too and go back to bleeding people? I mean they were the results of observations of the natural world, right?

How about we go back to trials of truth? I mean obviously we observed that liar's tongues burn when a hot iron is applied, so being that we observed this natural occurrence than it must be just as valid as modern science, right?

Religion was created by people observing the natural world who had so little understanding of that world that their greatest minds would be rivaled by a modern 10 year old.

Hence we should throw out their observations, completely and utterly, in favour of the ones we can actually test and confirm.

You seem to fail to acknowledge that religious belief is literally belief in magic. THEY BELIEVE IN STUFF THAT ISN'T REAL.

How does this not equate to insanity in your mind?

"You know, I could go with that science stuff but this magic stuff is so much easier."

Yes, truly there is so much to be gained from believing in fucking magic.

Jesus fuck, sometimes I wish I could think like that. Life must be a lot easier with magic.

 

[)O( Hytegia )O(]

So let me get this straight. You're of the honest belief that if we had never built the Pyramids that Geometry wouldn't have existed?

Really?

No.
But it certainly helped, and they certainly had it. In fact - wasn't Egypt, who used Magic and Astrology for everything, one of the greatest Empires in the world?

And as for your first statement, I guess by that logic we should hold onto Alchemy and Astrology too, right? I mean they were created from observations of the natural world so they must still be useful, right? I guess in your world we should start putting the leeches to people again too and go back to bleeding people? I mean they were the results of observations of the natural world, right?

I'm not saying they should still be implemented. I'm saying that they are the result of ancient man's thinking processes. Your lack of reading comprehension is duly noted.

Jesus fuck, sometimes I wish I could think like that. Life must be a lot easier with magic.

It's about the same. Except the fact that the "Rational" person missed the entire point of the initial post, and went on crying as if I said Astrology and Creationism should be put on the same pedestal as science.

Yes. Us magic people are unmatched by your wisdom.

 

[Unwardil]

So let me get this straight. You're of the honest belief that if we had never built the Pyramids that Geometry wouldn't have existed?

Really?

And as for your first statement, I guess by that logic we should hold onto Alchemy and Astrology too, right? I mean they were created from observations of the natural world so they must still be useful, right? I guess in your world we should start putting the leeches to people again too and go back to bleeding people? I mean they were the results of observations of the natural world, right?

How about we go back to trials of truth? I mean obviously we observed that liar's tongues burn when a hot iron is applied, so being that we observed this natural occurrence than it must be just as valid as modern science, right?

Religion was created by people observing the natural world who had so little understanding of that world that their greatest minds would be rivaled by a modern 10 year old.

If I may.

It's not that science and geometry and engineering would never have been invented, it's that religion at one point provided the financial backing in order that these sciences be pushed to new limits and to achieve greater understanding in those fields by achieving what had only been theoretically possible.

Is religion the only thing in the world which can do this? Hells no, but historically, it has done this. And not just the sciences, but the arts as well. There are better ways of achieving the same thing, yes, but that's not to detract from what religion has contributed historically.

 

[televator]

I'm not sure about this whole "advancement of knowledge angle"....religion is also responsible for a rather large loss and subsequent gap in knowledge... for many people to this day that regression and suppression of well established theories continues. Let's not forget about the active campaign to subvert the education system with creation "science" and teaching the "controversies". I don't think many things like geometry are strictly creditable, if at all, to religion... Regrettably, I think humanity will always have wars with or without religion...nor do nations need to be currently at war to pursue military advancements.

There is also the decidedly less violent pursuit of sources of efficient energy....as they say about necessity being the mother of invention and all that jazz...

 

[RedYellow]

Saying that religion does good things is like saying a cow is doing good by pulling a cart. The cow may be helping our purposes, but it's only doing that because it's a cow and that's what they do, and it doesnt mean that the people couldnt eventually have done it themselves with a little more effort. That applies to the pyramid thing as well. So again, I'm not impressed that religion accomplishes good things. It would be one thing if it ONLY accomplished good things, but it doesn't, so again it's people that matter, not belief systems.

 

[Zetetic]

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

Which detriments would not exist without religion? Do you consider a rigid ideology to be a religion? Because I think that the real issue is dogmatic coherence to some ideology, but I don't know if this is what you mean by 'religion', because there is no deity in, Anarcho-Capitalism or Stalinism unless you count money and Stalin to be their respective deities (which is fair enough, I'll accept that metaphor).

EDIT: Martin Gardiner's writing about the 'Bolshevik Physics' and 'Bolshevik Genetics' are a good example of this. Physicists and geneticists in the SOviet Union were persecuted because lower level functionaries were claiming that their scientific results were out of line with Dialectical Materialism, the philosophy of Marx.

 

[godisabullet]

First, the thread really should have been called "Religion Isn't _ALL_ Bad".

Next, I agree that religion has inspired some amazing art (this includes architecture). However, there is no reason at all that these works needed religion to be created. Imagine if religion never existed. You think humans would never have created great art? Religion in that sense is superfluous.

Next, for every apparently "good" thing religion gives the world other good/important things are pushed to the side. Example:

You could say that people sometimes feel happy because of their belief in a god. If people are happy that's good right? Well, in order to have this happiness they must abandon rational thought. There are other ways to be happy that include rational thought. Once again, religion is superfluous.

But to cap it all off, many, many bad things have been done in the name of religion.

The best you can say about religion is that it is superfluous. But you can also say that religion is worthless, a hindrance, a detriment and destructive.

People won't miss it when it's finally gone.

 

[australopithecus]

It saddens me that people would look at a giant waste of valuable resources as an inspiration.

When I want to look at humanity's achievements, I look at our live expectancy compared to only 100 years ago. I look at the internet. I look at birth survival rates.

I don't know how a giant pile of rocks is inspirational when compared to the creation of modern medicine or reaching the moon.

As Irkun said, because it shows us what we can achieve. Something doesn't need to benefit humanity directly like medicine or technology in order to add to humanity. You might as well just throw all art out the window as "a giant waste of resources" in that case. When human beings get it in to their head to do something, regardless of the motivations, most of the time it gets done and the sense that we can do anything we set our minds to is a massive inspriation. All human endevour starts with wondering "Can I do that". As soon as you start making exceptions then you might as well give up. To me, art and architecture is just as inspiring as scientific advances. So what if the Pyramids will never cure the common cold? Stand next to one and tell us they aren't a feat of humanity at our most brilliant.

 

[Unwardil]

Here's my take on the whole thing

If you subscribe to the idea that thoughts evolve in a manner which parallels bio logical evolution, then when it comes to the acquisition of knowledge, religions are kind of like a vestigial organ.

Looking at the general history of religions, it's actually sort of a scientific way of going about it. First, everything has it's own little god, but we eventually realize that's way too much. If our experience is limited to a single stream to get water, it might be reasonable to think that stream has a spirit which controls the cycles of that stream, just like other living things have observable cycles, but once you learn more and understand that there are many MANY streams, they can't really all have powerful spirits in them. But maybe a super god of ALL streams... Now, that's more like it. Yes, that explains it actually, someone who controls these things at their source, deep in the ground where you can't see them or high in sky where the rain comes from. The fact that you can't see them just means they're far away, after all, you know that you can't see things beyond a certain distance, but the way streams behaves just seems so thought out, it explains everything.

But no, now you know about oceans and the stream thing seems silly. It's OBVIOUSLY a god of water. All water, because all water behaves a certain way doesn't it?

I could keep going like this, but the point is, you can go a very long way on this train of thought and come up with some pretty accurate generalizations through simple anthropomorphism. It's not that you'd be right, it's that the metaphor increases your understanding of things you can observe happening in nature. It's not until you come up with something approaching science and mathematics that these anthropomorphic models start to see any serious holes, but in order to GET to the science, you have to start by understanding the lies. All the fake, imaginary religious stuff forms a kind of memetic scaffolding which is used to advance understanding of the natural world to a point where science and mathematics and reasoning is required to go any further.

 

[Randomhobbyist]

I myself am an atheist . Although i feel that all religions are incorrect on the grounds that none have provided me with enough evidence for me to believe they are true, I still can't say that they are all bad. There are always pros and cons to anything that you debate.

For instance, my argument would include things like:
- I don't believe in an afterlife so i feel that religious people are wasting the few shot moments they have on this religion.
- Religion does not promote rational thought
- It leads to ignorance to scientific evidence or "reality" which may contradict certain beliefs
- it sets up an "us" and "them" mentality which is feminist philosophy and that usually leads to conflict
- has lead to many wars over religion (jihads, crusades etc.)
- religion has delayed the advancement and technology of the human race

For religion:
- For people going through rough times it helps them cope with difficulties in their lives
- People do not live in fear and worry over an end to their lives
- it brings people classes together (masses, family, holidays).
- In many instances there are components which can teach valuble life lessons (some can be refuted but never the less)
- It creates discussions like this one which are always interesting
- inspired a great deal of art throughout time
- Many religious organizations which do good in our society ex) the red cross

In my opinion the world would be better without religion. However, religion is here and it is being practiced so it would be next to impossible to simply eliminate religionfrom society. What happens if people start thinking that their loved ones are not awaiting them in paradise for them to meet again. You will actually never see grandma again? There would be mass depression. It's almost like gun laws in the states. It would be better off for guns not to be introduced at all. Now everyone has one, and if bill has to give up his gun there is always a worry that george will still have his. You can't get people to simply change their ways. I think that religion will be around for a while still regardless of scientific advancements. If it does "go out of style" it' s going to be a lengthy process.

 

[Andiferous]

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.

Festivals in general are the awesomist. I hope an Atheist world won't begrudge statutory holidays in general with big, sweet, imaginary heroes that were the cornerstone of my childhood.

As Irkun said, because it shows us what we can achieve. Something doesn't need to benefit humanity directly like medicine or technology in order to add to humanity. You might as well just throw all art out the window as "a giant waste of resources" in that case. When human beings get it in to their head to do something, regardless of the motivations, most of the time it gets done and the sense that we can do anything we set our minds to is a massive inspriation. All human endevour starts with wondering "Can I do that". As soon as you start making exceptions then you might as well give up. To me, art and architecture is just as inspiring as scientific advances. So what if the Pyramids will never cure the common cold? Stand next to one and tell us they aren't a feat of humanity at our most brilliant.

Yep yep.

It's inspired some pretty awesome art.

Most freakn' definitely.

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.

Yeah. Until you have a perfect political system of government, you're going to have something like religion picking up for slack. In a way we should just be glad it was there to pick up for slack, seeing as we're such political nincompoops.

And what benefit do those provide to society?

How many lives have they saved? How have they made our lives easier?

Better yet, how many of them contain resources that could be used to create housing for the homeless?

A single low-income family housing project is worth more than every piece of art ever created combined.

It saddens me that people would look at a giant waste of valuable resources as an inspiration.

When I want to look at humanity's achievements, I look at our live expectancy compared to only 100 years ago. I look at the internet. I look at birth survival rates.

I don't know how a giant pile of rocks is inspirational when compared to the creation of modern medicine or reaching the moon.

It makes me really sad to see this attitude, really. It makes me not want to respond. Blah, bleurgh... eh... never mind.

 

[Asrahn]

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.

Emboldened for the sake of clarity. It is true that there are some "DO GOOD GODDAMN IT" bits to religion, they're done out of the pure conviction that a god or some other supernatural being demands selflessness, and besides, if you don't do it, you'll burn in hell. Better get those soup kitchens fired up!

Fundies exist everywhere, even in politics and whatnot, but political figures (with some exceptions) at least does not think their beliefs are derived from something divine. As such, politics (etc, being used as an example here) that leads to violence can always be called bullshit on, while religion remains exempt from the critical sphere because of its status as "Faith". I guess what I'm trying to say is that opinions are able to change through discussion and debate, while religion is a different nut to crack all together. Which brings me to my main point: A book or text that instructs people in how to live their lives, free from the burden of sense and proof (considering the supernatural claims they may make), and that easily can be interpreted into violent behavior or actions, is not a good book or text.

Religion remains at large in the world, but from what can be seen, its foundation is mostly troublesome - Irrational thinking leads to irrational acting. We've got people being executed on religious grounds for "witchcraft" well into the first decade of the 21:st century.

However, claiming that you are mentally challenged because of your faith is simply taking it way too far. A state of chosen self-delusion may be an explanation from my point of view, considering you're quite active on these here forums - and thously must have been exposed to quite a lot of different beliefs. Either this or your conviction that you're right about your supernatural claims is simply so strong that it further enhances the point I attempted to make above.

As for one good thing that religion does for society? I don't know, I honestly have a hard time thinking of anything. It strikes me that even extremely light-version and secular religious belief put strange restraints and unnecessary limitations on the human behaviour.

... I guess they occasionally take some of that immense amount of money that they keep hoarding to help some people that actually need it? I wouldn't know, in my country all the church has been doing for years is grudgingly give ground to the gay-rights movement, not once have I seen or heard of them using their money for anything that could be considered "good". Unless free snacks at sermons counts, which I honestly think is a cheap blow at evangelizing.

As for the pyramids:

I'm tired, my humor is low. It's late. I'm swedish, pity me.

 

[televator]

The pyramids truly are an impressive monument of human achievement. However, I think it 's incredibly detrimental to take them out of context and fail to consider the method taken toward their creation. Slavery....another thing that many religions once gave the 'ol thumbs up to.... Yes, in this case, religion "motivated" humanity to create these grand monuments. But the cost to humanity was atrociously costly in other regards. So what good did they really do for the ADVANCEMENT of humanity? I find that sort of "achievement" rather hollow. To declare that the pyramids are an excusable use of resources because they make you feel good now, without consideration to their original context, is a being a bit myopic.

 

[Asrahn]

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.

Change the person's comment to "God wants me to kill you." and you'll realize why this argument holds no water.