Religion: Force for good or the cause of most human evil.

[British Lad]

Firstly I respect people believes and values, secondly I am a Athiest.
I was thinking about life and I asked the question is Religion a good or bad thing for humanity and do we need it?
Heres my personal pros and cons for religion.
Pros:
- It helps people in hard times
- It gives some people a perpose
- I can help those in need
- It brings people together
- It sets some basic rules
- It gives people something to talk about
- It helps people with death and tragaty
Cons:
- It is abused for selfise reasons
- It can con people out of hard earned money
- It is the single largest War and Genasied starter
- It can be used as a get out of jail free card and disoble the laws of the land
- It can split people apart
- It can be abused to Discrimenate against minortals
- If we followed religion to the letter crimals could get away with murder and inscent people killed and mutaled barbaric ways for no reson at all
- It can put undeserving people in places of emmance power and can make people pay for his adventase
- It can make people except a life of hardship and resricted freedom (i.e. Aranged/forced marriages) for a false promise of a better life after there death when they don't have to and make something for there selfs.

What do you think, those are my personal oppeions and you my thing them as Blasphimes or stuped but I have tryed to be blanced but i am a athist so please take it with a pince of salt. What are your views.

[maverick]

Religion has no intrinsic moral value. It's how religion is practiced that determines whether it is moral or not.

[trannydude]

i agree with you, to quote harvey milk "more people have been slaughtered in the name of religion then for any other single reason. that, my friends, that is true pervertion." and its true. i dont knock anybody for believing in a high power, but its when they try to push their beliefs onto others. ive had exactly 7 different former friends try to 'convert' me. and twice somebodies tried preform an exorsisum on me. if thats not insane, what is?

[Austin]

I think it's a force of evil. I think religion was spawned from evil though too. Made for control.

[maverick]

Originally Posted by trannydude

i agree with you, to quote harvey milk "more people have been slaughtered in the name of religion then for any other single reason. that, my friends, that is true pervertion." and its true. i dont knock anybody for believing in a high power, but its when they try to push their beliefs onto others. ive had exactly 7 different former friends try to 'convert' me. and twice somebodies tried preform an exorsisum on me. if thats not insane, what is?

^ QFT.

I'm really afraid to tell any super-religious person I know (and I do know several) that I am anything but straight. There is just so much fundamentalist religion here that I'm uncomfortable with what their reactions might be. Evangelicals are literally in the business of "saving souls", and if they perceive that you're gay, or if you tell them you are, a lot of them will literally consider it their duty to save you from yourself. That's why ex-gay "therapy" centers are heavily supported by certain denominations of the Christian church.

The saddest thing about it to me is the fact that if they were more tolerant and accepting, the Christian church could really, really help youth who are being tormented for their sexual orientation or gender identity. In my home town, there is only one church which accepts LGBT people out of hundreds. It is the only one of its kind between Birmingham, AL and Nashville, TN. Basically we're talking three churches shared by two states.

Every other Christian denomination preaches that homosexuality is damnable sin. These churches preach hate and perdition to the gay youth who sit in closeted terror in their pews. Fundamentalist Christians go even further, and preach things like execution.

More churches - Christian or not - should act as a rock for gay youth. That way, even if they are disowned by their families and ostracized by their friends, they know that they can fall back on the unconditional, unjudging love of God (and God's clergy by proxy).

[Owen]

I think there are two things we need to separate here: faith and dogma. Both are intrinsic to the classical idea of religion, and I have very different viewpoints on the two.

Faith (believing in something without any evidence for its existence, such as a god or a host of deities) is something that falls under my "live and let live" perspective. I might disagree fundamentally with its assumption (that it's okay to believe in something when there's no proof for it), but many of us have faith in something, even if it isn't a deity. Maybe it's in the goodness of humanity, or maybe it's in the fact that life is worth living even when it seems like it isn't. And even though I may disagree strongly with someone living their life as if their faith is fact, I recognize that the world is a hard place to live in, and not everyone can find the internal strength to go on in the face of adversity if they don't believe there's something beyond this world that makes it worth going on. I'm not going to tell someone that they have to find meaning in their lives the same way I do, so I let them believe as they want to believe, as long as they don't try to convince me that their faith is fact and as long as their faith doesn't lead to them causing any harm or reasonable annoyance upon others.

Which brings us to dogma, the principles laid down by a religion as being absolutely true and unquestionable (as well as an awesome movie by Kevin Smith that centers around the consequences of its namesake). The "laws" in the bible (like the ones that condemn mixed fabric and condone slavery) are an example of dogma when they are approached from a fundamentalist viewpoint. It is the idea of dogma, the idea that these laws written down thousands of years ago should be taken as incontestably true even in our modern-day era, that I am whole-heartedly against. And though I don't know as much about this topic as I should, I'm willing to bet that most of the atrocities and wars caused by religion were caused by conflicts of dogma, not conflicts of faith.

So in short, faith good, dogma bad (but Dogma the movie good).

[Meropspusillus]

Originally Posted by trannydude

i agree with you, to quote harvey milk "more people have been slaughtered in the name of religion then for any other single reason. that, my friends, that is true pervertion." and its true. i dont knock anybody for believing in a high power, but its when they try to push their beliefs onto others. ive had exactly 7 different former friends try to 'convert' me. and twice somebodies tried preform an exorsisum on me. if thats not insane, what is?

As inspiring as Milk may be, I'm sure he's wrong. The Civil War, the World Wars and I could list many more, weren't fought in the name of religion at all. Some people may have used religion as a way to motivate people, but they were ultimately wars of human greed. Also, have you ever looked at world history before Christianity? It's war after war after war. It's not even veiled. People just killed other people because they were different, or because they wanted their land. Or whatever.

Since Christianity has come along the world's become a much better place. There are certainly bad things in fundamentalist Christianity's dogma. But Jesus also preached "Love thy neighbor" and all that peacey jazz. I think it's easy for us to look around today and think "Gosh, religion is evil." But I wonder at how much of the moral basis that is our society would even exist without Christianity.

[bambam07]

Ha! Religion is the cause of approximately 75% of my stress. My parents are very involved in their church (Pentecostal) so I've been immersed in Christianity since birth. This particular branch of Christianity doesn't support homosexuality, so obviously I had to question my religion.

I have some serious issues with religion. Just saying that "this" religion is right and all the other ones are wrong seems ridiculous to me. There can't just be one way. Not to mention all of the anger and hate caused by religious conflict, which is…well…not the point of religion.

I think as long as everyone is honest and loves one another and themselves, religion isn't exactly necessary. And yet I still stress about it every once in a while.

[Colton]

Originally Posted by Austin

I think it's a force of evil. I think religion was spawned from evil though too. Made for control.

I mostly agree. However, I think it was meant to bring good when people, "invented" per say, religion. It has become the cause of many problems.

[Mad Man L]

When religion first came about, it was (for the most part) a force of good.

These days for many it is just used as a medium for discrimination and killing people, and for the most part is largely outdated. The main problem I have with religion is fundamentalist, especially the Muslim kind.

When Muslim fundies come on the TV talking about how they want to turn Australia into a muslim dictatorship, my rage if harnessed in the form of energy could probably power the world for an hour or two.

But faith in some ways is good as it gives people a life mission, something to lead by, something to govern their lives by. I for one am happy believing that when I die, I die (sort of like a TV station ending transmission - life just stops), but some need a 'guiding light' in life. It is good as long as they don't start shoving it down our throats. One of my friends made a good quote a while ago.

"Religion is like a penis. It's ok to have one, although please don't go bragging about it and please don't try and shove it down my throat."

The guy was straight, I don't exactly think it's the right analogy for a bi/gay guy.

[Emberstone]

Originally Posted by maverick

Religion has no intrinsic moral value. It's how religion is practiced that determines whether it is moral or not.

this... and also, if your idea of religion is that god says everyone else is wrong, you do not have religious beliefs so much as you are a fucking asshole.

[crazyhead]

I think it was STARTED to do good. It explained what people didn't understand and it was supposed to help people make good choices and not to bad things. Unfortunately it's mostly now used, not as a guide for morality like it should, but as a justification for what one already believes.

And I'd like to say that for all of the pros that you listed, those can all be achieved in better and more effective ways.

I don't think believing in God in and of itself is evil. But I do think it is detrimental. It would be better for people to be responsible for their own actions instead of thanking God for it or telling themselves there was nothing they could do because it was God's will. And people should learn to appreciate life for what it is instead of what they want it to be. And what it is is limited and therefore precious.

[Pseudojim]

Originally Posted by The Lewder

When Muslim fundies come on the TV talking about how they want to turn Australia into a muslim dictatorship, my rage if harnessed in the form of energy could probably power the world for an hour or two.

there are christian fundies who feel the same way. There are enough nuts out there in any religion you could hunt down and give airtime to, just to see how much of a fool they can make of themselves in public. I'll bet there are a buttload 'buddhists' out there who would be just as batshit insane.

the muslim fundies in particular are given air time because it makes many people angry, and that makes them want to watch the news again tomorrow to find out what will make them angry then. And this makes mister murdoch happy, because he gets more money from advertising revenue.

[Veronica]

The main issue with (monotheistic) religion is the concept of sin. It is an arbitrary definition that doesn't necessarily mean evil as opposed to good, but is defined according to tradition, dogma and authority's opinion. The term "sin" is a source for control and a way to enforce some key individual's viewpoints upon the general population. What that means is that by defining something as sin, you can make inherently good things evil. Like for instance a relationship between two people of the same sex which is the relevant issue here. There is no way you can define that as evil without the concept of sin. This is why religions are damaging to society.

The good parts of religion are generally universal and far pre-dates any current religion. They are based on fundamental qualities of humans that even pre-dates our species in many cases. Religion servers a role for those who need the faith because science cannot answer all questions. Religion tend to produce an answer according to their own doctrines for those big unanswerable questions. Which is fine with me, I'm not afraid of unanswered questions, so I don't need religion either. But religion is a very poor tool for defining moral because all religions are inherently dogmatic while societies evolve. Human rights are the better guiding principles, and philosophy a better tool than theology in defining what's right or wrong.

[Iniquity]

I think it depends on whose hands it is in. From what I read and even sometimes see here in NY, it seems like there is a majority who use at least part of their belief to justify a form of oppression, although they don't tend to see it that way.

Gamer am I, I like your separation of Faith and Dogma; I haven't been able to put it in those terms, but I tend to agree with what you're saying.

[FJ Cruiser]

Originally Posted by maverick

Religion has no intrinsic moral value. It's how religion is practiced that determines whether it is moral or not.

Thank you.

[Pseudojim]

Originally Posted by Pseudojim

there are christian fundies who feel the same way. There are enough nuts out there in any religion you could hunt down and give airtime to, just to see how much of a fool they can make of themselves in public. I'll bet there are a buttload 'buddhists' out there who would be just as batshit insane.

the muslim fundies in particular are given air time because it makes many people angry, and that makes them want to watch the news again tomorrow to find out what will make them angry then. And this makes mister murdoch happy, because he gets more money from advertising revenue.

And this goes for atheists and non-religious people too.

[Toneth]

I just feel that too often religion ends up being about violence and suppression, or about profit margins and esteem. far and few between are the people actually doing good in the name of religion without an expectation of return in some form or another.
that and that fact that far too many people try and PUSH their religion on others, or put it all over our government, just annoys me.
when did it become appropriate to put the ten commandments in front of the capital building?
I wish we still had separation of church and state, sigh

[Mad Man L]

Originally Posted by Pseudojim

there are christian fundies who feel the same way. There are enough nuts out there in any religion you could hunt down and give airtime to, just to see how much of a fool they can make of themselves in public. I'll bet there are a buttload 'buddhists' out there who would be just as batshit insane.

the muslim fundies in particular are given air time because it makes many people angry, and that makes them want to watch the news again tomorrow to find out what will make them angry then. And this makes mister murdoch happy, because he gets more money from advertising revenue.

I generally throw the remote against the wall, put a small hole in the wall and turn off the TV.

[ANightDude]

Religion isn't bad. The problem with almost all major religions is that somewhere over time the message was lost, probably between that whole "Inquisition" thing and "Convert or die, you Native Americans!" event.

People totally miss the point. Christianity, for example, isn't about who's holiest and the best follower. It's supposed to be about living your life as close as you can to Christ - be the best person you can be.

It's ridiculous how greed and suspicion have damaged the original message.