Is Religion doing more harm than good?

[logician]

No. Religion is not doing more harm than good. For every 1 example of something bad indirectly caused by religion, there are hundreds of examples of something good directly caused by religion.

I'd say vice versa is much more accurate.

 

[Riverwolf]

I'd say vice versa is much more accurate.

Only if the news chronicles every single event, no matter how minor, that happens in the world.

 

[mr.guy]

*facepalm*

 

[MoonWater]

Did you hear about the Jedi follower in Wales who got kicked out of grocery store for refusing to remove his hood? He sued them.

No I hadn't. Did he win?

As far as I can tell Lucas' Jedi code is mostly reworked Buddhism with a bit of Taoism and Pantheism mixed in.

pretty much

 

[logician]

Only if the news chronicles every single event, no matter how minor, that happens in the world.

\
More cultures have been destroyed by smiling missionaries than by any wars. The worst atrocities are those of insidious kind.

 

[Riverwolf]

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More cultures have been destroyed by smiling missionaries than by any wars. The worst atrocities are those of insidious kind.

Is that religion or political agenda?

After all, over in the East, most religions have survived from antiquity through tolerance.

And, of course, the earlier comment was in the present tense, not the past tense. Your argument here is in the past tense. What about now?

 

[blackout]

It's not a "being" talking. It's a personification of part of the human psyche.

Well put.

 

[lockyfan]

I think religion is doing more harm than good right now.

The "war on terror"was started over the difference between two religions (and some oil) and also the crusades atc.

What the problem with religion is that there is heaps of them and not just one that everyone in the world follows and prays to the same God.

 

[Apex]

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More cultures have been destroyed by smiling missionaries than by any wars. The worst atrocities are those of insidious kind.

Lets stretch your logic here a little farther and make it apply a little more equally to all things. You are claiming that the introduction of different religions by missionaries to foreign cultures can be considered an "atrocity" in cases where it destroyed the local culture by replacing their local religion. Yet today we have a large movement of atheists whose sole purpose is to rid the world of religion. What do you think would have happened had these atheists been given an opportunity to interact with these cultures before the missionaries got there? They would have done the exact same thing. The only difference would be instead of replacing the local religion, and destroying their culture, they would have removed the local religion, and still destroyed their culture.

 

[Apex]

I think religion is doing more harm than good right now.

The "war on terror"was started over the difference between two religions (and some oil) and also the crusades atc.

What the problem with religion is that there is heaps of them and not just one that everyone in the world follows and prays to the same God.

This is reductionism of the worst kind.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Lets stretch your logic here a little farther and make it apply a little more equally to all things. You are claiming that the introduction of different religions by missionaries to foreign cultures can be considered an "atrocity" in cases where it destroyed the local culture by replacing their local religion.

Actually, in many cases, missionaries did much worse than that.

For example, Canada has a shameful legacy of residential schools for native children... church-run, government-funded institutions where native children were placed after being taken from their families. In these schools, children were not only made to worship in the Christian manner, they were prohibited from speaking in languages other than English and from practicing any of their traditional customs. They were also physically, sexually and psychologically abused with alarming frequency.

I realize that the issues involved are muddy; the churches certainly couldn't have done this without government help and there is an aspect of cultural racism here that goes beyond the strict limits of religion, but at the same time, religious missionaries were the key players in this and a large part of their motive was evangelism.

Yet today we have a large movement of atheists whose sole purpose is to rid the world of religion. What do you think would have happened had these atheists been given an opportunity to interact with these cultures before the missionaries got there? They would have done the exact same thing. The only difference would be instead of replacing the local religion, and destroying their culture, they would have removed the local religion, and still destroyed their culture.

Speaking for myself, I don't support any movement to rid the world of religion. If individual religious people come to atheism voluntarily through reflection, I'm fine with that, but I have no interest in stamping out religious worship through force or coercion. Actually, I find the idea abhorrent.

What I am interested in, though, is secularism: the idea that no group should impose their religious beliefs on anyone who does not want them. That addresses both the damage that missionaries can do as well as your concerns about those atheists who want to eradicate religion.

 

[lockyfan]

This is reductionism of the worst kind.

It might be reductionism as you call it, but it is still true.

 

[logician]

Is that religion or political agenda?

After all, over in the East, most religions have survived from antiquity through tolerance.

And, of course, the earlier comment was in the present tense, not the past tense. Your argument here is in the past tense. What about now?

One of the problems now is the Catholic church's stance against abortions and family planning. If you check out the latest issue on Scientific American, overpoluation and the inability to deal with just feeding the numbers of people that will be born in the coming decades will cause incredible suffering and resultant wars. The Cathoic church and any fundamentalist groups whose stances oppose controlling population growth will only make this problem much worse.

 

[lockyfan]

God wont let it get to that logician.

 

[Riverwolf]

One of the problems now is the Catholic church's stance against abortions and family planning. If you check out the latest issue on Scientific American, overpoluation and the inability to deal with just feeding the numbers of people that will be born in the coming decades will cause incredible suffering and resultant wars. The Cathoic church and any fundamentalist groups whose stances oppose controlling population growth will only make this problem much worse.

That's not religion. That's based on a tradition that, as far as I'm concerned, is obsolete.

 

[IndigoStorm]

The question is/was: "Is religion doing more harm than good?"

Religion is not/cannot be good or bad. It is our interpretation of religion which defines whether or not it is good or bad. IOW religion cannot simply "exist" but has to exist in the minds of earthlings.
The believers and non believers define religion!

 

[MoonWater]

I think religion is doing more harm than good right now.

The "war on terror"was started over the difference between two religions (and some oil) and also the crusades atc.

What the problem with religion is that there is heaps of them and not just one that everyone in the world follows and prays to the same God.

So you don't think the problem could be intolerance and refusal to change with the times? Because it would seem to me that that is the real root of the problem, inside AND outside religion.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

So you don't think the problem could be intolerance and refusal to change with the times? Because it would seem to me that that is the real root of the problem, inside AND outside religion.

That may be part of it, though I think that certain religious thinking can be especially bad in this regard. Believing that some set of beliefs or code of behaviour has been handed down directly from an all-powerful and all-knowing God can create the problem you describe.

 

[mr.guy]

God wont let it get to that logician.

Ahh...he's got another meteor up his sleeve, does he?

 

[Morse]

The question is/was: "Is religion doing more harm than good?"

Religion is not/cannot be good or bad. It is our interpretation of religion which defines whether or not it is good or bad. IOW religion cannot simply "exist" but has to exist in the minds of earthlings.
The believers and non believers define religion!

I agree with IndigoStorm (I knew I saw something in there). If you consider things like religion as raw data instead of processed facts, you realize that religion cannot be good or bad. Take the Bible for instance, the Bible is naught but raw data. The information in the bible is the material, and the human brain is the manufacturing plant.

So instead of eliminating the data, I propose we change the computers.

So you don't think the problem could be intolerance and refusal to change with the times? Because it would seem to me that that is the real root of the problem, inside AND outside religion.

See above, part of the problem with the computers is the resilience to inevitabilities such as change. This problem has to do with a lot more than religion though.

Ahh...he's got another meteor up his sleeve, does he?

:candle: