Not another religion debate?

[Prod]

It is, but it's not targeting Christianity, or even debating whether or not a higher power (which may or may not be god) exists. No this is a debate about whether or not religion as a whole is beneficial. both to the individual and the planet as a whole.

So I'll start with a few examples I've thought of:

Positive



All religions encourage kindness, sharing etc.
Many religious people are very peaceful and genuinely nice people.
People get hope from their faith.
There are many religious charities which help people all over the world.
Stable communities are formed by religion.
Reason for some holidays (eg. Christmas, Easter).

Negative



Misinterpretation leads to extremist terrorist organizations and events like anti-homosexual protests.
Hundreds of years of technological regression.
Different religions with conflicting views make world peace very difficult.
Prejudices about religions create tension between religions.
Christianity created huge opposition to revolutionary ideas like evolution.
Limited freedom are taken (eg. Muslim womens' clothes, many religions ban things like alcohol, pork, some sea food).

What are your thoughts, do you think religion is a good force in this world? Do you have any points i can add above?

[Zak]

This is going to be a short statement because I need to go to a wedding here soon, but here are my two cents.

Religion was necessary in the earlier years of humanity. In my opinion, religion was made or interpreted to impose moral values and a sense of structure in society. However, now that those values have been instilled in the human race after hundreds of generations of religious moral bounds, I believe it would now be beneficial to move away from religion to begin progressing faster in society. This has been a very quick and shitty explanation, but I can tell you it is influenced by this very intriguing book (http://www.samharris.org/site/book_end_of_faith/), which talks about how old religious faiths are colliding with modern science and reason.

[Coyote1023]

I fixed all of your misspellings for you.

I'll take the middle ground here. Religion is something that takes fear away from death and lends to kindness and good deeds. I believe that in a perfect society religion would be needed. Now, by religion I mean a God or higher being, but not excessive praise worship, elitism, or a narrow view. The Holy texts need to be simple and should not just be stories from the past. Past events should be known and understood, but the same circumstances 2000 years ago are not the same as now.

On the other side: Religion has caused the most deaths out of any cause that had ever existed. Every faith has killed for their God. The Jewish killed polytheists in Israel as ordered by God. Whether or not they took their land, it doesn't matter. Generations passed in between this. The Christians had the crusades and the witch hunts. Muslims, I don't think you need much help with that one...

[Zak]

Muslims, I don't think you need much help with that one...
http://0.tqn.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/z/a/toy_actionfigure_teamamerica.jpg

[Prod]

I'd like Jpec or Multi to come in here because i'm interested to see what a follower of religeon thinks.

Sorry for the spelling mistakes, i had spellcheck off, and i'm new to this keyboard.

[HLG Viper]

Well, to start off I'd say religion has been benifical at times and directly counter-productive at times. I don't believe religion was ever a necessity for a society, but it might've been a good way to boost morality and unite the people in the earlier stages of society. Needless to say, it's done many people harm as well, so it's a hard thing to settle just like that. For example, the jews claim that their religion grants them the land known as "Israel" which has been under Palestinas control for hundreds of years if not more (forgive my ignorance on that matter). The USA suddenly granted the jews wish and chopped a part off of Palestina just because of the jews beliefs, even though Palestina had long been settled on that soil. Is it acceptable to claim that a "people" (Not everyone of the jewish sub-race are jewish and vice-versa) owns a country that is already settled, forcing the inhabitants to move to a half as big area without a home? Of course, people should be able to live in unity no matter the belief or race, and IMO the jews could just as well have accepted to shatter and move to any available country. I mean, christianity isn't concentrated in the US and Islam isn't concetrated to Afghanistan, why focus them? It could grant them unity, but so could local jewish churches on a smaller scale.


Tl;Dr - Religion also creates dilemmas about whether religion can be used to claim things as yours because your beliefs say so

[Ladnil]

No sane person can deny that religion keeps some people from doing monstrous things. Many sane people can and do deny that religion is the best possible thing to accomplish that. I think that's the main thing here. Some people really do believe that anything goes as long as they can get away with it, and only divine justice has supposedly perfect accuracy.

I really, really wish there were no people who required that kind of incentive to be good. In a perfect world, everyone would just be good because being good is what they like to be. Unfortunately, in the real world, there are horrible people who are kept in check only by threats of justice that they can't escape.

[Mighty Midgit]

In a perfect world, everyone would just be good because being good is what they like to be.

I agree with this statement 100%. Religions do have a way of regulating many things that would otherwise be hard to keep in check . The only downside to this is that one has to be a believer in order to be in effect. This is not a foreign concept though.

If you look at a government, it does the same things. Governments have rules and regulations that, if they have the best interests in mind, help keep the peace and freedom of it's citizens. They do their best to ensure that everyone is happy and has their rights without infringing on the rights of another (not every government is perfect though). The government's regulatory sphere is not all inclusive. It covers the more of the physical/temporal stewardship of those within its region of influence. It has a hard time regulating things of the mental, emotional, and moral sorts and the temporal being of those outside its influence. For example, many religions place regulations/bans on porn. It many cases it leads to addiction, abuse, and is harmful to the home and family. Though not all cases are like that, regulations against it are placed to protect one from those dangers. You are not always in danger by speeding, but the risk of harm increases if you do. Government can try to ban porn but it would never work (just look at what happened when they tried to regulate alcohol;)). That is why these regulations are in place.

On the reverse, I don't think that religion should play a dominating role in government either. When this happens, many times it leads to suppression/abuse of those not of the faith. If the leader would adhere to the principals of his faith than normally these things would not happen, but humans are not perfect. We could easily use the Crusades and Muslim Extremists as examples here. Religions should fit within the bounds that the government set. Those who follow the laws of God have no reason to break the laws of the land. In many cases religion is the higher standard of living. It covers the moral and spiritual stewardships that the government may not be able to do anything about.

I think that a good religion is needed just as much as a good government is, but anything taken to the extreme can become a bad thing. Religion will help you if you let it.

[Dow]

Let it be known that I am staying out of this thread.

[wiggums]

The earliest traced religion, Hinduism, was designed by political leaders in order to keep the people in castes and away from revolution. They used it as a tool.

As for saying it stops people from doing bad things, I strongly disagree. When people find motive to do bad things, they do them. Plenty of Christians have murdered, raped, etc. On the other hand, plenty of Atheists have done so as well. Good people will do good things, for whatever reason, whether it be for just being good, or for going to heaven. In the same way, bad people may do bad things.

I'm not trying to sound so black-and-white minded here, I know that there aren't just good people and bad people, but I do believe that people can have more evil tendencies than others.

[Zackj191]

Religion is an answer that is not meant to be questioned.

Science is full of questions that are waiting to be answered.


tl;dr: Religion was holding us in the dark ages.

[Toon324]

*breaking open the seal of dust on this debate*

Any battle or war can be traced back to one of three things; Politics, money, or religion. If we could, say, unify all the religions under the base idea that everyone has their own opinions and that's fine, then we could eliminate 1/3rd of all the causes of war. Statistically speaking.

And if everyone gave all their money and all the political power to me, that'd solve the rest......

*laughs manically*

erm... you didn't hear that, right?

[Time Glitch]

Let it be known that I am staying out of this thread.

Where'd you come from?

Anyways.

While I used to be fanatically anti-religious, I've come to understand through life experience that some people really need faith in their lives to get by. Some people see it as an integral part of life and soul, so I don't hold religion against someone. It's a choice, and I tolerate it like I'd tolerate if one of my friends was gay or transgender or something. It's a part of society and I'm doing myself no favors by hating people who have faith or religion in their lives.

However, I still have a big, big beef with organized religion. Churches. Mosques. Temples. Any place where people gather to get preached at, and TOLD how and what to believe. I have no problem with someone having faith. Faith can be good. But organized religion? It's trouble. Faith was never about being told what to believe in. Faith is about discovering, for yourself, what you believe your place is in the universe. It's a very personal thing, and can't be told or preached.

What the organized religious institutions will tell you is that this is not true. If you don't follow their version of faith, you will be punished. You will be punished because you didn't do "faith" the right way. You will be punished because you didn't follow all the rules. You will get punished because your way of life is wrong, and their way of life is right.

That is a HUGE issue for me. If you want faith in your life, I've got no beef with you. Finding faith can be a life-changing experience and make you a better person as a result. Faith can give you hope. Faith can gives you strength.

But finding religion is not finding faith, and going to church and following all the rules is not finding God. If you go to church or temple or what have you...I'm not going to judge you. I will, however, judge the institution. I will judge the brainwashing machine that a lot (NOT ALL) religious institutions have become, and I will judge them for the slew of slander and lies that I see constantly coming out of said institutions. I will judge them on the content of their character and the consequences of their actions.

I will judge them if they burn the Quran. I will judge them if they don't support abortions for rape victims. I will judge them if they openly support the mistreatment of women. I will judge them if they protect pedophiles and rapists.

I will judge them if they try try to tell me that, after all of the atrocities that each of the big organized religions have comitted, my way of life is WRONG, they are RIGHT, and I'm going to pay for it come my judgement day.

You want your church and place of worship? Fine. But I really, really hope that you found that faith on your own, and you aren't just putting on the blinders and allowing yourself to be herded around like a little sheep.

I encourage anyone, regardless of the length of their religious participation, to find faith on their own. It's a lot more comforting when that voice of comfort comes from the back of your mind, than from the mouth of a preacher.

[Toon324]

[tl;dr: epic speech]

You sir, have summed up all my ideas into a form that I didn't have to think about.

Ever consider being an inspirational speaker?

[Prod]

I just got facebook, is there an xForgery facebook group or page or something?

[Time Glitch]

I just got facebook, is there an xForgery facebook group or page or something?

...

Wat.

[Prod]

It appears that I thought my own thread was qwitter. My question still stands.

[Toon324]

It appears that I thought my own thread was qwitter. My question still stands.

I don't have a facebook, nor do I ever plan to have one. So don't ask me.

We do have an awesome forum though, ever visit it?
www.xforgery.com

[wiggums]

... bringing this back on topic here...

I don't understand how people can try to say that religion is the basis of morals. Would we really need a god to tell us that killing and stealing is wrong? Wouldn't we figure out at some point that: "Hey, killing each other really isn't that beneficial to anything... maybe we should stop?" Biologists have even reported signs of morals in chimpanzee tribes! (Don't have the source right now, sorry, look it up if you want) Then the next question I have to raise is do these people who say this only live by these morals because they think they are going to hell if they don't? Do they refrain from rape and murder just for their own well-being? I'm sorry but Religion and morals are two different things. So if you could ever make a point that religion benefits a society in any way, a set of morals is not one.


If you hear it said about one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you to live in 13 that troublemakers have arisen among you and have led the people of their town astray, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods you have not known), 14 then you must inquire, probe and investigate it thoroughly. And if it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done among you, 15 you must certainly put to the sword all who live in that town. You must destroy it completely,[b] both its people and its livestock. 16 You are to gather all the plunder of the town into the middle of the public square and completely burn the town and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the LORD your God. That town is to remain a ruin forever, never to be rebuilt, 17 and none of the condemned things[c] are to be found in your hands. Then the LORD will turn from his fierce anger, will show you mercy, and will have compassion on you. He will increase your numbers, as he promised on oath to your ancestors— 18 because you obey the LORD your God by keeping all his commands that I am giving you today and doing what is right in his eyes.

Just sayin'