Religion: Does It Do More Harm Than Good? (4 Viewers)

[davin]

and you guess wrong. i'm agnostic...not athiest, nor do i have an anti-religion viewpoint outright, i just have disagreements with it

 

[Big Rush]

Know, I can't be stuffed reading through this entire thread, so I'll just out and say it.

Religion is the bain (?did i spell that right?) of all scientific progress which will tap into the vast potential a human has. It has incited numerous wars, genocides and all the human losses that go with that - and less people on the planet isn't necassarily a bad thing but that's for an entirely different thread (who will it be that posts "Over Population is upon us, do we start culling people?").

But that isn't to say it not without it's advantages, for instance it is one of the best means of controlling a large amount of people - something the new world will most definately need. It gives people purpose beyond their jobs (which is ultimately their only use in society), as well as hope, someone to turn to, it means people that talk to themselves in bed aren't crazy...
*cough*
<_<
>_>

And thus I am an aethiest, and this is the perfect time to pedal my own views onto the world:
- there is purpose to everything, when you fulfill you die
- there is nothing after death, no heaven, god, or martyr, you die, you decompose, the next generation of organisms recycles your nuitrients
- I am the only messiah, no one else has the potential to be as important to the universe as me (lol, that's true, but no one will beleive it)

and those are my views on religion. Buddhism seems like a good one, although ?? is it ?? religion ?? or is it ?? just some to practice ?? like yoga or karate...

 

[Not-That-Bright]

Big rush, budhism is definately a religion... hollywood budhism might not be tho I spose
It doesn't seem like an alright one to me, alot of their followers have done similar outrageous things in the name of their religion and their belief is just as supernatural and fancyful as any other.

 

[chabz0505]

Like Big Rush, I haven't read all threads, but here is my arguement.

---- WORTH READING ----

There are religions that are fundamentally good in 'most to all' aspects. This being so due to the goodness in the religion's theology and theories. Some examples being Buddhism and Christianity. Read the Ten Commandments (don't underestimate its expressed simplicity-it addresses many issues) and read the 10 Precepts (of Buddhism), you will find goodness in these belief systems and traditions.
What also needs to be acknowledge is that there are religions fundamentally bad (in the sense that it is not good). Such examples are the Ancient Greek mythologies, which human sacrifice including babies in the case of the Goddess Artemis. The archiac nature of Islam in a certain degree does have its negativities, within its theology. Being the conversion of all for Allah and if refused, the sentence is death.

But the aspects of religion that needs criticism are the 'followers', because it is SOME of followers that have done harm to the religion, e.g Bin Ladin and Islamic extremism. So it should be noted that when it comes to religion it would be FAIR to criticise the followers responsible for the harm done, and not the religion (unless the religion itself DIRECTLY intends harm, that of which it would be bad as mentioned with the ancient Greeks and Islam).

Lastly, lets just ask the question,

"No Religion: Does it do more harm than good?"

The answer is found in the history of mankind during the 21st century, this century was an increasingly secular and politically non-religious time. The absence of religion in society and government saw TWO WORLD WARS, the VIETNAM WAR, the KOREAN WAR, the COLD WAR, the NUCLEAR ARMS RACE, the ATOMIC BOMB & HYDROGEN BOMB, the CULTURAL REVOLUTION OF CHINA, the deadly sweep of COMMUNISM and FASCISM and even now CAPITALISM is worthy of being ranked as evil, also we have ecological disasters such as GLOBAL WARMING, the GREEN HOUSE EFFECT, and also GLOBAL DIMMING. Climate temperatures are rising, rainforests are being logged, species are disappearing, some known others unknown. Lets not forget the APARTHEID of Africa, BOXER REBELLION IN CHINA, the BOER WAR, RUSSIAN REVOLUTION of 1905, Great Depression, massacre at Tiananmen Square, Gulf War the Rwanda Genocide .... .... ....

Get the drift? but the conclusion i have reached is that the presence of religon has done good and harm, and the absence of religion has done good and harm.
So really whats there to talk about ???

Interesting note: If religon is a belief system and is accompanied by a diety or transcendant of some sort, then ideologies such as capitalism and communism can be deemed as religions, right? The deities being in these scenarios are the consumers and goverments, respectively.

"Majority of religions are worth understanding, a minority of them are worth following" - Chabz, 2006.

 

[Not-That-Bright]

There are religions that are fundamentally good in 'most to all' aspects. This being so due to the goodness in the religion's theology and theories.

What is good? How do you know what exactly the aspects of the religion is? I would claim that the only definition we can give for any sort of analysis is an operational one... which would examine the actions of the followers of said religion - in which case I would say most whatever you use to define good (i.e. utilitarianism, happyiness) would probably not be fundamental to religion.

Read the Ten Commandments (don't underestimate its expressed simplicity-it addresses many issues) and read the 10 Precepts (of Buddhism), you will find goodness in these belief systems and traditions.

I can see the 'goodness' there are principles in all religions which are commonly humanist.. i.e. be nice to your neighbour, don't kill... these are easily explained biologically - we evolved to be a social species, because social species that empathised with one another tended to live longer than others.

There are ALOT of non-humanist parts to the ten commandments however, and throughout these religions... things such as 'you have to keep the day of sabath holy' or whatever - it is these aspects of the religion which we are arguing against, not humanist ideals which are built into our genes..

What also needs to be acknowledge is that there are religions fundamentally bad (in the sense that it is not good). Such examples are the Ancient Greek mythologies, which human sacrifice including babies in the case of the Goddess Artemis.

Hmm? I'm sure babies have been killed in the name of christianity... and there are numerous examples of babies being killed in the bible (if you trust that source) often under the direct order of God - you seem to be being quite selective when examining these religions.

The archiac nature of Islam in a certain degree does have its negativities, within its theology. Being the conversion of all for Allah and if refused, the sentence is death.

Christianity is not Archaic? Interesting - btw in the bible it also promotes death for those whom are non-christian...

But the aspects of religion that needs criticism are the 'followers', because it is SOME of followers that have done harm to the religion, e.g Bin Ladin and Islamic extremism. So it should be noted that when it comes to religion it would be FAIR to criticise the followers responsible for the harm done, and not the religion (unless the religion itself DIRECTLY intends harm, that of which it would be bad as mentioned with the ancient Greeks and Islam).

It is impossible to provide an operational definition of what a religion really is without making observations based on the followers of said religion. The past say 5-6 pages of this thread have been addressing this argument if you want to check it out.

The answer is found in the history of mankind during the 21st century, this century was an increasingly secular and politically non-religious time. The absence of religion in society and government saw TWO WORLD WARS, the VIETNAM WAR, the KOREAN WAR, the COLD WAR, the NUCLEAR ARMS RACE, the ATOMIC BOMB & HYDROGEN BOMB, the CULTURAL REVOLUTION OF CHINA, the deadly sweep of COMMUNISM and FASCISM and even now CAPITALISM is worthy of being ranked as evil, also we have ecological disasters such as GLOBAL WARMING, the GREEN HOUSE EFFECT, and also GLOBAL DIMMING. Climate temperatures are rising, rainforests are being logged, species are disappearing, some known others unknown. Lets not forget the APARTHEID of Africa, BOXER REBELLION IN CHINA, the BOER WAR, RUSSIAN REVOLUTION of 1905, Great Depression, massacre at Tiananmen Square, Gulf War the Rwanda Genocide .... ....

First, I know it would be hard... but you'd have to prove causation between secular society and all of these occurances. You see, if you visit www.flyingspaghettimonster.com you will find that there's a corrolation between the decreasing number of pirates in the world and global warming - therefore the lack of pirates is causing global warming.

I hope you can see the problem with your argument after that analogy.

Interesting note: If religon is a belief system and is accompanied by a diety or transcendant of some sort, then ideologies such as capitalism and capitalism can be deemed religions. The deities being in these scenarios are the consumers and goverments, respectively.

A religion is a belief system accompanied by a supernatural power of some sort... therefore capitalism and communism cannot be considered religions.

 

[ur_inner_child]

the ten commandments?

honor thy mother and father

I had a fundamentalist Christian put me to tears when he told me that in leaving home, even with my strict and abusive parents, I was sinning and going against God. He told me that it was not my place to decide the fate of my life if my parents want to control it. He said even if they raped me, I should stay.

thou shall not kill

what about to defend your country?
what if, during war, you saw all your loved ones die in front of you because of the same person. Can God have mercy on you, considering in the context of the situation, you were driven mad?

You shall have no other gods besides Me... Do not make a sculpted image or any likeness of what is in the heavens above..."

I hate this commandment most of all. Therefore, YOU believe in the right God. Everyone else who thinks they're right are WRONG and are in sin.

"I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt..."

ie to believe in him. I get it.

"Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy"

Some people manage to do this and do it well! Good for them. My family couldnt considering they were pretty financially fucked and needed to work on Sundays. Funnily enough, I've had a person that has dared say to me that my parents should accept their financial situation and not work on the sunday. It's pretty frightful, the action of passing judgement over my family...

"You shall not have sexual relations with another man's wife."

adultery. I follow this rule even without religion.

you shall not steal

even if you were starving?

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor"

ie don't lie. Well we can all think of reasons why this rule may not apply.

"You shall not covet your neighbor's house..."
One is forbidden to desire and plan how one may obtain that which God has given to another.

dying your hair bleach blonde would be a sin wouldn't it?






.....I just feel that the majority of these rules, at the surface are very very interesting and good to humanity eg dont kill, dont steal, dont lie - but it has given a type of understanding and mentality that there are no exceptions, or that the God is the true God, no one else is right. It encourages to look upon non-believers with a type of superiority, passive or not, or with some sort of urge to "save" them, or to have the right to pass "judgement" over them, even though there are different understandings of these commandments

I cannot approve of such an attitude.

 

[Captain Gh3y]

You can't say they're good rules, but...

Either they're supreme commandments that must be followed to the letter at all times, or they are insanity.

 

[heybraham]

Jesus made one commandment "to love each other like i have loved you".
now this is reinforced by the 10 commandments (textual integrity...sorry too much advanced english).

personally i believe there's basically 2 ideas about love in the 10 commandments.

the first 5 is about dedication, which is an essential element of love.

1. i am the lord - trust in me
2. u shall have no other gods/idols/images other than me - don't worship random crap, you're cheatign on me. don't you trust me?
3. you shall not use my name in vain - don't say stuff like "holy shit', coz you'd be dissing me.
4. keep the sabbath holy - is your job more important than me? i think i should be more important
5. honour ur oldies - don't diss your oldies, coz dissin your creators (ie. mom/dad) is like dissin' me.

then the last 5 is like 'don't stray'

6. don't murder - don't 'take' someone else's life
7. don't commit adultery - don't stray. cheating ur wife is better than cheating me.
8. don't steal - don't 'take' someone else's possessions.
9. don't bear false witness against your neighbor - don't betray your friends
10. don't covet your neighbour's bling - don't value someone else's worldy posession over me.

Jesus's sole commandment - to love
10 commandments - dedicate yourself (in a lovingway)

basically both Jesus' and the 10 commandments are about the same thing, one of them is in a rule based form, that's less abstract. this is my interpretation anyway. i brought it down to personal level, of love. at the end of the day, religion is about interpretation, religion is the interpretation of life at a personal level. it's not about fighting wars over a word (allah, freedom, democracy etc), or going to church/mosque/religious-organisation it's about being a human being.

this interpretation btw, isn't some crap i regurgitated in sunday school, everything here is from my own interpretation, which differs slightly from inner child. i was actually planning to talk about the 10 commandments before inner child, but now i'm inspired

 

[the.chosen.one]

basically both Jesus' and the 10 commandments are about the same thing, one of them is in a rule based form, that's less abstract. this is my interpretation anyway. i brought it down to personal level, of love. at the end of the day, religion is about interpretation, religion is the interpretation of life at a personal level. it's not about fighting wars over a word (allah, freedom, democracy etc), or going to church/mosque/religious-organisation it's about being a human being.

i agree with that...especially that religion is about interpretation.


i've mentioned this before, but often it's the underlying concept which is important - more so than the literal interpretation.

i think in ur case - inner child - that fundamentalist christian was just that. and he/she was goin on literal interpretations...
what heybraham said was his interpretation, and showed the/one of the underlying concepts of what the religion teaches...and i think without trying to understand the context its talking in, one can get a distorted image of whats trying to be said..

 

[davin]

trying to say its not supposed to be literal interpretations on this is rather a stretch. underlying concepts are what one reads into it....literal interpretations come from taking it as face value, and as such, i would consider to be more accurate when it comes to, say, guidelines on how one is supposed to live.

 

[HotShot]

the ten commandments?



I had a fundamentalist Christian put me to tears when he told me that in leaving home, even with my strict and abusive parents, I was sinning and going against God. He told me that it was not my place to decide the fate of my life if my parents want to control it. He said even if they raped me, I should stay.

u got issues

what about to defend your country?
what if, during war, you saw all your loved ones die in front of you because of the same person. Can God have mercy on you, considering in the context of the situation, you were driven mad?

sad..

I hate this commandment most of all. Therefore, YOU believe in the right God. Everyone else who thinks they're right are WRONG and are in sin.

u have srs issues..

ie to believe in him. I get it.



Some people manage to do this and do it well! Good for them. My family couldnt considering they were pretty financially fucked and needed to work on Sundays. Funnily enough, I've had a person that has dared say to me that my parents should accept their financial situation and not work on the sunday. It's pretty frightful, the action of passing judgement over my family...


oh god ur issues are real bad
adultery. I follow this rule even without religion.



even if you were starving?



ie don't lie. Well we can all think of reasons why this rule may not apply.



dying your hair bleach blonde would be a sin wouldn't it?


....



.....I just feel that the majority of these rules, at the surface are very very interesting and good to humanity eg dont kill, dont steal, dont lie - but it has given a type of understanding and mentality that there are no exceptions, or that the God is the true God, no one else is right. It encourages to look upon non-believers with a type of superiority, passive or not, or with some sort of urge to "save" them, or to have the right to pass "judgement" over them, even though there are different understandings of these commandments
perhaps non-believers feel jealous..
I cannot approve of such an attitude.

in red biatch

 

[transcendent]

why don't you take your religion and fuck off.

 

[davin]

why don't you take your religion and fuck off.

cuz thats probably a sin too

 

[Not-That-Bright]

Nice rebuttle there Hotshot you immature dickhead.

 

[HotShot]

Nice rebuttle there Hotshot you immature dickhead.

nah it just shows the stupidity of her post, i can post the exact same thing and say how god has helped saved me..

 

[*Minka*]

In short: Yes.

And before you call me a bad person - I had my life ripped apart by war. It was ethnic based at the core, but a HUGE part of it was to do with religion.

 

[transcendent]

as long as you keep your religion to yourself and don't enforce it, or promote it, most people will be happy about it.

 

[*Minka*]

As well as not feeling the need to 'ethnically cleanse' those who are a different religion than you.

I will never forget the image of going next door to walk to school when with the muslim girl in my grade and walking through the front door and into her bedroom to see she has been shot and killed. I went through the rest of the house to see her whole family was dead. Why? Because of their religion. I used to walk to school with her because we'd talk about things and skip along the way and my brothers used to always run ahead kicking their soccer ball around and being boys.

I didn't even KNOW what a Muslim was when I was seven. I knew she wore a headscarf, but I never really noticed it until mum had to explain to me why Rahmah was dead.

 

[Not-That-Bright]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=516030973829223853

This is hillarious, if it wasn't from harunyahya i'd swear it was a parody. Religion harms when it spreads bullshit like this.

- Fascism
- Nazism
- Hippies
- Socialists

Are all the result of atheism lol

 

[davin]

important to note that Hitler was opposed to atheism and endorsed christianity