Why religion should not vanish

[SteelCurtain]

Indeed it is, and I personally do not agree with that stance. That is not the point I was focusing on however, my point there is that religion itself, irrespective of the belief system itself is the motivator for public works. Yes, Catholicism has a great deal to answer for but we can't deny how many countries rely upon the support it offers with remarkably little cost.

A secular agency would cost multi millions to be persuaded to fly over to Ireland and take over the education system, the Catholic Church is willing to do it for a few nods of respect and an hour in a church every sunday.

And 10% or more of their money, plus the lack of tax revenue by the state, which could be used to pay for the very "education" that the church metes out.

It won't be secular "organizations" that would fill the void left by religion. It would be society.

I don't doubt they have that capacity but this is the thing Steelcurtain, not all humans are ethical or remotley nice. I have watched several "good" religious confess that if there were no god they would think nothing of raping and stealing if they could get away with it. To these foul creatures, Religion is the only thing keeping them on a leash. I would prefer that they remain docile and restrained rather than loose to prey on the naive.

But the point is that the church or religion does not change the number or percentage of people who are going to do bad things. Those people are always going to exist, church or not. There is no evidence that religion is the thing that stops these "foul creatures" from perpetrating evil. In any case, with all the evil that religious organizations perpetrate on a global level, the trade off would be a net positive. And by the way... they already are preying on the naive.

Me? Oh..I don't have a clue what I am anymore. I'm not a practicing Catholic I'm sure of that. I'm only picking out examples, I'll use any other scripture you like to base my claims. How about the Upanishads? The Tao, The doctrine of the mean? Pick any other one you like, I'm not referring specifically to the bible here.

Let's stick to the major religions, where their absence would be noticeable. They all say great things that don't require religion. Don't lie, steal, murder. Fantastic. We don't need religion for that, these are basic laws of a successful society. What they all have in common are laws demeaning women, promoting slavery, vilifying homosexuality, advocating genocide, and excusing rape. Ethical? I could do without.

Unless they are compelled to change and adapt to a new world view I think the Romans got closest to this, clearly I don't like their methods but we can feel the immense impact they had upon western society even today. At the core they themselves were motivated by faith, they believed they were the Children of Mars, and the world was theirs for the taking.

But that is an idealistic view. They all won't be compelled (scary choice of word, especially with religion involved) to do any one thing.

[Napoléon]

Um - with shithead popes mouthing off against condom use they are also the single biggest reason for the spread of AIDS in the world.

This is what makes me laugh. People go on like religion is such a blessing for people in poor countries. Like, what would they do without religion? Religion gives people in the third world hope!

Bullshit to the highest degree. Religion effectively does what it always has done, it keeps the populace for the large part dumb and suppressed. How many times do we hear of religious clashes in third world countries, terrorist groups sprouting up all the time founded on religious doctrines.

Oh but they do charity work? Yeah, they fucking should do. Most of the mess they're cleaning up is caused by religion in the first place.

Isn't it also true Hamas does a lot of charity work? Does that make them a valuable asset to the world?

[Ravenshire]

1. Charity: Like them or loathe them organized religion has a massive input into the fields of aid work, healthcare and education. Regardless as to what they teach the movements values nonetheless empowers and inspires individuals to give up their money towards a more productive cause. Instead of buying a new PC game, little Timmy the devout Christian might give his pocket money to fund some Kenyan girls education.

The single largest charitable organization in the world is the Gates Foundation. No gawds required.

2. Crime prevention: Several religions use rather dubious standards as to what constitutes a crime but belief in the concept of an eternal judgement is quite a useful trait to be adopted by the public. You can't have a camera in every home but Allah/Krishna/Osiris sees all, and the threat of divine retribution while not off putting to all believers will certainly dissuade some from committing crimes.

Our prison system, where atheists are severely under-represented, would seem to indicate that we can manage our "killer urges" quite well without gawd.

3. Ethics: While some standards of ethics propagated by some religions can be described as barbaric at best the general core base (don't steal, don't kill, don't rape) are more or less universal. Let's be frank, most of humanity is pretty dense and either can't understand or won't use the finer points of philosophical schools such as Stoicism or Taoism to form a code of ethics. Religion takes all the hassle out of it, and spoon feeds a code of conduct to believers. Supposing this code can be tweaked to a more modern standard as the Episcopalians have done rather successfully (i,e: They believe in Jesus but also think it's cool to be gay now) it does seem to be the most effective method of instilling a sense of morality.

Ethics and morality are not an invention of religion, no matter how many times your local shaman tells you that his special voo-doo sky-fairy handed them down.

4. Common cause: With perhaps an exception to the Pagan Roman Empire who chose to integrate foreign religions and cultures with their own one of the most successful methods in history to unite people together for a common cause is to join them under the banner of God. Faith is a transcendental quality, and can lead to humans forgetting about divides such as culture, language or race and focus on a quality shared amongst all of them, their faith. The Crusades, The Islamic conquests, the Reconquista and the Third Reich are all examples of where faith (or a cult of personality) have gathered people of various types together to accomplish a goal that would have otherwise been impossible. Certainly, these examples were all martial in their goals but what is to prevent the Pope or an Ayatollah calling for a "Crusade" against illness, or a "war" against poverty? This is a power that could be channeled into more constructive ends.

Bullshit. The "outside aggressor" is the greatest unifying force in history. Religion has historically divided, not unified. Put a giant space rock on a collision course for earth in 1980 and watch the US and the USSR dismiss all of their petty bickering to cooperate to deflect it while the churches bicker about which is the true faith and how all the others caused the fucking rock in the first place.


There are no logical reasons for keeping religion around. Of course, it's not like it's going to die off overnight next Thursday, but it does seem to be dying. I just hope I live long enough to spit on it's grave.

[Vox]

And 10% or more of their money, plus the lack of tax revenue by the state, which could be used to pay for the very "education" that the church metes out.

Not always, in Ireland for instance the Catholic Church, more or less being the government unofficial education department even now the Church puts in far more cash than it receives from grants and revenue. I couldn't comment on other countries but there most of the cash originated from the Holy See's banking investments or Peter's Pence; the states input while not negligible (there are secular schools after all, just not that many) was far outmatched by what the Church was willing to offer.

It won't be secular "organizations" that would fill the void left by religion. It would be society.

Then in the wake of the sex scandals where all of these children are thought to be at risk why does no-one else offer to take up the mantle?

The only reason the Catholic Church hasn't been booted out of the Irish education system is simply because it couldn't function without them.

But the point is that the church or religion does not change the number or percentage of people who are going to do bad things. Those people are always going to exist, church or not. There is no evidence that religion is the thing that stops these "foul creatures" from perpetrating evil. In any case, with all the evil that religious organizations perpetrate on a global level, the trade off would be a net positive. And by the way... they already are preying on the naive.

They are always going to exist, but what we can do is either reduce their numbers or frighten them into submission which religion is often quite excellent at doing.

Again, some of them are, but then others often testify to the peace of mind faith and religion brings them; you may scoff at the notion of a comfort blanky but to some people it's the only thing that gets them through the day. That's a whole other point to explore.

Let's stick to the major religions, where their absence would be noticeable. They all say great things that don't require religion. Don't lie, steal, murder. Fantastic. We don't need religion for that, these are basic laws of a successful society. What they all have in common are laws demeaning women, promoting slavery, vilifying homosexuality, advocating genocide, and excusing rape. Ethical? I could do without.

Indeed, I daresay this was considered ethical at the time. Give it another three hundred years and I'm sure we'll all be painted as immoral barbaric whores or something.

What would you say to the notion of a religion like Confucianism or Taoism where there is room for constant adaptation to make way for changes in ethics? As we learn new concepts, they can be easily taken up to upgrade the core belief. It's why the system has remained nigh on indestructible in China since it was first formulated.

But that is an idealistic view. They all won't be compelled (scary choice of word, especially with religion involved) to do any one thing.

It is, but I couldn't think of a better one really. All political or ethical philosophies are ideals, the world is not black and white and will not fit in with our pretty pre-prepared expectations. What we can do however is discourage as many as feasibly possible from doing things which are destructive to society and encourage them to do what is beneficial instead.

This is what makes me laugh. People go on like religion is such a blessing for people in poor countries. Like, what would they do without religion? Religion gives people in the third world hope!

It does. Some of the most devout believers I have met have been the ones with the least. It's what gives them the strength to keep going and do what they believe is right. For someone with literally nothing, Gods love is everything.

Bullshit to the highest degree. Religion effectively does what it always has done, it keeps the populace for the large part dumb and suppressed. How many times do we hear of religious clashes in third world countries, terrorist groups sprouting up all the time founded on religious doctrines.

I don't think it makes the population dumb, I think the population is pretty stupid already (just take a peek at facebook or twitter anytime soon), the only difference is organized religion is very efficient at capitalizing upon it and putting it to use.

I'm advocating the same. Some people do need to be led along like sheep, they are not capable of doing it on their own. I think a religion of some form is the simplest way of getting people together to work towards something useful. You can use patriotism or a shared interest but religion is what gets the most absolute and unfailing devotion.

Oh but they do charity work? Yeah, they fucking should do. Most of the mess they're cleaning up is caused by religion in the first place.

Not always, in Northern Ireland for instance while it's constantly framed as Protestants Vs Catholics it's really a nationalistic battle; Scottish planters vs Native Irish.

Isn't it also true Hamas does a lot of charity work? Does that make them a valuable asset to the world?

It does to the islamic community, although of course to us they're using a totally alien code of ethics.

The single largest charitable organization in the world is the Gates Foundation. No gawds required.

Uh...You do realize Bill Gates family are Catholics (he seems to be more of a deist or theistic inclined agnostic) , and he's even confessed it's Catholic morality which inspires his charitable works? http://www.christianpost.com/news/bill-g...od-116166/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/bi...-work.html

Religion's got a pretty big hand in that it would seem.

Our prison system, where atheists are severely under-represented, would seem to indicate that we can manage our "killer urges" quite well without gawd.

Not really, professed Athiests are such a tiny proportion of the population it's hard to really compare a few hundred Athiests to the millions of Hispanic Catholics. Sheer size of samples kinda screws that unless you can condense it to some sort of equal ratio.

Ethics and morality are not an invention of religion, no matter how many times your local shaman tells you that his special voo-doo sky-fairy handed them down.

Indeed they aren't, but why is religion still the vehicle of choice for instilling ethics rather than philosophers? Aristotle's had a lot more airtime compared to the Guru Granth Sahib and yet far more people turn to that than they do any of his treaties.

It's simpler to digest (especially with a clergy to ritualize and make it more glamerous) for average joe.

Bullshit. The "outside aggressor" is the greatest unifying force in history. Religion has historically divided, not unified. Put a giant space rock on a collision course for earth in 1980 and watch the US and the USSR dismiss all of their petty bickering to cooperate to deflect it while the churches bicker about which is the true faith and how all the others caused the fucking rock in the first place.

Thats true for some occasions but not always. Take the fall of Constantinople for instance, Europe knew once Byzantium fell they would be next on the Ottoman hit list and yet they still didn't raise a finger to help. Why? Because they didn't trust the "effeminate" Greeks.

There are no logical reasons for keeping religion around. Of course, it's not like it's going to die off overnight next Thursday, but it does seem to be dying. I just hope I live long enough to spit on it's grave.

If there's anything my studies have shown me, it's that religion is as strong as ever. Certainly, belief in Christianity, Islam and the like may be dropping but that's being swiftly replaced by Wicca, Hare Krishna, Santa Muerte, "Spirituality" and a myriad of other things of that ilk . All of which are encouraging a whole new area of commercialism and mercantile interest.

[Ravenshire]

The single largest charitable organization in the world is the Gates Foundation. No gawds required.

Uh...You do realize Bill Gates family are Catholics (he seems to be more of a deist or theistic inclined agnostic) , and he's even confessed it's Catholic morality which inspires his charitable works? http://www.christianpost.com/news/bill-g...od-116166/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/bi...-work.html

Religion's got a pretty big hand in that it would seem.

Our prison system, where atheists are severely under-represented, would seem to indicate that we can manage our "killer urges" quite well without gawd.

Not really, professed Athiests are such a tiny proportion of the population it's hard to really compare a few hundred Athiests to the millions of Hispanic Catholics. Sheer size of samples kinda screws that unless you can condense it to some sort of equal ratio.

Ethics and morality are not an invention of religion, no matter how many times your local shaman tells you that his special voo-doo sky-fairy handed them down.

Indeed they aren't, but why is religion still the vehicle of choice for instilling ethics rather than philosophers? Aristotle's had a lot more airtime compared to the Guru Granth Sahib and yet far more people turn to that than they do any of his treaties.

It's simpler to digest (especially with a clergy to ritualize and make it more glamerous) for average joe.

Bullshit. The "outside aggressor" is the greatest unifying force in history. Religion has historically divided, not unified. Put a giant space rock on a collision course for earth in 1980 and watch the US and the USSR dismiss all of their petty bickering to cooperate to deflect it while the churches bicker about which is the true faith and how all the others caused the fucking rock in the first place.

Thats true for some occasions but not always. Take the fall of Constantinople for instance, Europe knew once Byzantium fell they would be next on the Ottoman hit list and yet they still didn't raise a finger to help. Why? Because they didn't trust the "effeminate" Greeks.

There are no logical reasons for keeping religion around. Of course, it's not like it's going to die off overnight next Thursday, but it does seem to be dying. I just hope I live long enough to spit on it's grave.

If there's anything my studies have shown me, it's that religion is as strong as ever. Certainly, belief in Christianity, Islam and the like may be dropping but that's being swiftly replaced by Wicca, Hare Krishna and "Spirituality". All three of which are encouraging a whole new area of commercialism and mercantile interest.

1st point:
Bill Gates, regardless of upbringing, is an atheist. Kinda hard to give credit to god or the church there.

2nd point:
Professed atheists (atheist, no belief, nonreligious, pick your name) are 15-20% of the population according to recent studies. Atheist populations in prisons, less than 1%

3rd point:
Religion is less and less the "vehicle of choice" for teaching ethics because more and more people are seeing that so many religions are so anti-ethical.

4th point:
You pick one aberration, where the aggressor wasn't common, but likely to become an aggressor to a non-involved party, and use that? Really? History is replete with examples of one group of people not helping the other guy, even against someone who may become their enemy but try to find an example of a common aggressor not unifying people at least long enough to fight them off. The enemy of my enemy...

By raw numbers, religion in general may be growing and I'm not sure I
even buy that. By percentage, it's dying. Even the "growth" is pathetically lukewarm, spiritual, "feel-good" bullshit growth. There are relatively few "devout" believers of any faith compared to even 30 years ago.

[Napoléon]

It does. Some of the most devout believers I have met have been the ones with the least. It's what gives them the strength to keep going and do what they believe is right. For someone with literally nothing, Gods love is everything.

I'm sure that will give them clean water and an education.

I don't think it makes the population dumb

I said it keeps the population dumb, not makes it.

I think the population is pretty stupid already (just take a peek at facebook or twitter anytime soon), the only difference is organized religion is very efficient at capitalizing upon it and putting it to use.

Very good on capitalizing on those in poor circumstances and those with low intellect. Yes.

I'm advocating the same. Some people do need to be led along like sheep, they are not capable of doing it on their own. I think a religion of some form is the simplest way of getting people together to work towards something useful. You can use patriotism or a shared interest but religion is what gets the most absolute and unfailing devotion.

I don't know, I think the Nazi's did a pretty good job mobilizing a nation, they did that for the most part without religion. I wouldn't say religion is the only way of getting people to work towards a common goal, or necessarily the best way.

Not always, in Northern Ireland for instance while it's constantly framed as Protestants Vs Catholics it's really a nationalistic battle; Scottish planters vs Native Irish.

Are you seriously suggesting that the conflict in Northern Ireland has nothing to do with religion. That it plays no part?

Even still, it's pretty irrelevant. Not all conflicts are caused by religion. That's not the argument. The argument is that religion does cause many conflicts. Not necessarily all.

It does to the islamic community, although of course to us they're using a totally alien code of ethics.

Yeah, you're damn right the ethics are alien. They're ethics based on religion.

[ShaMan]

belief in the concept of an eternal judgement is quite a useful trait to be adopted by the public.

(partial quote)


Or so the inventors of religion once thought. I need no such threat to behave in a civil and humane manner.

[Mudhammam]

I prefer to have all those things in reality for reasons entirely justified by reality. Let your stupid fairy tales die already. Leave your security blanket behind in childhood where it belongs.

[SteelCurtain]

Not always, in Ireland for instance the Catholic Church, more or less being the government unofficial education department even now the Church puts in far more cash than it receives from grants and revenue. I couldn't comment on other countries but there most of the cash originated from the Holy See's banking investments or Peter's Pence; the states input while not negligible (there are secular schools after all, just not that many) was far outmatched by what the Church was willing to offer.

I didn't ever say that this money that the Catholic church sucks in (in Ireland) would in total pay for education. That was my response to you saying that all the church asked in return for providing this was a "wink and a nod" or some such nonsense. It asks for a lot more. My point here was not the money. My point was that if there is a void like "our children need to be educated, and there is no more church to do it/pay for it, we'll find a way."

Then in the wake of the sex scandals where all of these children are thought to be at risk why does no-one else offer to take up the mantle?

The only reason the Catholic Church hasn't been booted out of the Irish education system is simply because it couldn't function without them.

Are you really saying that if the church wasn't there to sweep under the rug a terrible atrocity that they themselves created, who would?
And, for the record, there are many organizations that are there to help people, all in spite of the church.

http://www.snapnetwork.org/

And to your second point: if they had to, they would function without them. The trouble is, they don't have to. And part of the reason is that the church fosters that codependent relationship. To suggest that the church leave the business of educating our youth to educators would be to incite the wrath of the Church, and history has shown that to be a bloody venture.

They are always going to exist, but what we can do is either reduce their numbers or frighten them into submission which religion is often quite excellent at doing.

Again, some of them are, but then others often testify to the peace of mind faith and religion brings them; you may scoff at the notion of a comfort blanky but to some people it's the only thing that gets them through the day. That's a whole other point to explore.

So your answer to bad people is blanket fear for the masses? Stamping people into submission is a good thing? You don't see the license that this gives the religious authority? My point is that the damage that this blanket fear does (Sharia law, stifling discovery, genocide, condoms) FAR outweighs the small number of people who truly would go around raping people and stealing things without the fear of a sky daddy.

Indeed, I daresay this was considered ethical at the time. Give it another three hundred years and I'm sure we'll all be painted as immoral barbaric whores or something.

This is exactly my point. Morality is not in the slightest sense governed by religion. It is governed by society and culture, as is clearly evident by the constantly evolving ethical rubric that we see.

What would you say to the notion of a religion like Confucianism or Taoism where there is room for constant adaptation to make way for changes in ethics? As we learn new concepts, they can be easily taken up to upgrade the core belief. It's why the system has remained nigh on indestructible in China since it was first formulated.

It is also a system, as I said before, that is natural in society, without (and despite) religion.

It is, but I couldn't think of a better one really. All political or ethical philosophies are ideals, the world is not black and white and will not fit in with our pretty pre-prepared expectations. What we can do however is discourage as many as feasibly possible to do what is constructive for the society.

And what if what is most constructive for society is to marginalize religion?

[Thumpalumpacus]

1. Charity: Like them or loathe them organized religion has a massive input into the fields of aid work, healthcare and education. Regardless as to what they teach the movements values nonetheless empowers and inspires individuals to give up their money towards a more productive cause. Instead of buying a new PC game, little Timmy the devout Christian might give his pocket money to fund some Kenyan girls education.

Given the wealth that they extract from the laity, they'd goddamned well better hand some back. And quite frankly, their charity often comes with deadly repercussions, as in Africa, where the Catholic Church actively campaigned against condoms as they handed out their food.

2. Crime prevention: Several religions use rather dubious standards as to what constitutes a crime but belief in the concept of an eternal judgement is quite a useful trait to be adopted by the public. You can't have a camera in every home but Allah/Krishna/Osiris sees all, and the threat of divine retribution while not off putting to all believers will certainly dissuade some from committing crimes.

The overwhelming majority of convicts in American prisons are religionists. They are overrepresented in terms of propportion, too, while atheists are underrepresented.

3. Ethics: While some standards of ethics propagated by some religions can be described as barbaric at best the general core base (don't steal, don't kill, don't rape) are more or less universal. Let's be frank, most of humanity is pretty dense and either can't understand or won't use the finer points of philosophical schools such as Stoicism or Taoism to form a code of ethics. Religion takes all the hassle out of it, and spoon feeds a code of conduct to believers. Supposing this code can be tweaked to a more modern standard as the Episcopalians have done rather successfully (i,e: They believe in Jesus but also think it's cool to be gay now) it does seem to be the most effective method of instilling a sense of morality.

One would expect religionists to behave in a moral manner, then; but that is so clearly not the case that this point is rendered vapid.

4. Common cause: With perhaps an exception to the Pagan Roman Empire who chose to integrate foreign religions and cultures with their own one of the most successful methods in history to unite people together for a common cause is to join them under the banner of God. Faith is a transcendental quality, and can lead to humans forgetting about divides such as culture, language or race and focus on a quality shared amongst all of them, their faith. The Crusades, The Islamic conquests, the Reconquista and the Third Reich are all examples of where faith (or a cult of personality) have gathered people of various types together to accomplish a goal that would have otherwise been impossible. Certainly, these examples were all martial in their goals but what is to prevent the Pope or an Ayatollah calling for a "Crusade" against illness, or a "war" against poverty? This is a power that could be channeled into more constructive ends.

The fact that this sort of power is invariably used to spread evil undermines your argument over the ability of faith to impart moral and ethical purity.

I could list more, but I think this should get the ball rolling. Even if God does not exist, I think there is much merit to encouraging the idea of faith and of the existence of a deity.

As Voltaire once said, if God didn't exist we'd have to invent him.

I don't think he cottoned much to subjectivism, but so what? We each define our own lives and our own moralities. That some do it in the framework of religion doesn't mean that it cannot be done in its absence.