Do you think religion is holding society back?

[The Grand Nudger]

To answer the thread question: Do you think religion is holding society back?, you have to define "back from what".

Scientifically, no. In fact, Christianity was instrumental in the early progress of modern science (that's why it developed almost entirely in the west) because it taught that the world and nature was created and entirely discoverable and NOT endowed with spiritual or mystical qualities--like the rest of the world still believed.

Oh, is that how that happened?  -and here I thought it was some sort of period of enlightenment, where rationality became prominant, on the backs of some sort of, oh..whats the word..renaissance, of classical pagan thinking?  

Turns out the christers opened their bibles and christed all the science into existence.  

Some Utopian society? No. I think it has been proven over and over again that people do not play nicely with other different than themselves. I don't think there is any evidence that religious differences has done anywhere near the harm than non religious events of history.

I doubt that anything even approaching a utopian society will ever be achieved by people eager to shuffle off their mortal coil and get to the real deal, next life.  

Morality? No. In fact, I think religion has helped develop the general morality we see today in western countries. Most of us would agree that the western morality is superior to other parts of the world where differences arise.

Western morality, like hating on gays and unwed mothers?  Or do you mean, western morality, like..stop being a dick who hates on gays and unwed mothers? 

Imploding? Yes. No matter what you think about religion, it has a very real, largely positive, psychological effect on people

At least, here, we agree.  Alot of these guys tell us that , if there were no god..there;d be no reaon for them not to go out and lott the store and set fire to their neighbors house and rape his wife and murder the dog.  I'm glad those people don't waker up in the morning, altogether, and say "shit, there really is no god!".  It'd be mad max with jesus trash lying around everywhere.

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Newton never denied his Christian belief and actually gave credit to it for his accomplishments.

Which is kind of funny, in that he showed his work...and there isn't any "jesus" in it.  

The Adventist church most certainly uses Jesus in it's medical practices. I have Adventist friends who keep me informed on such things.

GC

Oh yeah?   Boy I'd love to see what illnesses they treat with jesus, and some of their data on the efficacy of jesus based treatment. What kind of jesus dosage are they administering, and in what form?