Hi

[Tempus]

All I am trying to say is religion gets a bad name because people project their own prejudices in the name of religion. Religion isn't evil, it's evil people doing evil acts and saying evil things justifying it with their religion. I truly believe if religion didn't exist evil people would be justifying evil acts through some other made up reason.

I agree, in sense. It's similar to "guns don't kill people, people kill people", which I agree with. This doesn't mean religion should be immune to criticism. You can apply this argument to anything: Communism isn't evil, it's evil people doing evil acts and saying evil things justifying it with their communism. I truly believe if communism didn't exist evil people would be justifying evil acts through some other made up reason.

Well yeah, of course they would. Once more, this doesn't mean we shouldn't criticise the poor aspects of communism and religion. And not just the surface stuff like Person X believing their god wants them to donate to charity, but the implications of their poor reasoning. What if Person X truly believed their god wanted them to outlaw gay marriage? Or restrict Asian people's right to vote? Clearly if the same reasoning that convinced them to enhance happiness ("you can't disprove it") also applies to the case for causing suffering we have a problem. The fact that it lead Person X to donate to charity in this specific case isn't the point, the point is that they were lead there by poor reasoning.

Religion isn't the most logical belief, but when you can't explain the unexplainable sometimes it just makes the most sense for people to believe that someone more than them designed it that way.

It isn't logical at all. What makes the most sense is to reserve your judgement until there's a reason to believe something. To suggest you can explain something you've just called unexplainable is basically saying "I can't explain it... therefore I can explain it." It's fine to make educated guesses at what something might be (if no one ever ventured forth with hypotheses progress would slow right down) but these are guesses which should be acknowledged as such and be willingly relinquished when contradicted by the facts. It's also worth noting that one needn't believe in their own guess.

I won't tell the old lady sitting alone at her home that the only think keeping her company doesn't exist. If she preaches hate about it, I will tell her all the ways in which she is incorrect.

This is irrelevant.

If that old lady comes on a public forum, whether online or otherwise, claiming that "you can't disapprove [claim Y], therefore it's justified to believe in it" I will inform her she's incorrect. I don't go door knocking in old folks homes or wandering around cancer wards to inform people that their reasons for believing what they do are flawed. Nonetheless, having cancer or being old does not make you immune to criticism in the public arena which is where everyone on this forum currently resides.

As it stands this is really an emotional appeal which seems to amount to "if people believe something that's incorrect we shouldn't tell them if it will hurt their feelings, provided the belief doesn't harm anyone" - since we weren't talking about old ladies alone in their homes to begin with does this mean it's supposed to somehow apply to this scenario? Are we supposed to avoid informing people on this forum their beliefs are based on poor reasoning simply because they may get upset and the belief is innocuous? That, to me, is a contemptible view. It's tantamount to saying "you're too fragile to handle reality." Also, to reiterate the point I made in my previous post:

But that isn't even my real problem with such ideas. My actual problem is that if decisions about what to believe are made from such poor arguments as "you can't disprove it, therefore it's true" (which I will emphasise I realise you're not saying) that's going to lead to larger societal problems. Imagine that attitude applied to global warming, AIDs, racism, etc. Good reasoning skills are critical to making informed decisions. I think it's a mistake to assume people's poor reasoning in one area will not spill over into another.

It just occurred to me that my posts may read like I sound angry or confrontational - they're not supposed to, haha.