Quote:In answer to your question, it depends on any number of factors other than just the ones you've defined. You're saying that delusion itself is harmful, but are you taking into account that in the world there are billions of harmless people who are deluding themselves over one thing or another and I'm not just talking about religion?It is my opinion that overall delusion is more harmful than not. But I'm just being pedantic there.
Quote: you say that religious people cherry pick, and I agree. It is for that exact reason, meaning the fact that they have a sense of right and wrong, that they aren't harmful. That's the issue here.
The fact they can cherry-pick the good parts means they don't need the Bible to be moral. And those who don't cherry-pick and take the Bible 100% literally including all the nasty parts (or at least a few, or at least one of the nasty parts!) - do harm because of the Bible's existence. And there were more literalists in the past before than now. And despite the fact they are now in the minority - there are still plenty of them.
That is an example of the huge negative effects from religion (in this case, Christianity) throughout history, and less so but still today too.
Quote:What you're doing is equating delusion with all manner of sinister things, which in my view is exaggerating, and also clearly untrue because I'm sure we all have religious neighbours and relatives and friends.
No, see above. I was just saying that I think delusion itself is harmful because it isn't healthy and I think on the whole the more healthy you are the less harmful you are to others. That wasn't my main point at all. My main point is that many people DO take holy books literally and a great harm comes from that, and those who don't take it literally don't need to believe in it at all to be moral - atheists can know what's moral for the same reason as believers who cherry-pick can: That reason being that morality doesn't come from the book! But a lot of IMmorality can do - if the immorality in it is literally believed.
Quote:Mine are all peaceful people, are yours? If they are, does that not show that being religious, indeed even deluded in itself in any way, doesn't equal dangerous?
I don't believe I ever made such a claim. I just stated that IMO delusion itself is on the whole at least a bit more harmful than non-delusion - but that's just my opinion and not my main point. See above.
Quote:I know that you're putting a lot of focus on how they cherry pick nd how that means that they're not following their religion to the full, and that's fair enough, but it's a different issue.
As I said above, the fact they cherry-pick shows that their morals don't come from religion. But a lot of immorality can and at times does come from religion when the bad stuff in it is literally believed. See above. It's a clear negative effect from religion. In fact THE number one negative effect I think. Another negative effect would be that then on top of the literal believers that cause harm - there are some corrupt people who take advantage of them and use them as a weapon (it's certainly happened in history I say) and so that compounds the whole mess. History would be so much more free of bloodshed had the nasty parts of the Bible not been written (and had no other book with nasty bits been written in its place) for example. Because then there would be no popular nasty shit written in a book (or at least one less book like it - and the Bible is THE most popular of them) to be followed by a load of literalists who then could also (on top of that) have some corrupt people take advantage of them and use them as a weapon.
EvF
