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]

[Ravenshire]

[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]

[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.