Why religion should not vanish

[Kitan Etos]

What little good religion has done is no argument in its favor when compared to the atrocities it has committed and continues to commit.

[Mudhammam]

Not to mention, religion fosters a general credulity generation after generation that rears its sheepish head in areas not related to metaphysical abstract supermen.

[Vox]

[Whateverist]

I honestly wasn't sure where to post this, but I suppose it counts as a philosophy of a sort.

Generally speaking "a philosophy" isn't philosophy.

[Ryantology]

1. Charity:

A lot of these donations involve spreading churches and the religion, and this is the primary point. Give them a Bible with their food. Get more heads to count. Why not just cut all the spiritual nonsense out and turn these churches into massive international charities? Will believers stop giving if they don't think God wants them to?

2. Crime prevention:

Compared to the level of devastation which results from religious exhortation, from terrorism to abortion clinic bombings to wars to somewhat less immediately violent activities such as institutional discrimination against unfavored groups of people (and there always seem to be so many!), it really doesn't end up as a net positive. The same person who won't rob a liquor store because he thinks God said not to is too likely to be the guy who shoots up a liquor store because he thinks God said to.

3. Ethics:

What use is a religion when the most important social rules are, as you said, universal? Removing those universally-recognized rules from any religion leaves you with nothing but a bunch of arbitrary rules designed to placate the sensibilities of those in charge of the religion. We don't need religion to tell us not to murder, and there is only harm in religion telling us things like gay sex is evil or that you'll go to hell forever if you don't love Jesus with all your heart.

4. Common cause:

If religion actually worked to create a common cause, we would only have one of them (and then there might be something resembling validity to claims of "one true religion"). All it has actually ever accomplished in real life is aggregating disparate elements only to the point where you have large, dangerous groups that view all others as competitors or threats.

[bennyboy]

All the things you mentioned as features of religion are in fact features of a strong sense of community. Therefore, I would say there's only one pragmatic benefit of religion: it provides a framework in which community is a central feature. So the question shouldn't be how we keep religion around. The question is how we divorce the sense of community that religion provides from the pseudo-spiritual baloney.

Before saying anything else, let me say that there is at least one other -ism which also does this: nationalism. A country in which all the members identify very strongly as members of a single social network (like nazi Germans) enjoys all the same social benefits that you were talking about. Single moms, for example, were called "brides of Hitler," and were given state support rather than being shamed.

I think given the massive immigration in America in particular, there are too many cultural differences among people to expect much social benefit from religion-- muslims, Christians and Jews, for example, aren't really going to provide for each other-- at least nothing more than simple material donations. Nationalism, on the other hand, could very likely bond all those various members into a unified entity. This has been known ever since Rome started extending citizenship to non-Romans in return for service in the legions.

Now, for many a rabid nationalism won't be seen as a good substitute for religion. You get the same mindless followers, and the same dangerous ignorance of opposing views. But at least nationalism still has a chance to work for America, one of the nations most in need of internal reconciliation and community.

[Mudhammam]

Then by the same logic we must also automatically dismiss Athiesm because Chairman Mao and Stalin conducted a Holocaust promoting some of it's values.

There's as much of a logical connection between the political ideology and social experiments conducted under the guise of nationalism and atheism than there is with Hitler, Hussein, and Assad all having mustaches. Does their a-leprechaunism also claim a share in their motivations to slaughter innocent civilians? Atheism is not a creed so connecting it to the actions of any group is disingenuous and asymmetrical to comparing the words of holy books that millions of adherents claim to follow, and linking their violent actions with the violent character of the god they claim complete devotion to.

Not to mention, religion fosters a general credulity generation after generation that rears its sheepish head in areas not related to metaphysical abstract supermen.

I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at here, are we talking about people taking Genesis literally or something? Even then it's only a minority of the religious who do that.

I'm talking about people who aren't taught to put ideas to the test of empirical evidence and scientific plausibility. Embracing religion means embracing a standard of evidence which renders our world almost comic book-like, where nothing is explained and much is misunderstood.

[Zidneya]

[Elskidor]

Religion's cons outweigh the pros.

[GrandizerII]

Correlation is NOT causation, OP. Someone said "strong sense of community". I agree that may be one of the causal factors involved.