Religion: Good or Bad?

[Dynohawk]

Discuss whether you think Religion has been a good or bad thing for humanity!

[Finn the Human]

Well religion gives everyone a guide to life, what they should do and what they should not. Most religions tell people right from wrong so I think that religions are good.

[Kaana]

Obviously if you're religious, you believe it's done more good than evil, because it's the difference between the world existing in the first place and not :P

 

There are nut jobs in any group of people. The number of people who have done admirable, world-changing things because of religion far outweighs the people who use it as an excuse for anything immoral.

[Dynohawk]

Well religion gives everyone a guide to life, what they should do and what they should not. Most religions tell people right from wrong so I think that religions are good.

There's no divine right or wrong though, I wouldn't say it's a great guide to life in some aspects either, what with it being so judgemental.

 

Obviously if you're religious, you believe it's done more good than evil, because it's the difference between the world existing in the first place and not :P

 

There are nut jobs in any group of people. The number of people who have done admirable, world-changing things because of religion far outweighs the people who use it as an excuse for anything immoral.

 

First bit, very true lol, I guess I'm more interested in agnostics POV or people that can be unbiased.

 

Would you consider the pope a nutjob then? He has influence over so many people, telling them not to use contraception, thing of the physical and mental effects of that and the sheer damage it's done.

[karmacow]

This is a hard question. Religion both unites and divides people, so I'm inclined to think that it ultimately is not worth having. Of course I don't believe in any god, so that's easy for me to say. Though you don't need to belong to any kind of religion, organized or not, to believe in a god (or several gods). I find it bizarre that some people live by a book that was written centuries ago, when you don't really know what the exact source was. You can have faith that the words came from something divine, but it still had to be mediated through a human. Christianity teaches that humans are not perfect, so in that context , I'm a little sceptical. That got a little off topic.

 

The question of whether it's good or bad... It depends on the individual and how they use it. It's not only good or only bad. Sadly religion gets a bad rep nowadays. We've got the Westboro Baptist Church, which is one of the most hateful religious groups on the planet and they definitely do not do anything good for anyone but themselves. And the whole mess in the middle east... But even without religion, there would be ignorant, hateful people. Religion is just one tool to use for those out to cause havoc.

[pchau123]

Well religion gives everyone a guide to life, what they should do and what they should not. Most religions tell people right from wrong so I think that religions are good.

 

 

I agree with dynohawk. Who's to say what is good and what is bad? It's all really subjective. What's good to you may be bad to another. Personally I think as of now the bad outweighs the good. I think at one point religion was a good thing. It only started turning bad when religion became a fight to recruit more people for more power and money etc. I.E. money being given to super churches and the vatican. I feel if these churches where to be useful then they should be giving these money to the people in need. Instead of making their church look better and giving their cardinals and priests ornate clothing and other wasteful crap. I also agree with the person who talked about the bible being unperfect. How do we know this book is correct? It was written by humans after all. I mean how do you know these people didn't write down lies in the bible? For all we know they only did that to control people.

[Finn the Human]

I agree with dynohawk. Who's to say what is good and what is bad? It's all really subjective. What's good to you may be bad to another. Personally I think as of now the bad outweighs the good. I think at one point religion was a good thing. It only started turning bad when religion became a fight to recruit more people for more power and money etc. I.E. money being given to super churches and the vatican. I feel if these churches where to be useful then they should be giving these money to the people in need. Instead of making their church look better and giving their cardinals and priests ornate clothing and other wasteful crap. I also agree with the person who talked about the bible being unperfect. How do we know this book is correct? It was written by humans after all. I mean how do you know these people didn't write down lies in the bible? For all we know they only did that to control people.

There's no divine right or wrong though, I wouldn't say it's a great guide to life in some aspects either, what with it being so judgemental.

 

 

 

First bit, very true lol, I guess I'm more interested in agnostics POV or people that can be unbiased.

 

Would you consider the pope a nutjob then? He has influence over so many people, telling them not to use contraception, thing of the physical and mental effects of that and the sheer damage it's done.

Practically all religions that I know of tell the followers not to kill, steal, be a part of crime, etc. Do you think that, those moral ethics are wrong?

[pchau123]

Practically all religions that I know of tell the followers not to kill, steal, be a part of crime, etc. Do you think that, those moral ethics are wrong?

 

Just because the bible tells you to do it doesn't mean everyone does it. Tell me you've never seen some of your friends steal. I've seems of my friends who are from religious backgrounds and yet I still see them stealing cards and snacks from stores all the time. Just like laws. Just because there are laws to prevent people from doing things doesn't mean people follow the law. I believe the ideas are good, however that doesn't always mean everything in the bible is enforced correctly.

 

One thing I want to do is end wars, but do you think that will happen? It may seem right, but it doesn't mean anyone will listen to me.

[Finn the Human]

Just because the bible tells you to do it doesn't mean everyone does it. Tell me you've never seen some of your friends steal. I've seems of my friends who are from religious backgrounds and yet I still see them stealing cards and snacks from stores all the time. Just like laws. Just because there are laws to prevent people from doing things doesn't mean people follow the law. I believe the ideas are good, however that doesn't always mean everything in the bible is enforced correctly.

 

One thing I want to do is end wars, but do you think that will happen? It may seem right, but it doesn't mean anyone will listen to me.

First of all, when did I say that I was only saying the only the Bible tells right from wrong. And second of all I never said that people always follow a religion, I said that religion teaches you. You don't always have to listen to it, but that does not mean that religion is bad.

[Kaana]

Just to be clear, are we debating about whether religion fundamentally is wrong, or the way people's interpretations of religion has negatively affected society?

 

Would you consider the pope a nutjob then? He has influence over so many people, telling them not to use contraception, thing of the physical and mental effects of that and the sheer damage it's done.

I think that any one mortal being having that degree of influence has the potential to be extremely damaging - whether it's a religious, political or any other kind of context. It's the individual's job to make sure they're not abusing that influence, which is unfortunately not always the case - but to me, that's people using religion as an excuse to be corrupt, as opposed to the source of corruption. (From what I gather, the pope seems pretty powerless. I remember reading in the paper he was for contraception for a while (admittedly only in certain circumstances), and basically got told he couldn't have that opinion. Again, people using religion as an excuse.)

 

(Mrh, I have lots of other thoughts on the bible and other stuff mentioned, but too tired right now)

[Finn the Human]

Just to be clear, are we debating about whether religion fundamentally is wrong, or the way people's interpretations of religion has negatively affected society?

 

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I think that any one mortal being having that degree of influence has the potential to be extremely damaging - whether it's a religious, political or any other kind of context. It's the individual's job to make sure they're not abusing that influence, which is unfortunately not always the case - but to me, that's people using religion as an excuse to be corrupt, as opposed to the source of corruption. (From what I gather, the pope seems pretty powerless. I remember reading in the paper he was for contraception for a while (admittedly only in certain circumstances), and basically got told he couldn't have that opinion. Again, people using religion as an excuse.)

I believe its on religion it self, not the way people follow it.

[passiflora]

Just to be clear, are we debating about whether religion fundamentally is wrong, or the way people's interpretations of religion has negatively affected society?

I think whether it is harmful or not to society?

 

Practically all religions that I know of tell the followers not to kill, steal, be a part of crime, etc. Do you think that, those moral ethics are wrong?

But you could determine that those things are wrong without using a religious book. In addition, religious books often condone behaviour we would find wrong, or condemn things that we do all the time without a second thought.

 

Religion can serve as a good moral guide, but it often doesn't - this leaves its followers open to cherry-picking what they believe is right (so they essentially derive their own morality, anyway), which is why there's so much controversy over religion in the first place.

 

It could have been good for people in our earlier stages as human beings; it had laws, it promoted group cohesion, it acted as a way for people to understand and explain the world around them. But since we've grown as a society, I feel like it's no longer necessary - the controversy and harm it causes outweighs any of its benefits IMO, and we now can derive laws, a sense of community, and natural explanations from elsewhere.

 

 

Many people dismiss religion on the basis of rational thought and greater scientific understanding, but the only reason I ever started to question it in the first place was because its harm has started to become apparent. The only reason I ever believed in the first place was because I was afraid not to. When my best friend came out to me as gay, he cried because he thought if he told our other friend, she would condemn him to hell. She's a kind and giving person, but there was an overarching fear that even good people can twist religion to in bad ways.

 

“To terrify children with the image of hell, to consider women an inferior creation—is that good for the world?”

-- Christopher Hitchens

[Zombiiesque]

Discuss whether you think Religion has been a good or bad thing for humanity!

Oh, you are the brave one then! This is such a hot button topic.

I think that religion is a very personal experience. For instance, because it was "expected" of me, I tried to go to church for a long time, and I did read the Bible. Not cover to cover, but a good bit of the OT and most of the Gospels. I even thought maybe if I tried different churches, it might make a difference for me - but really, it didn't. I grew up with a parent who was agnostic and a parent who's an atheist, so I started questioning things at a pretty early part of my teenage years - and then, the Catholic church basically kicked my Gram out because she wouldn't disown her son, who was gay. Things with me and organized religion went downhill from there.

I think, to answer your original question, that although idealistically religion sets out to create good out of chaos, this gets lost in the madness so much. If you think about it, so many horrible things have been done in the name of religion. And though each religion tries to set out good moral guidelines, things seem to get taken to the extreme. I guess I'm on the fence, you could say - I think that, as I said, the original intentions might have idealistically good, but honestly there's been so much harm done in the name of organized religion, that I myself am repulsed by it.

[idriya]

I'm agnostic, and I'm not going to lie, I know very little about religion. Never studied it or read any religious texts or anything.

 

The way I see it, religion is like most things in the world. It's only bad if taken to extremes, and that plus the media is why religion has such a bad rep nowadays. Because the sad truth is, bad news and dirt sell, and no one cares about good news. From there, it's all a case of what I call "The Rule of the Loud Minority." Because it's all the nutjobs making the news and not the people who do good things, it causes people to think ALL religious people are nutjobs like that, when, like in most groups, they're a tiny minority. Most people who practice religion are normal, as far as I could tell from the community. I'm fine with religious people, as long as they're not trying to convert me or they're not extremists.

 

That said, I do think the media factors into the perception of religion, since 99% of the mainstream news out there is negative anyway, and nobody gets to read about the good things religion does. For all we know, there could be more good things being done than bad that aren't reported because, like I said, good news doesn't sell. *shrug* So I guess I'm kind of neutral about the whole situation.

 

Of course, that's probably a very simplistic view, but like I said, religion is a topic I tend to shy away from and don't know much about. And I know everyone's going to disagree with me, because the Internet is a largely liberal, atheistic realm.

[Finn the Human]

I'm agnostic, and I'm not going to lie, I know very little about religion. Never studied it or read any religious texts or anything.

 

The way I see it, religion is like most things in the world. It's only bad if taken to extremes, and that plus the media is why religion has such a bad rep nowadays. Because the sad truth is, bad news and dirt sell, and no one cares about good news. From there, it's all a case of what I call "The Rule of the Loud Minority." Because it's all the nutjobs making the news and not the people who do good things, it causes people to think ALL religious people are nutjobs like that, when, like in most groups, they're a tiny minority. Most people who practice religion are normal, as far as I could tell from the community. I'm fine with religious people, as long as they're not trying to convert me or they're not extremists.

 

That said, I do think the media factors into the perception of religion, since 99% of the mainstream news out there is negative anyway, and nobody gets to read about the good things religion does. For all we know, there could be more good things being done than bad that aren't reported because, like I said, good news doesn't sell. *shrug* So I guess I'm kind of neutral about the whole situation.

 

Of course, that's probably a very simplistic view, but like I said, religion is a topic I tend to shy away from and don't know much about. And I know everyone's going to disagree with me, because the Internet is a largely liberal, atheistic realm.

I agree with you. Only those who misunderstand it make it seem like its bad.

[hrtbrk]

Personally, in my opinion, I think religion is bad; however, I think every person should have a right to practice whatever religion they identify with.

 

My feeling don't come from the people who "misunderstand it" (whatever that means) but because of the history of religious wars. There's no doubt religion brings people together, but no one can deny the amount of separation it causes amongst people and countries.

 

Never mind the fact that there are plenty of religions that have values/beliefs that I could never agree with or choose to follow... but that's different lol

[Tyler.]

I'm pretty undecided. I hate labels but I guess I'm agnostic, idk.

Often times I think the world would be a better place without religion. Look whats going on right now in the middle east for example.I would like to say this without offending anybody (trust me, I could get to the boundaries of making a lot of people mad with somethings I would like to say) but if you look through history so much violence is a product of religion.

[Rebecca~]

Oh, you are the brave one then! This is such a hot button topic.

I think that religion is a very personal experience. For instance, because it was "expected" of me, I tried to go to church for a long time, and I did read the Bible. Not cover to cover, but a good bit of the OT and most of the Gospels. I even thought maybe if I tried different churches, it might make a difference for me - but really, it didn't. I grew up with a parent who was agnostic and a parent who's an atheist, so I started questioning things at a pretty early part of my teenage years - and then, the Catholic church basically kicked my Gram out because she wouldn't disown her son, who was gay. Things with me and organized religion went downhill from there.

I think, to answer your original question, that although idealistically religion sets out to create good out of chaos, this gets lost in the madness so much. If you think about it, so many horrible things have been done in the name of religion. And though each religion tries to set out good moral guidelines, things seem to get taken to the extreme. I guess I'm on the fence, you could say - I think that, as I said, the original intentions might have idealistically good, but honestly there's been so much harm done in the name of organized religion, that I myself am repulsed by it.

This is rather my view as well. Personally, it may have a great impact on your life, and it may improve the way you act, etc. But on a societal whole, it does a lot of harm- a huge number of wars fought throughout world history have been based on one group of people thinking that another group of people were infidels, or whatnot. It's ridiculous. (One of the tennants of being a Knight in many areas of Europe was to kill infidels and protect the church. -eye roll-) Way too many people in positions of authority use religion as a reason to hate another group.

 

I am an atheist- I've looked into a couple of religions, and most of them I just can't get behind in terms of the actual theology, but I can't say I'd want to, anyway. I grew up going to a Christian church- a Salvation Army one. Of course, even if I did believe now, I wouldn't go to a SA one, since they think I'm a terrible sinner, and unless I break up with my girlfriend and stay celibate for the rest of my life, I will be heading on a one way ticket to hell... -eye roll-

[~Xandria]

If I am to be completely honest, I think it has done much more harm than good. It's caused one too many wars for anyone to tell me otherwise. I've never been a religious person, I am very against the nature of religion in general. That is not to say I am not spiritual in my own way and that I don't have morals. I think it's a common misconception that if you tell someone you are not religious they automatically assume you must have no values. This is simply untrue.

 

Speaking just from the basis of Christianity; I see it as fear-based, untrue literature that has scared the masses into choosing a life of servitude to 'god'. In doing so, people tend to push there beliefs on others in one way or another. Not only that - but I find most Christians to be completely inconsistent. Thinking that one sin is better or worse than another. For instance, the majority of Christians who believe in the bible do not support gay marriage and yet they have had sex out of wedlock. So much for values....

[cleomiele]

I'm in the "more harm than good" party, but my perspective is from a once-Catholic-but-couldn't-take-any-more view.

 

My parents are both Catholic (which is a REALLY important thing in Italian/Italian American culture) so, naturally, I was expected to follow suit. I did the first communion, confession, etc., and I attended church school (some call it bible study) for 8 years as a young child. In my earliest stages of thought, I simply accepted what I was told: God wants you to be a good person and do x, y, and z, and if you do, he loves you! You're awesome! Welcome to heaven! But after a while...it started to not make sense to me. I've always been very pragmatic and logical in my way of thinking, so I started to find it difficult to believe that humans knew of a divine entity that watched everything you did and judged your choices and told you how to act. I ALSO thought it incredibly strange that such large concepts and ideas were being pushed onto such small children, like it was pushed onto me, when they were barely able to think for themselves at all! I think it would be surprising to be able to find an exact percentage or number of how many religious people made the decision to be religious (and stay that way) themselves and how many were indoctrinated as children, before they were capable of critical thinking and making their own evaluations about the world. Ever since that dawning of realization, I have gone farther and farther astray from organized religion as a whole. It simply doesn't work for my type of mentality, and I don't think that's right at all to push such heavy beliefs onto uncomprehending and unsuspecting kids (which is true of any religion, not just Catholicism, I would assume).

 

Like hrtbrk said, there's also the issue of how many wars, conflicts, and disputes religion has caused over the years, and how much intolerance it still causes today. HOWEVER, yes, not all religious people are evil, not all of them use their beliefs as a validation for hating others or doing hateful things, etc., but it still happens. I'm also really excited about this thread because I've been looking for a place to use this Neil deGrasse Tyson video I found about religion stunting scientific progress in certain societies!!! YAY!

 

 

It's a bit long, but if you want a synopsis, he's talking about how periods of Enlightenment and major scientific discovery in different societies over the history of the world coincide with periods of secular thought, and that not so surprisingly, those periods end when religion comes back into the picture with full-force. It's really, really interesting. If you have 10 minutes give it a look ;)

 

After this long, anti-religious-sentiment-y post, I will of course add the obligatory statement that I believe people should be able to believe in and practice whatever it is they want to practice so long as it does not actively harm others. If more religious people acted in such a way--following their beliefs without pushing it onto others or acting in hateful ways because of it--then I don't think I would be able to say religion causes more bad than good in the first place. It might bring people together and sometimes help encourage people to do good things for others, but quite frequently it just pushes them apart.

[Bubbleline]

As many people have said, it all depends on point of view. I grew up around my religious mother and grandmother who were both Baptists and went to church with them for a good chunk of my life. Then, I was often around my great grandmother on my dad's side who was a Jehovah's witness, and my grandfather is a Hindu who's introduced some of their practices and rituals to me. Not to mention my cousin who became a Muslim many years ago. Religion has always been a huge part of my life, whether or not I agreed with it. Reading the bible and clinging to my waning faith is what helped me through the toughest part of my life. But reading and the analyzing the bible is also part of what drove me away.

 

Religion has always been one of the biggest reasons for starting wars. Millions of people have died and still die because of their religions, and religious people often seem to have this 'holier-than-thou" attitude that makes them all act like they're better than us "lowly, uneducated curs" who don't have religion or don't believe what they do. So, religion can and is good sometimes. And people believe in it for different reasons, like my grandmother who clings to it partly because it's been one of the few things that has been constant in her life since childhood. And though I don't identify as a Christian or anything anymore, I choose to believe in a higher being or God because it's more comforting than thinking we're alone.

 

Tl;dr: Religion can be good and it can be bad. Just like everything else in the world, it falls into a grey area of morality. It's main flaw to me is that so many religious people think they have a right to dictate other people's lives and point out our sins while ignoring their own. Oh, and I'd never want to just get rid of religion. Even if I could magically erase it from everyone's memories so as not to cause a backlash. For some people, religion is what helps them wake up in the morning and you'd have to be pretty callous to want to take that away from people.

[Welcome Back Apathy]

Religion has definitely done more bad than good.

 

That is NOT to say that it has not done good, and that is NOT to say that the people who misuse religion would have such perfect morals if only they were atheists. On a small scale, a lot of religions are fantastic. On a larger scale, unfortunately, not so much.

 

The reason why religion has done more bad than good is because mostly, the people who make it bad are simply bad themselves. The same people would still be jerks if they were atheists. But take religion out of the mix, and those people are jerks without power. Take religion out, and you can't use religion to discriminate against others. Take away religion...who knows what terrorists of such-and-such religious persuasion would do? Perhaps they would still bomb in the name of something.

 

Take religion out of the mix, and science would be so much more advanced than it is now. Look at what happened to scientists throughout history--the church wouldn't just kill them; they would torture them. That's what happens when people get a hold of power. And when "the greatest being in the universe" is what's giving you power, when you are basing morals off of an arbitrary set of rules rather than on thinking things through, and when you tell people that faith is more important than thought, then you are far more likely to do some scary stuff. (Godwin's Law: YOU KNOW WHO ELSE DIDN'T QUESTION THEIR ORDERS FROM A SUPERIOR?)

 

What makes religion scary is that it takes out the thought process. You're told to obey stuff without thinking about why. If you think about stuff, BOOM--you're a witch! BURN HER! THAT'S why religion is damaging.

 

On a smaller scale, a lot of religious people--and their religious organizations--do a lot of good. I feel that these people would still BE good in their hearts if they were not religious. Those people are like me--they want to do good for the sake of doing good, not because God scares them into it. But the differences between them and me: they are part of a group, and they are stronger in that group. The love, the thought of God, the core of their religion uplifts them and inspires them. And in that way, religion is wonderful. I wish all religion could be like that.

[MysteriousUser]

I'm not a strong practitioner of any religion. I don't study any important books or know the ins and outs. I identify with Christianity, but I don't go to church, nor can I recite any part of the Bible (at least, off the top of my head). You could say I'm an "agnostic Christian" if that makes any sense, which it probably doesn't.

 

Anyway, I think religion has done more bad than good, frankly. But I also believe that the only reason I think this is because the human race, as a whole, has always been corrupted. Major religions (and I'm sure smaller ones) have great ideas and morals. I am a firm believer, however, that many of these religions have been abused from the following:

1. Over hundreds of years, generations of people may have compromised the written works of many religious articles.
    
   
2. People either take religion way too literal or read way too into it. I like to think of these works as a literary collection of written works delivering important messages, rather than set in stone explanations as to how life should work and all the consequences. The divine should know better than to trust humans in interpretation.
    
   
3. People pick and choose from whatever they please (may tie into number 1).
    
   
4. People feel that religions have to be "correct" and that certain ideas must be condemned or shunned.
    
   
5. People are just ignorant. :V
   

I believe in the concept of religion (or in some higher power, hence agnostic) for a number of reasons. How does one explain the phenomenon of consciousness and what happens to it when you die? How does one explain ghosts and demons (yes I believe on those). How does one explain time and space? :O Not to say that science is not doing it for me (I love science, especially evolution, but that is a different topic on it's own... Hmmm...), because I know some people use religion as a placeholder for science, but seriously, something out there has to be controlling everything.

 

And as a side note, I always have this encroaching thought in the deepest corridors of the backside of my brain: What if all the deities of all religions all communicate with each other and experiment to see which group will achieve a near utopian society, whether it be a lone religion or a team of religions? lolwat

 

What a long post. I probably wouldn't read this myself. :S But to put it short, religion has done more bad, but it's not the religions fault per se, people are to blame, for they have corrupted (what I believe to be) its original purpose: to create a better society through the literary morals from certain deities.

[passiflora]

I believe in the concept of religion (or in some higher power, hence agnostic) for a number of reasons. How does one explain the phenomenon of consciousness and what happens to it when you die? How does one explain ghosts and demons (yes I believe on those). How does one explain time and space? :O Not to say that science is not doing it for me (I love science, especially evolution, but that is a different topic on it's own... Hmmm...), because I know some people use religion as a placeholder for science, but seriously, something out there has to be controlling everything.

I know this is a little off topic, but I think it's an interesting consideration. I don't believe in ghosts or demons and I don't have any detailed explanations to offer on consciousness or time and space, but I think it's okay to just acknowledge that we don't have all the answers (yet!).

 

Keep in mind that previously, people couldn't explain a lot of things that are no longer a mystery - they didn't know what bacteria was or how sickness is spread, they thought the heart was a furnace and that it spread spirits throughout the body, they thought the earth was flat, etc. People often came up with supernatural explanations for things they weren't able to understand at the time, but that didn't mean there wasn't a natural explanation for it!

 

 

 

And as a side note, I always have this encroaching thought in the deepest corridors of the backside of my brain: What if all the deities of all religions all communicate with each other and experiment to see which group will achieve a near utopian society, whether it be a lone religion or a team of religions? lolwat

Hahaha that's a crazy visual! :P The church I used to attend actually has a view that is kind of the opposite (or similar?!) to that:

 

 

We believe the Spirit of God is at work in many different faith communities.

For Christians, Jesus is the way we know God. Our understanding is nonetheless limited by human imagination. God is greater still and works in our world by a mysterious Spirit that knows no distinction at the doorway of a Christian chapel; Buddhist, Hindu, or Sikh temple; Aboriginal sweat lodge, Muslim mosque, or Jewish synagogue.

We work together with other Christian churches whenever possible, and among people of other religions in Canada and throughout the world on matters of justice, peace, and human dignity.

Today, difference is everywhere around us and, we believe, a great cause for celebration.

 

 

I think if everyone thought that way, this topic would never have existed! :O

[The_Warblers]

Humans are just humans, greedy, jealousy, selfish .... So even there were / are no such things as religious war in humans' history. There are still wars anyway.

 

So religion is good when the followers are good. And vice versa