How bad is religion !

[Chad]

1) A strained politically correct attempt not to name the very specific party who carried out the attack.

By no means is this part of my thinking. While I have a negative view of all religions, it's obvious Islam is more extreme than the other major religions at this point in history. I fall very much in Sam Harris' camp on Islam.

2) A strained attempt to attack all religion by claiming broad moral equivalence between those whose belief in God breeds compassion and those who wish to murder those who don't believe in the same things they do. If you really can't tell the difference, you have an extremely shallow understanding of religion.

While there is a difference, there is also a tacit support by the moderates to allow the extremists to exist in all religions just because they are on the same team. Yes, other religions don't have the level of extremism of Islam, but that doesn't mean those religions don't deserve criticism too.

One could also argue that Christians are rather extreme, doing the same thing to Muslims as they are doing to us...and we started it in modern times. We are just doing it with better tech and without suicide bombers.

@jp and GandK
Yeah, that study is definitely flawed. I didn't have time to research it at the time and his statements about lack of information made me think twice about devoting the time to find a good data set.

[Ego]

@Ego--When was the last time you heard a homily? Or several in a row to make that kind of judgment?

It has been a little over a year. But in the past year I have attended three different services (Muslim, Sufi Muslim, and Hindu-Animist). I wonder how many believers have recently attended a service for a religion other than their own.

Do Christians no longer teach children about hell?

I don't want to be lumped in with the Westboro Baptists of the world any more than you want to be lumped in with the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Let the record show, I did not introduce the Flying Spaghetti into this discussion.

What makes you think I don't agree with the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster? The letter that started it all was a satirical response to the fact that the Kansas Board of Education had voted to allow Intelligent Design to be taught in public schools.

The letter. You should read it. It's a doozy. http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/

This is not Westboro Baptists extremists. This is the state of Kansas adopting the bible as a science textbook.

[thrifty++]

1) While I have a negative view of all religions, it's obvious Islam is more extreme than the other major religions at this point in history.

I think islam has become more extreme simply as a result of the power that religion has now in countries where it dominates. I think Christianity is less extreme because the Western World and many other countries traditionally Christian have a large non religious population which I think has resulted in Christianity becoming watered down and not being able to be too extreme. I think Christianity will have been quite extreme many years ago but has lost much of its power and cannot get away with being so extreme anymore. USA seems more religious than most other western countries and seems to have more power there. I do find some of the USA fundamentalist Christian stuff quite strange and anxiety provoking.

I think the danger arises when a dogma becomes too omnipotent and squeezes out the opportunity for other types of thinking.

[enigmaT120]

But in the past year I have attended three different services (Muslim, Sufi Muslim, and Hindu-Animist). I wonder how many believers have recently attended a service for a religion other than their own.

That's interesting. What drew you to the services, friends, curiosity, other? I haven't attended the services of any non-Christian group (I don't attend those of my own any more than I have to.) but I read their books. The Koran, Tao te Ching, the Book of Morman, the Bagvad Gita ((I'm not plowing through all the Upanishads though!), The Origin of Species, a book on Japanese Buddhism. Richard Bach's Illusions.

[steveo73]

What, .0000000000000000000000000000000000001 percent of religious people on the planet are bad. That means we should do away with religion, which improves communities and families? I don't mind religious people in general, because they are usually better than the rest of society, regardless of whether their beliefs are accurate or not.

I don't believe this at all and this is the point. Religious people aren't any better than other people. I think in fact the opposite is true and then you have to add to that the reality of all the problems that religion has caused or if not caused at least contributed towards.

[steveo73]

I generally find that topics like this tend to pop up right after a terrorist attack for one of two reasons:

1) A strained politically correct attempt not to name the very specific party who carried out the attack.
2) A strained attempt to attack all religion by claiming broad moral equivalence between those whose belief in God breeds compassion and those who wish to murder those who don't believe in the same things they do. If you really can't tell the difference, you have an extremely shallow understanding of religion.

There are good religions and bad religions. Just like there are good atheists and bad atheists. Good humans and bad humans. Blindness to the difference only enables the bad ones.

Some fair points but I think that you have come up with some erroneous assumptions with regards to religion namely that religion is something that makes a person more moral or compassionate. I can't give statistics out on this however my feelings are that this is definitely not true. I don't believe that the belief in a deity or afterlife makes a person any more compassionate or moral.

At the same time I believe that religion encourages some extremely bad shit.

[steveo73]

0a) Any belief-system acts as a short-cut to thinking. Conclusions are already "pre-thought".

Maybe but that is what belief systems are about. Its just like having a model to judge certain scenarios. Basically I think we all do this and its cool.

0b) An ideology is a belief-system with an emotional/value-basis that makes it stronger.

Maybe this is true but I think you need to take into account the ideology tenets that you are talking about. Stoicism and other philosophical ideas have a very different basis than religion when it comes to defining how you act.

2) Just like a gun, any ideology acts as a force multiplier. It makes good people do better things, and it makes worse people do worse things.

I don't agree with this but its a common assumption. My wife and her family are very religious. This doesn't stop people from cheating or doing other activities that people may judge as immoral.

I know a fair few Muslims. From completely moderate Muslims to some fundamentalists. They are very different however the fundamentalists get pushed into that culture that breeds terrorism.

Based on these points I just can't see how religion benefits society.

[workathome]

Ugh, religion. What we need is an atheist country like the USSR, or maybe North Korea, or early revolutionary China. Those are great examples of how humane man would be without religion.

Or maybe sometimes man uses religion as an excuse to do bad stuff he would do anyway?

No, can't be. If only we banned guns no one would shoot each other either. Oh, wait.

[steveo73]

If only we banned guns no one would shoot each other either.

I was going to mention this one but Americans go off their nuts over this. Ban religion and guns and how much bad stuff would just disappear.

[jacob]

FWIW, France has very strict gun laws. Sorry, couldn't resist This argument has a very standard counter-argument in that when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. A further standard argument is that if just a few civilians had had guns on them, the outcome could have been very different. This discussion happens every time time there's a school shooting in the US.

The problem is that the two viable solutions are so bifurcated that no compromise is possible. If a majority is armed we'll probably have more Wild West style stupid murders ("You sneezed on my Jetta!!") but fewer/no mass killings. And if everybody is unarmed, it's the other way around and we pay for it with police checkpoint and random searches. Which do you prefer? Turns out people can argue about this forever.

What separates the US and France (or other Euro-nations) is that the US(*) has a gun-culture and Europe does not. Of course, suicide-shooters most definitely have a gun-culture [by construction] and because of the open-border system (Schengen) they can simply bring them in from abroad. So outlawing guns doesn't really solve the terrorist problem. Note how Palestinians in Israel has taken to knife attacks instead. Can you outlaw all knives too? How about all pointy objects?

See http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/n ... l-problems for how the weapons appeared in France despite their laws.

(*) Actually, this is only a problem with certain demographics, so if you correct for that, US numbers drop to Euro numbers.

Overall my point is that you can't solve this with legislation since people who are fighting a war no longer care about legalities.

[Chad]

Just to be clear on my part, since I fall rather hard on the side arguing that religion brings more harm than good to world. I do not wish to outlaw/ban it. That would create more problems than it would solve (Though, I would happily take it's tax exempt status away). This is something that has to be solved over generations. It's very slow change.

It is more than likely Islam is currently in it's version of the reformation. It will be interesting to see which way this goes. Do the extremists win? Or, do some true moderates actually step up? The West can only influence this a little, not decide the outcome...and they must be careful. Of course, they haven't been so far.

The gun vs anti-gun situation is interesting, but I won't drag us off topic.

[Ego]

That's interesting. What drew you to the services, friends, curiosity, other?

We visited Istanbul and Bali recently. The Blue mosque is extremely welcoming, to the point of providing headscarves for women. The sufi (whirling dervishes) were the most interesting.

[jennypenny]

Let the record show, I did not introduce the Flying Spaghetti into this discussion.

What makes you think I don't agree with the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster? The letter that started it all was a satirical response to the fact that the Kansas Board of Education had voted to allow Intelligent Design to be taught in public schools.

The letter. You should read it. It's a doozy. http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/

This is not Westboro Baptists extremists. This is the state of Kansas adopting the bible as a science textbook.

The Kansas debacle was ten years ago, and was swiftly overturned. Do you really think a woman in Massachusetts, not Kansas, petitioning to wear a colander on her head a decade after the issue was resolved was really motivated by a desire to draw attention to the issue, and not herself? I guess I'd classify her as an extremist looking for attention like the Westboro nuts.

@jp and GandK
Yeah, that study is definitely flawed. I didn't have time to research it at the time and his statements about lack of information made me think twice about devoting the time to find a good data set.

Sorry to jump on that number, but it bugs me. It gets tossed around like the Gladwell number, even though neither is really representative of much.

---

I hate that I sound so grouchy about this subject. I think the time of year is affecting my attitude. Right now, the news if full of awful things done by awful people in the name of religion. I understand how that turns people off. OTOH, this week there are also countless church groups putting together Thanksgiving meals to deliver to families in need. Our church alone will deliver complete meals to almost 1000 families and the youth group is providing dinner for our version of soylent towers. That won't make the news.

I'm not trying to brag (I really dislike talking about it here). I'm just trying to explain why I so sound short-tempered. After spending a day lugging canned goods and frozen turkeys around (those suckers are heavy), it's grates to read that the world would be better off if religion disappeared. Who would perform the bulk of the charity work? No offense, but charity is generally regarded with disdain on the forum. We can argue about what kind of charity is effective, but if you focus on the small-scale stuff like providing meals and clothing, oftentimes it's a religious organization stepping in to provide those services. Requests for assistance have gone up almost 20% over last year, and it looks like we're going to be able to meet that need.

I understand the frustration with people and churches who use religion as a weapon or hide behind it. I have no problem calling them out. I guess I just wish that people would remember that for every idiot complaining about no red cups at Starbucks, there's another bringing canned goods to service this weekend for the food banks.

[Ego]

The Kansas debacle was ten years ago, and was swiftly overturned. Do you really think a woman in Massachusetts, not Kansas, petitioning to wear a colander on her head a decade after the issue was resolved was really motivated by a desire to draw attention to the issue, and not herself? I guess I'd classify her as an extremist looking for attention like the Westboro nuts.

Yeah, she is looking for attention. I agree. But the Kansas debacle did happen and it was a pretty egregious example of religious intrusion that continues today with barriers to abortion and a whole host of medical-ethics issues.

I believe fsm does a good job of showing believers how we non-believers feel about the underpinnings of their beliefs. It would be mean if those beliefs were not the basis for policy that has influence over us all.

You don't like to be mocked. I get that. How else would you convey that message when the beliefs underpinning the desire to limit society are.... far-fetched? We do not come to the table as equals when one of us truly believes they are doing the work of God.

Our church alone will deliver complete meals to almost 1000 families and the youth group is providing dinner for our version of soylent towers. That won't make the news.

Meals to soylent towers? I was convinced that you do actual good until I read that line .

[jennypenny]

Haha ... the youth group (middle/HS) also brings the bingo equipment. As you can imagine, it's a wild game of bingo--the machine spits out a number, the soylent resident working the machine calls out whatever number they think they see, and then the residents mark whatever number they think they heard.

We do not come to the table as equals when one of us truly believes they are doing the work of God.

But you come to the table as the 'rational' and 'intelligent' ones. It's hard to discuss this when it's presumed I'm unintelligent and irrational. That's like tasering the elephant before trying to talk to the rider.


And not to get off on semantics, but I don't believe I'm "doing God's work." I'm trying to be Christlike. The expression is WWJD, not what would Jesus tell you to do. It may sound like I'm splitting hairs, but I think it's an important distinction. I've always been suspicious of people who profess to be doing the Lord's work.

[jacob]

The letter. You should read it. It's a doozy. http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/

Fun fact: The guy who wrote this and invented the FSM was at the ERE meetup in Oregon.

@jp - Where do I get myself one of those elephant tasers?

[Dragline]

I've always been suspicious of people who profess to be doing the Lord's work.

Actually, that's what my minions do.

[IlliniDave]

If only we banned guns no one would shoot each other either.

I was going to mention this one but Americans go off their nuts over this. Ban religion and guns and how much bad stuff would just disappear.

Very little. Banning objects does nothing, banning ideas is not possible. Evil exists in people. If you really want to get rid of "bad stuff", get rid of people. Sort of the elephant in the room.

[GandK]

Right now, the news if full of awful things done by awful people in the name of religion. I understand how that turns people off. OTOH, this week there are also countless church groups putting together Thanksgiving meals to deliver to families in need. Our church alone will deliver complete meals to almost 1000 families and the youth group is providing dinner for our version of soylent towers. That won't make the news.

Seconded. This is what ours is up to right now as well. Thanksgiving dinner kits, holiday gifts for children who wouldn't otherwise get them, and supplying a stealth halfway house for young women who are exiting forced prostitution. (This is an epidemic at midwestern truck stops.)

[Chad]

Concerning the FSM issue with the MA drive's license, it is ridiculous/stupid and she is definitely looking for attention. The difference being that her demands do not infringe on anyone else. While, as Ego noted, a lot of the religious demands do.

I'm not trying to brag (I really dislike talking about it here). I'm just trying to explain why I so sound short-tempered. After spending a day lugging canned goods and frozen turkeys around (those suckers are heavy), it's grates to read that the world would be better off if religion disappeared. Who would perform the bulk of the charity work? No offense, but charity is generally regarded with disdain on the forum. We can argue about what kind of charity is effective, but if you focus on the small-scale stuff like providing meals and clothing, oftentimes it's a religious organization stepping in to provide those services. Requests for assistance have gone up almost 20% over last year, and it looks like we're going to be able to meet that need.

My only real issue with charity by religious organizations is they get their money tax free. This means I am indirectly supporting the religion's ability to exist and to expand their brand through charity. I realize I'm being very picky with this point. I'm sure the majority of the meals aren't delivered with a sermon, but it definitely helps that religion's brand to be out doing stuff like this. Which would be fine, if the government wasn't indirectly helping.

I understand the frustration with people and churches who use religion as a weapon or hide behind it. I have no problem calling them out.

I don't think this happens very often with the overall population. At least, I almost never see it in person or in public. I wish it would. I tire of constantly explaining why the Ten Commandments on a court house or a direct prayer at a high school football game is inappropriate, and those are the small issues.