Is religion good?

jank

fitz0 wrote: »

It's not about being right, it's more about not being wrong. Why would believing in something that is in all likeliness not true benefit anyone? Sure you can say that religion is an ethical code to live by with supernatural mumbo jumbo tacked on. But since religion maintains that supernatural mumbo jumbo is an integral part of ethics and morality and is very much real and present, how does that benefit people? By teaching them that magic is real and that there is some cosmic master(s) is in charge of the universe? It's nonsensical.

You can not say for certain that something that is not proved to be true or false is more than likely not true and then go the extra step and say its definately not true. That to me is nonsensical.
What is truth? You answer me that one simple question yourself and dont go off googling some 5th century Greek Philospher now!;)

fitz0 wrote: »

Like you say, we question things all the time. But the answers we come up with aren't always the correct answer. I don't think you'll find a single person on this forum who wouldn't tell you to question everything even atheism, which you seem to think off limits for us. We have no such compunction about questioning our lack of faith, the whole position is a result of intense examining of beliefs and as such is always up for re-examination.

Hmm not so sure about that one. I agree that there are some who are bright, educated and have spent time thinking about this question. Their conclusion whatever may that be is their own personal choice. However, I see now a days a kind of trend that its fashionable to be an athiest and many are just sheep following the crowd. Yes, I do admit that this is a issue for the other side too. They have a few thousand years head start. Sheep blindly following a holy book or a preacher. I have no time for that either. But what I am kind of sick of is the stereotype that is displayed often when someone dares even challenge the notion of Atheism they are one step away from being a member of that lunatic Baptist Chruch in Kentucky.

fitz0 wrote: »

I think you're stretching a bit far to make this connection. Love, loyalty and such all have tangible effects on our minds and on the real world. Give me one demonstrable time when a god has had a direct impact on the world. Democracy is based on politicians selling themselves as a good candidate and the masses buying what they're selling. If they take it on faith that their candidate will do as he says without looking at his record then that's their choice.

Easy, for some love = god or the real question, when he created the universe.:pac:

fitz0 wrote: »

Now maybe you could answer the point of the basis of religion (faith) being positive or negative, 1 or 0 if you will.:p

As with everything important in life it depends. There is no yes or no answer there. Those that say either way are blind and/or stupid.

fitz0 wrote: »

It's not true because in the context you were speaking of there was some perfect system that man translated badly into reality. Man no more corrupted religion than he corrupted the internet. Perhaps he didn't see how it would develop over time for bad or good but nonetheless. I've been through the basic concepts as I interpret them, theres nothing for me to add. I didn't say the world would be better without religion, I have no idea what that would be like. I'd like to think it would be a better place given what religion does to people. Maybe we would all be happier in the acceptance of the natural order or maybe we'd all be huddling in caves throwing stones at the shadows. Who knows? But the day I stop "stupid utopian thinking" and accept all the crap that goes on in the world as all there is will be a very bad day for me.

Nothing wrong with that, but as I keep saying religion is not the problem. Man is. Name anything that has not been corrupted by man. Its not good enough to say religion makes men to bad things. Men don't need religion to do good or bad things.

fitz0 wrote: »

I'm not sure if this is what you mean but when you say created by man, I get the distinct impression that you think there is some higher rank on the food chain that would do a better job than man. Some perfection that you are comparing all other efforts to. If man didn't create religion to suit his own needs then it would not have been created at all.

No, not in the traditional sense. I just think its stupid for men to think they are masters of the universe when we can't even feed the worlds population or know **** all about where we came from. Therefore you will have to pardon me when I wonder sometimes if there is something more powerful than us out there. Man can be vain as fcuk.

fitz0 wrote: »

Quite. They're a people who have no concept of religion. They don't seem to care for it either, deconverting the missionary that went to convert them.

They don't seem to care much for anything really. Feeding themselves for example. To cite some stone age like tribe in the middle of the amazon as an example of "progress" is humorous.

yawha

jank wrote: »

But what I am kind of sick of is the stereotype that is displayed often when someone dares even challenge the notion of Atheism they are one step away from being a member of that lunatic Baptist Chruch in Kentucky.

When have you ever experienced this in real life? What you speak of is a completely fabricated stereotype, which only really exists occasionally online

Also, one step away from Westboro Baptist Church? Being defensive of one's lack of belief in God is one step away from protesting at a funeral with placards inciting hatred?

jank

Sonics2k wrote: »

You've clearly never read my previous posts. Also, I'm not really an Atheist.

I accept the possibility of a "higher power", possibly dating back billions of years.

I don't buy for a moment the Judeo-Christian belief of the earth being 7,000 years old, Noah and the Ark, the Resurrection of Christ, because it's complete nonsense, and in a lot of cases, completely ripped off from other myths of the time.

I have issues with the RCC because they allowed child abusers to get away scot free, this is a fact. I do not think that all Priests would do the same, I have known some wonderful priests in my time.

I agree with all that. No question.

Sonics2k wrote: »

But please, if you're going to bitch about reality. Please remember you're praying to a Giant Space Ghost who sacrificed his only son, but was also him, after impregnating a virgin, etc.

OK, steady on! Is there an echo here. Again.... why do Atheists have to do that? Presume that when challenged on very simple notions that the person doing the challenging is a religious zealot. I do not pray in that manner at all because I am not a Christian. I'm an Agnostic deist more than anything else.

Do you want me to say it again?

I do not literary believe in the Bible. So why tell me that I do when you don't even know me. You just fell into the same trap as religious people and proved my point about human fallibility.

Ask yourself, why you presumed that in the first place. Cause the world is a hell of a lot bigger than Eire.

jank

yawha wrote: »

When have you ever experienced this in real life? What you speak of is a completely fabricated stereotype, which only really exists occasionally online

Also, one step away from Westboro Baptist Church? Being defensive of one's lack of belief in God is one step away from protesting at a funeral with placards inciting hatred?

Well that occasion just occurred twice in this thread alone. I apparently believe in the Virgin Mary. News to me!

The last paragraph is confused. Turn it the other way. There are three types of people in the world of atheists. Atheists (they are cool), Agnostic (slowly coming around), Religious people (to be mocked, scorned, ridiculed at all costs, they have a mental condition, a danger to civilization, etc etc.)

If you think that religion has even some merit, even a tiny bit (which is what i said) that makes me religious nutcase.

Knasher

jank wrote: »

OK, we agree Athiests (Stalin) and Religious people (Jim Jones) cause crime and can act like dicks. Whats the common denominator here. People. I have said this about 5 times in the thread.

The common denominator is that they held beliefs that weren't backed by either evidence or reason. Even when presented with stark evidence which refutes their beliefs, such as the downward spiraling situation in the USSR, they stubbornly held onto them.

The problem with religion is that this is exactly the type of reasoning that it encourages. Faith, which is simply belief without evidence, is viewed as a virtue and encouraged. In many cases, evidence or reason which contradicts faith is viewed almost as a challenge to be overcome or ignored.

jank wrote: »

You can not say for certain that something that is not proved to be true or false is more than likely not true and then go the extra step and say its definately not true. That to me is nonsensical.

There are very few gnostic atheists, most of us are agnostic atheists, so we aren't claiming that the god proposition definitely isn't true. We simply disbelieve is on lack of evidence, if that changes then so will our disbelief and I've heard even the most ardent atheists take this position when asked about it.

jank wrote: »

I'm an Agnostic deist more than anything else.

To me, at least, it seems you are the one taking the extra step. By my understanding deism is the belief in a non-interventionary deity which is therefore inherently both lacking in evidence and unfalsifiable (making the agnostic part a little bit redundant), I therefore can't imagine how one would arrive at that conclusion without either an argument from ignorance e.g. humanity can't explain something so it could have been a god, or an appeal to tradition, e.g. so many people have believed in some sort of deity that some sort of deity must exist.

The Quadratic Equation

jank wrote: »

A very very very small proportion of the population do things which are wrong in the name of Religion. Man is the problem, not religion.

But knives stab people, so knives are evil and stoopid.
Its simple. For me to be right you MUST be wrong. For me to WIN
YOU must LOOSE.

Standman

Regarding this "Horrible Religious Leaders" vs "Horrible Atheist Leaders" debate (that has been going on for years); I don't think anyone here has said that atheists cannot become cruel dictators or are above committing evil acts, which is the impression I think a lot of people get sometimes. An atheist dictator just uses another system of control. Where religion comes in handy is that in my opinion it's one of the best - if not the best way of controlling people and getting them to go along with things they would not normally agree with.

I'm always quite confused when I hear people mention the danger of "Atheist" regimes. Say for example if Jim Jones was a vegetarian, it has as much relevance as atheism does to Stalin etc but you wouldn't hear people harping on about it all the time, because it would be ridiculous and a distraction from the actual issue.

I don't think you can say religion in general is good or bad. The problem I have with many religions is the power they have over people and the way they can so easily gain control of huge portions of societies. I don't for one second believe that religion is the cause of all the conflict in the world, it is itself a product of our tribal nature. What it does do in many cases however is hinder our development and facilitate the locking in of primitive worldviews.

The Quadratic Equation

Standman wrote: »

Where religion comes in handy is that in my opinion it's one of the best - if not the best way of controlling people and getting them to go along with things they would not normally agree with.

One problem with your theory. Atheist dictators have been far more effective in this regard.

fitz0

jank wrote: »

You can not say for certain that something that is not proved to be true or false is more than likely not true and then go the extra step and say its definately not true. That to me is nonsensical.
What is truth? You answer me that one simple question yourself and dont go off googling some 5th century Greek Philospher now!;)

No, I can't ever say for certain that something is definitively untrue if it can't be tested for. Therein lies the problem. All gods are by their vague definition of being apart from reality untestable and unverifiable. Nor would I ever say that something is completely false based on my belief that it is. That would be dishonest. It's similar to the atheist label. It's a handy unbrella term for my lack of belief but I'm more a Stage 6 - Agnostic Atheist, as I would suppose are most on this forum that are called atheists.

As for truth, I don't think I'm much qualified to debate the philosophy of it, but I believe truth is subjective but that there is an absolute truth behind that. We might believe something (Say that there is a god) and for us the truth is that there is a god. But separate from that, whether our truth is that there is a god, isn't a god or that it's a fairly futile argument, apart from this and unknown to us there is an answer as yet unknown to us and possibly that will never be known to us depending on the question.

Hmm not so sure about that one. I agree that there are some who are bright, educated and have spent time thinking about this question. Their conclusion whatever may that be is their own personal choice. However, I see now a days a kind of trend that its fashionable to be an athiest and many are just sheep following the crowd. Yes, I do admit that this is a issue for the other side too. They have a few thousand years head start. Sheep blindly following a holy book or a preacher. I have no time for that either. But what I am kind of sick of is the stereotype that is displayed often when someone dares even challenge the notion of Atheism they are one step away from being a member of that lunatic Baptist Chruch in Kentucky.

I'll agree with you here, there is a new fashion that religion isn't cool enough to be a part of. Then again, some of the most fervent believers I know are my age. But the majority of regular posters on here have given their position a great deal of thought and come to their final conclusion. Otherwise we wouldn't be bothered coming on here to talk about it. I don't agree that it's a choice though. I know for me I couldn't go back to believing in a god if I tried. I just couldn't believe in something that is so far fetched and contradictory. There's very little choice in the position I find myself in now. Then again, should some new information come to light, I'll change my position to reflect that after mulling it over.

As for challenges to atheism (I hate it being described as a movement almost a parallel to religion, nothing ties us together here beyond a lack of belief. There are no tenets, no commandments.) As for that, there should always be questions asked and beliefs challenged. I'd hope that I never begrudge a person or think less of them for questioning things.


[Quote
Easy, for some love = god or the real question, when he created the universe.:pac:[/Quote]

If god is love, why worship? Love is an abstract concept, I don't see any connection between creating a universe and love.

As with everything important in life it depends. There is no yes or no answer there. Those that say either way are blind and/or stupid.

We can leave this point, I really don't know how to imagine a world without religion and with no comparison I guess it's pretty hard to answer the question.

Nothing wrong with that, but as I keep saying religion is not the problem. Man is. Name anything that has not been corrupted by man. Its not good enough to say religion makes men to bad things. Men don't need religion to do good or bad things.

No, not in the traditional sense. I just think its stupid for men to think they are masters of the universe when we can't even feed the worlds population or know **** all about where we came from. Therefore you will have to pardon me when I wonder sometimes if there is something more powerful than us out there. Man can be vain as fcuk.

If we are the problem, we are still the only solution. There has never been an intervention by a god that has improved the world. Let's use Yahweh as an example. Didn't like the world - drowned it. Sent a plague to kill and maim a whole people to help another. Sent his own son to die to appease himself. Not a very worthy deity in my opinion. I'm sure there are other more ridiculous examples in other religions but this is the one I'm familiar with.

Any time I need to be brought back down to earth or humbled a bit I just watch this. It pretty clearly outlines our place in the universe and outlines pretty much every reason why we shouldn't be dicks to each other without the need for any god or such.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g

They don't seem to care much for anything really. Feeding themselves for example. To cite some stone age like tribe in the middle of the amazon as an example of "progress" is humorous.

Oh they're not an example of progress of any kind. It's just to show that there are civilisations that don't have religion.

Andrewf20

Ive posted this already elsewhere, but its looks like it would fit here nicely too.

All I can do is take these stats at face value. Thought it makes interesting reading:

Top 10 most generous European countries vs percentage of that countries population who believe in God.

10 Germany – 40% (10th most generous euro country - 40% of Germans believe in God, and so on...)
7 Luxembourg – 44%
7 Switzerland – 48%
7 Finland – 41%
6 Malta – 95%
5 Denmark – 31%
4 Iceland – 31%
3 Netherlands – 31%
2 UK – 38%
1 Ireland – 73%

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism
http://www.businessinsider.com/chari...2#1-ireland-20

sensibleken

Andrewf20 wrote: »

Ive posted this already elsewhere, but its looks like it would fit here nicely too.

All I can do is take these stats at face value. Thought it makes interesting reading:

Top 10 most generous European countries vs percentage of that countries population who believe in God.

10 Germany – 40% (10th most generous euro country - 40% of Germans believe in God, and so on...)
7 Luxembourg – 44%
7 Switzerland – 48%
7 Finland – 41%
6 Malta – 95%
5 Denmark – 31%
4 Iceland – 31%
3 Netherlands – 31%
2 UK – 38%
1 Ireland – 73%

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism
http://www.businessinsider.com/chari...2#1-ireland-20

we also have the highest density of folk music and rain. therefore wet banjos make you give more

The Quadratic Equation

sensibleken wrote: »

we also have the highest density of folk music and rain. therefore wet banjos make you give more

Some religions, particulary Christian ones, encourage charity
What part of banjos and rain encourage charity ? Or are you refering to Thursday's yellow ?

sensibleken

The Quadratic Equation wrote: »

Some religions, particulary Christian ones, encourage charity
What part of banjos and rain encourage charity ? Or are you refering to Thursday's yellow ?

the bit where youre (well i am anyway) singing about poor oul soaps with no feet having to sell their rollerskates to pay the landlord when its lashing out.

always puts me in a mood for giving to the poor.

robindch

The Quadratic Equation wrote: »

Some religions, particulary Christian ones, encourage charity

And the chief beneficiary is -- mirabile dictu! -- the Catholic Church!

It's positively miraculous.

Galvasean

The Quadratic Equation wrote: »

Some religions, particulary Christian ones, encourage charity

Sold all of your belongings and given the money to the poor yet?

joseph brand

The Vatican's treasure of solid gold has been estimated by the United Nations World Magazine to amount to several billion dollars. A large bulk of this is stored in gold ingots with the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank, while banks in England and Switzerland hold the rest. But this is just a small portion of the wealth of the Vatican

http://www.chick.com/reading/books/153/153_10.asp

I can't find much more info on their wealth. I know it's probably impossible to find exact figures.

The Quadratic Equation

joseph brand wrote: »

http://www.chick.com/reading/books/153/153_10.asp

I can't find much more info on their wealth. I know it's probably impossible to find exact figures.

Very reputable source there. :rolleyes:

sensibleken

The Quadratic Equation wrote: »

Very reputable source there. :rolleyes:

bet youre great craic in the pub

Delirium

The Quadratic Equation wrote: »

Very reputable source there. :rolleyes:

I presume you have no problem with Time magazine?

Bankers' best guesses about the Vatican's wealth put it at $10 billion to $15 billion. Of this wealth, Italian stockholdings alone run to $1.6 billion, 15% of the value of listed shares on the Italian market. The Vatican has big investments in banking, insurance, chemicals, steel, construction, real estate. Dividends help pay for Vatican expenses and charities such as assisting 1,500,000 children and providing some measure of food and clothing to 7,000,000 needy Italians. Unlike ordinary stockholders, the Vatican pays no taxes on this income, which led the leftist Rome weekly L'Espresso last week to call it "the biggest...

Source

I'm not a subscriber to the site so I can't get the rest of the article.

MagicMarker

Yes but the money is just resting in their account.

Zombrex

Cian A wrote: »

Is religion beneficial to society? Is religion the reason why humans have morals and ethics? Would the absence of religion have caused more or less wars?

I am of course not asking if belief in the imaginary is a good thing but the other aspects of organised religion.

In general no. The question can be likened to a bad form of government, say for example totalitarianism. Is it possible that good things will happen in a totalitarian government? Sure. Does that make totalitarianism in general good? Nope.

Religion derives its authority to mandate correct human behaviour through a false notion of divine revelation. This divorces critical assessment of what is being asked of followers, since questioning a divine power is in most religions itself considered immoral.

A secondary aspect is that this is actually a rather difficult thing to do without introducing a range of distasteful systems of manipulation in order to keep people from rejecting the religion outright. Manipulation of masses of people is not a good thing.

A third aspect is that religion stunts understand of true forces in nature. After all why study what is actually happening when you already know, from God, what is supposed to be happening. History is littered with examples of this, but if you want a modern example of this, ask a Christian if they believe homosexual relationships are damaging to society.

joseph brand

The Quadratic Equation wrote: »

Very reputable source there. :rolleyes:

I'll put my hands up. It's probably not a reputable source, but if you can link a better source, then by all means do.

As I said, it's not easy to find information on their massive, massive wealth.

Peregrinus

joseph brand wrote: »

I'll put my hands up. It's probably not a reputable source, but if you can link a better source, then by all means do.

As I said, it's not easy to find information on their massive, massive wealth.

Really? You need to brush up your googling skills, so.

I googled “Vatican accounts”, and within five minutes I had learned that (a) the Vatican publishes its accounts annually and (b) the most recently-published accounts, for 2010, were published on 2 July 2011. The accounts themselves don’t seem to be online, but Google offered plenty of newspaper commentary about the Vatican accounts as well, quoting the figures, comparing 2010 with previous year’s, commenting and drawing conclusions. Much of this, I must concede, was in Italian, but I don’t think that’s quite enough to accuse them of being secretive.

The “secretive Vatican finances” meme is a popular one among conspiracy theorists (as you’ll discover when you google “Vatican accounts”) and sensational journalists. But a sceptic ought to be, well, a bit sceptical of such claims. The evidence suggests that, financially speaking, the Vatican is nowadays rather less secretive than is commonly supposed.

(Don’t expect Jack Chick to tell you that, though.)

Mark Hamill

Peregrinus wrote: »

Really? You need to brush up your googling skills, so.

I googled “Vatican accounts”, and within five minutes I had learned that (a) the Vatican publishes its accounts annually and (b) the most recently-published accounts, for 2010, were published on 2 July 2011. The accounts themselves don’t seem to be online, but Google offered plenty of newspaper commentary about the Vatican accounts as well, quoting the figures, comparing 2010 with previous year’s, commenting and drawing conclusions. Much of this, I must concede, was in Italian, but I don’t think that’s quite enough to accuse them of being secretive.

The “secretive Vatican finances” meme is a popular one among conspiracy theorists (as you’ll discover when you google “Vatican accounts”) and sensational journalists. But a sceptic ought to be, well, a bit sceptical of such claims. The evidence suggests that, financially speaking, the Vatican is nowadays rather less secretive than is commonly supposed.

(Don’t expect Jack Chick to tell you that, though.)

The value of the Vatican's accounts and the value of its wealth are not the same thing. The amount of money they say they have (even if they are being honest about it), doesn't represent the value of assets that belong to them (or assets that they have given to sympathetic individuals or organisations in order for them to avoid handing them over for compensation). The Vatican may be cash poor, be they are certainly asset rich:

Also, while I cant find official references (as you say, the accounts are not published online) several websites I have read have claimed that the Vatican lists the value of its own, entire, art collection at €1 (in reality, the collection is nearly priceless).

The Mad Hatter

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Also, while I cant find official references (as you say, the accounts are not published online) several websites I have read have claimed that the Vatican lists the value of its own, entire, art collection at €1 (in reality, the collection is nearly priceless).

I'll buy it for double that!

robindch

Peregrinus wrote: »

the Vatican is nowadays rather less secretive than is commonly supposed.

The Vatican does publish annual accounts which show an annual budget of around 250m euro, which works out at around 300,000 euro per citizen. Which, I'd imagine, is the world's highest by a long shot.

However, the Vatican's relatively small annual budget is dwarfed by the institutional church's vast assets: buildings, schools, hospitals, monasteries, private houses, land etc, etc, etc -- I believe it's the second-largest holder of land in Ireland, after the State itself. Not to mention a wide range of generally-unpublicized financial deals between church and state around the world.

Like the Vatican, the private religious orders, too, have enormous holdings. The tattered remnants of the Christian Brothers, so far as I remember, control perhaps 500-700 million euro, the <cough> Sisters of Charity perhaps 200 million euro. And so on.

I'd love to see it documented properly.

Blue Magic

Religion could be good. Have to wonder at times though.

Middle East, Northern Ireland, Terrorism (Muslim extremists, etc.), countless religious wars throughout history.... More people have been in killed in the name of "their" God than anything else - FACT!

vibe666

organised religion is just a tool to control the masses, preaching love and respect on the outside whilst breeding hate and intolerance on the inside.

its possible that many religions started out with noble goals, but like any large organisation, that goes out of the window when they realise how much money and power they can gain.

look how google's 'don't be evil' mantra has eventually gotten cast aside in favour of their bottom line, despite all the earlier promises to the contrary.

Blue Magic

vibe666 wrote: »

organised religion is just a tool to control the masses, preaching love and respect on the outside whilst breeding hate and intolerance on the inside.

its possible that many religions started out with noble goals, but like any large organisation, that goes out of the window when they realise how much money and power they can gain.

look how google's 'don't be evil' mantra has eventually gotten cast aside in favour of their bottom line, despite all the earlier promises to the contrary.

Agreed. Two key words, money and power. The Catholic Church has gotten billions upon billions of dollars/pounds/euros and have never paid any tax whatsoever. All they did in return here was poison a generation with laying their evil hands on altar servers.

Immediate changes needed for the church to belong in a modern civilised Irish society:
1) Remove celibacy. Utterly ridiculous. Brought in by one of the Vatican Councils only a matter of hundreds of years ago. The first pope was St. Peter and he was married - FACT! The Catholic Church have never denied this - FACT!
2) If Pope Benedict XVI happens to visit Ireland this year; a full, wholesome and humble apology to all the abuse victims is needed. This must be backed up with ACTION on bringing perpetrators to justice.
3) The ceremony of Saturday/Sunday mass must be freshened up, livened up - an injection of passion and excitement - perhaps use our immigrant community of devout Catholics more in the ceremonies and help integrate these people into the community in the process.

The above are all great intentions. Ques: Am I optimistic that any of the three will be done? Ans: Not in the slightest. The Church last the foresight, bravery and imagination to do any of that!

kingsenny

Religion was good (before science answered the difficult questions)... now it's irrelevant!

eire4

Quite simply No. I would add that in my opinion organized religion is one of the worst things ever to have been inflicted on humanity.