What religion is good for?

[dasolution]

Religion has done a few of these things:

* Condone slavery
* Condone gender inequality (Islam and Hinduism is big on this one)
* Condone intolerance of others belief, which led to killings
* Go against logic, reasoning and practicality, which has proven to work.
* Promote untested theories (Creation, prayers) and beliefs (faith, etc.)

From all the crap I've seen between between the Muslims, Christians, and Jews in North America, Europe, Middle East, Africa and the Philippines. The Hindus and Muslims in South and East Asia. The Muslims and the Buddhist in China. And the Hindus and Buddhist in Sri Lanka. I think it's safe to say that religion cause more problems than helps.

Yes, religion does a good job of bringing people to a common cause, but is that common cause a beneficial thing? For most of the time, yes, but you can do it without religion.

All in all, we would be better off without it. With reasoning, logic, and common sense, we can achieve all the things that religion can with less drama.

 

[Avatar4321]

Really? You can recieve revelation from God, with reasoning, logic, and common sense?

You can know God without first hand experiences?

 

[Mr. H.]

Religion didn't condone all that. People with religion might have.

 

[Charles_Main]

What religion is good for IMO is what it does for many people (not myself) on a personal level. To help them cope with living in a what can often be a hard, shitty world to live in. It is called Faith and sometimes I wish I had it because life can be hard.

IMO that is one good thing about Religion right there. But then that does not require Organized Religion which is of course the real cause of all the evils you talk about.

People believing in god is not the problem. It is what Organized Religion has done and said in Gods name that seems to me to be the real culprit. Your Beef is with Churches and people not the Religion itself. The basic Tenants of Christianity or Judaism or Islam are not the evil. It is what people have warped them into that is in some cases.

 

[eots]

Religion didn't condone all that. People with religion might have.

sorry no its all there in the good book

 

[eots]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8oAGvFxevw]YouTube - Ziggy Marley Video: Love is My Religion[/ame]

 

[dasolution]

Really? You can recieve revelation from God, with reasoning, logic, and common sense?

You can know God without first hand experiences?

Revelations from God? That's nonsense and you knot it. No such thing exist.

 

[dasolution]

Religion didn't condone all that. People with religion might have.

sorry no its all there in the good book

Exactly, for example

Intolerance:

You shall have no other gods before me. Exodus 20:3 (Bible/Torah)

Don't bother to warn the disbelievers. Allah has blinded them. Theirs will be an awful doom. 2:6 (Qu'ran)

Slavery:

However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. Leviticus 25:44-46

O you who believe! retaliation is prescribed for you in the matter of the slain, the free for the free, and the slave for the slave, and the female for the female, but if any remission is made to any one by his (aggrieved) brother, then prosecution (for the bloodwit) should be made according to usage, and payment should be made to him in a good manner; this is an alleviation from your Lord and a mercy; so whoever exceeds the limit after this he shall have a painful chastisement. 2.178

A woman's place:

When men strive together one with another, and the wife of the one draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets: then thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity her. Deuteronomy 25:11-12

For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. I Corinthians 11:8-9

Women have rights that are similar to men, but men are "a degree above them." 2:228


I can give you more, but I think you get the idea now. I added a New Testament verse so that I don't hear that "well they don't say stuff like that in the New Testament" crap.

Also, it give you a picture that as much Islam and Christianity/Judaism say they are not alike, they really are. Islam, Christianity, and Judaism; same shit, different pile.

 

[dasolution]

What religion is good for IMO is what it does for many people (not myself) on a personal level. To help them cope with living in a what can often be a hard, shitty world to live in. It is called Faith and sometimes I wish I had it because life can be hard.

IMO that is one good thing about Religion right there. But then that does not require Organized Religion which is of course the real cause of all the evils you talk about.

People believing in god is not the problem. It is what Organized Religion has done and said in Gods name that seems to me to be the real culprit. Your Beef is with Churches and people not the Religion itself. The basic Tenants of Christianity or Judaism or Islam are not the evil. It is what people have warped them into that is in some cases.

They really don't need the faith from some superficial entity that will magically give it to them. Faith and hope comes from within, a belief that no matter what, you will survive.

 

[dasolution]

YouTube - Ziggy Marley Video: Love is My Religion

I love that song, it's one of my favourites.

 

[California Girl]

Religion has done a few of these things:

* Condone slavery
* Condone gender inequality (Islam and Hinduism is big on this one)
* Condone intolerance of others belief, which led to killings
* Go against logic, reasoning and practicality, which has proven to work.
* Promote untested theories (Creation, prayers) and beliefs (faith, etc.)

From all the crap I've seen between between the Muslims, Christians, and Jews in North America, Europe, Middle East, Africa and the Philippines. The Hindus and Muslims in South and East Asia. The Muslims and the Buddhist in China. And the Hindus and Buddhist in Sri Lanka. I think it's safe to say that religion cause more problems than helps.

Yes, religion does a good job of bringing people to a common cause, but is that common cause a beneficial thing? For most of the time, yes, but you can do it without religion.

All in all, we would be better off without it. With reasoning, logic, and common sense, we can achieve all the things that religion can with less drama.

*Emphasis mine* You do? Got some evidence to back that up?

 

[Big Black Dog]

If it wasn't for religion, where would we go to at midnight on Christmas Eve? Wal-mart?

 

[California Girl]

If it wasn't for religion, where would we go to at midnight on Christmas Eve? Wal-mart?

Without religion, there would be no Christmas Eve.

 

[Hister]

Without religion, cgirl wouldn't get new sex toys from her parents each xmas.

 

[editec]

Religion has done a few of these things:

* Condone slavery
* Condone gender inequality (Islam and Hinduism is big on this one)
* Condone intolerance of others belief, which led to killings
* Go against logic, reasoning and practicality, which has proven to work.
* Promote untested theories (Creation, prayers) and beliefs (faith, etc.)

From all the crap I've seen between between the Muslims, Christians, and Jews in North America, Europe, Middle East, Africa and the Philippines. The Hindus and Muslims in South and East Asia. The Muslims and the Buddhist in China. And the Hindus and Buddhist in Sri Lanka. I think it's safe to say that religion cause more problems than helps.

Yes, religion does a good job of bringing people to a common cause, but is that common cause a beneficial thing? For most of the time, yes, but you can do it without religion.

All in all, we would be better off without it. With reasoning, logic, and common sense, we can achieve all the things that religion can with less drama.

Religion was one of the unifying principles of civilization.

Sadly conflicting civilizations often used religion as the excuse for mayhem.

But then too, now we use economics and or political systems as our excuse for committing mayhem.

Basically there's very little difference between using political or economic principles to rationalize doing evil, than using religion to excuse bad behavior.

This is the thing that I am afraid most younger atheists miss.

Mankind would have (and is now) using other faith based systems (not having to do with GOD but no less faith based) to rationalize their bad behaviors.

And while the intolerant religious are still with us, they are by no means the ONLY villians in the mix.

Or don't you remember back when the greatest perceived threat to the American way of life was a POLITICAL CONCEPT (Communism) having nothing whatever to do with religion?

When somebody tell you they are killing you in the name of their God?

Know that while they're saving your soul (by killing you) they're already thinking about your stuff they're going to steal after you're dead.

What is their real motivation?

MAMMON, not GOD.

 

[HUGGY]

Religion didn't condone all that. People with religion might have.

sorry no its all there in the good book

Yummmm... That's some GOOOOOOD book!

 

[dasolution]

If it wasn't for religion, where would we go to at midnight on Christmas Eve? Wal-mart?

Without religion, there would be no Christmas Eve.

Which would be all the better, probably reduce the amount of mass consumption.

 

[manu1959]

Religion has done a few of these things:

* Condone slavery
* Condone gender inequality (Islam and Hinduism is big on this one)
* Condone intolerance of others belief, which led to killings
* Go against logic, reasoning and practicality, which has proven to work.
* Promote untested theories (Creation, prayers) and beliefs (faith, etc.)

From all the crap I've seen between between the Muslims, Christians, and Jews in North America, Europe, Middle East, Africa and the Philippines. The Hindus and Muslims in South and East Asia. The Muslims and the Buddhist in China. And the Hindus and Buddhist in Sri Lanka. I think it's safe to say that religion cause more problems than helps.

Yes, religion does a good job of bringing people to a common cause, but is that common cause a beneficial thing? For most of the time, yes, but you can do it without religion.

All in all, we would be better off without it. With reasoning, logic, and common sense, we can achieve all the things that religion can with less drama.

men are evil and pervert good things......now get up and go look in the mirror....

 

[manu1959]

If it wasn't for religion, where would we go to at midnight on Christmas Eve? Wal-mart?

Without religion, there would be no Christmas Eve.

Which would be all the better, probably reduce the amount of mass consumption.

ya ...i am sure the retailers would love that...then they would have to cut jobs and all yall would be complaining about that.....

 

[dasolution]

Religion has done a few of these things:

* Condone slavery
* Condone gender inequality (Islam and Hinduism is big on this one)
* Condone intolerance of others belief, which led to killings
* Go against logic, reasoning and practicality, which has proven to work.
* Promote untested theories (Creation, prayers) and beliefs (faith, etc.)

From all the crap I've seen between between the Muslims, Christians, and Jews in North America, Europe, Middle East, Africa and the Philippines. The Hindus and Muslims in South and East Asia. The Muslims and the Buddhist in China. And the Hindus and Buddhist in Sri Lanka. I think it's safe to say that religion cause more problems than helps.

Yes, religion does a good job of bringing people to a common cause, but is that common cause a beneficial thing? For most of the time, yes, but you can do it without religion.

All in all, we would be better off without it. With reasoning, logic, and common sense, we can achieve all the things that religion can with less drama.

Religion was one of the unifying principles of civilization.

Sadly conflicting civilizations often used religion as the excuse for mayhem.

But then too, now we use economics and or political systems as our excuse for committing mayhem.

Basically there's very little difference between using political or economic principles to rationalize doing evil, than using religion to excuse bad behavior.

This is the thing that I am afraid most younger atheists miss.

Mankind would have (and is now) using other faith based systems (not having to do with GOD but no less faith based) to rationalize their bad behaviors.

And while the intolerant religious are still with us, they are by no means the ONLY villians in the mix.

Or don't you remember back when the greatest perceived threat to the American way of life was a POLITICAL CONCEPT (Communism) having nothing whatever to do with religion?

When somebody tell you they are killing you in the name of their God?

Know that while they're saving your soul (by killing you) they're already thinking about your stuff they're going to steal after you're dead.

What is their real motivation?

MAMMON, not GOD.

You hit the nail on the coffin on this one.

"Know that while they're saving your soul (by killing you) they're already thinking about your stuff they're going to steal after you're dead."

Which is really the true purpose of religion, to feed someone ego about how self-important he/she and to use it as an excuse to take other people's possession.

When people and/or groups fight each other, they say it's for religious reasons, but really, it's for land and resources.

Now I not naive to believe that getting rid of religion will solve humanity, but it sure would be one less crap to deal with. Maybe I should have said this:

"With reasoning, logic, respect for each other, and common sense, we can achieve all the things that religion can with less drama."

As we know, religion has been two-faced about the respect part. It claims to preach about peace, love and tolerance, yet it also preaches that they are the only true way. Quite a contradiction don't you think?