"Is religion a force for good?" US ="Yes" Canada = "No!"
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Monocle
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There are concrete answers to complex questions like the one at hand. It is irresponsible not to pursue them.JayDubya said:
Moral relativism is all well and good until your kid gets bullied by homophobic Christians, or someone you know gets murdered on the street for belonging to the wrong religion. For humans, being physically healthy is a more desirable, more advantageous, objectively better state than being ill. Likewise, being rational is objectively better for humans than being irrational, because rationality allows us to develop structured methods to achieve consistent results and solve problems, and to learn from the mistakes of ourselves and others in order to avoid repeating them.
As history attests, religion is a volatile force that reflects and intensifies our own naturethe protective and constructive impulses, but also our more tenacious base tendencies toward aggression, cruelty and destructionall the while maintaining a wholesome facade and demanding immunity from criticism. Yet it is a plain fact that religion's basis in faith, servility, tribalism and mawkishness undermines rationality. Therefore, while religion can inspire good, it poses by its very nature a direct threat to our race's most valuable asset.
TestOfTide
Banned
Monocle said:
Which is why they should be pursued without generalizing.
I'm not going to insist that televised sports leagues should go away just because how the fans of certain teams act.
But I'm certain that this topic would have a lot more people saying no (including myself) if the question was "Is Christianity a force for good?"
Chairman Yang
if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
I agree, but as a whole, considering all religions, what has their impact been? It's a huge question, for sure, just like "is globalization bad?" or "is socialism bad?" but it's one that it's useful to get people's opinions on. I mean, globalization has plenty of different aspects and only the most rabid ideologues would say it's never good or never bad. Same thing with socialism (even JayDubya would agree with socialized contract enforcement, for example).SoulPlaya said:
In the religion=force for good case, I think almost any reasonable person would agree that religion has probably caused some good, and that it's caused some bad, in some particular cases, and with some particular religious beliefs in play. The question is, when adding all of the good from all religions, and all of the bad, what has the impact been on balance? It really doesn't sound like an unfair question to ask. A very difficult one, sure--but not an unfair one.
Chairman Yang
if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
There are lots of different types of Christianity, too. How can you lump together a Unitarian Universalist, a Mennonite, a tribal Christian in India, a Spanish Catholic, and a rabid American Evangelical?TestOfTide said:
If you can generalize Christianity, why can't you generalize religion?
Insane Metal
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ZeroGravity said:
dope4goldrope
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Enco said:
Well... the capitol of science and mathematics was in Baghdad from 800AD - 1100AD. It was a very high intellectual society. Until...
Al-Ghazali went absolutely crazy. Despite him having a true appreciation of mathematics, he began to resent it. He was 'afraid' that students would treat things like metaphysics as they had the same level of precision as mathematics as well as that development in mathematics could lead into the development of what he thought of as 'bad' sciences. This led to the crippling of that intellectual society by switching his stance from true appreciation to making claims that forms of mathematics he once appreciated such as Geometry were not-practical, educated guesses, or outright wrong.
Yeah, I guess so, but it doesn't accomplish much as a question. You get people's opinion on the generalized notion of "religion". I have to ask, though, how many of those people who said it was a negative influence would change their minds if 9/11 never happened, and all the effects of Islamic terrorism over the past decade never happened.Chairman Yang said:
That's not to say that Islam is the only religion doing harm, but it's certainly had the most negative news to share over the past decade, as far as religions go. I'm sure a good deal of these people genuinely feel that all religion has a negative influence, but I'm sure most are just saying this based on all the terrorist activity they've seen on TV over the past decade. I mean, let's be frank, it's not Buddhist extremists (yes, they exist, but I doubt most of these people know that) that's keeping these people up at night. So, would it be fair to lump it together with Islam?
Yes, I realize that this is just a question, and people are only taking opinions here, but I just fear that people might start pointing this out as some kind of justification for getting rid of all religion (not that anyone has).
crazy monkey
Banned
SoulPlaya said:
you can apply same logic to ww2.
to religion hate brigade, do you think if there is no religion in world the violence will stop?
Jefferson promptly awarded the ballots to himself, and with no opposition from any of the legislators present in Congress, declared victory. And thus ended the most acrimonious presidential campaign in the history of the United States. Amidst the resulting cries and criticisms, there were strong fears that the young nation would crumble under the weight of the unrelenting infighting.
I really wonder how humans would treat each other, if the only thing that was changed about religion was the concept of an after life. The concept of an after life has been present in at least Western civilization since basically the beginning. If everyone knew (or thought, up to you) that this was their only life and they would cease to be at death, how would they treat others? Would it be worse due to the removal of 'consequences to your afterlife'? Would you have less wars as people wouldn't be willing to die for anything?
Of course, it could be debated, that the concept of an after life, is what drives people to religions, as it appeases humans greatest fear. I don't think religion would exist without a concept of an after life in some form. No one would buy in.
Of course, it could be debated, that the concept of an after life, is what drives people to religions, as it appeases humans greatest fear. I don't think religion would exist without a concept of an after life in some form. No one would buy in.
Souldriver
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Belgium, aaaw yeah!
les papillons sexuels
Banned
crazy monkey said:
no, but eliminating another cause wouldn't hurt.
Also to people bringing up the generalization of religion, you're missing the point completely. Again the article does not tell us how the distinction of religions were made. For all we know the poll could have been broken up into respective religions. The way the article uses religion is only to generalize the poll itself.
dinazimmerman
Incurious Bastard
Prosperity leads to irreligion, surprise surprise. That is, except in the US. That's the only persistently surprising fact revealed by these polls. Mammon and God not getting along in other parts of the world is old news, way old.
Also, "is religion a force for good?" is really a very boring question, not only for the reason pointed out by JayDubya (good according to which moral ideology?), but also because, even if religion were a force for evil in the utilitarian sense, the best way of countering it would be indirectly, by increasing material abundance and, more generally, social welfare, which has always been the goal of well-intentioned policymakers in the developed world anyway. This is because of simultaneous causality: religion -> lower social welfare -> religion.
Also, "is religion a force for good?" is really a very boring question, not only for the reason pointed out by JayDubya (good according to which moral ideology?), but also because, even if religion were a force for evil in the utilitarian sense, the best way of countering it would be indirectly, by increasing material abundance and, more generally, social welfare, which has always been the goal of well-intentioned policymakers in the developed world anyway. This is because of simultaneous causality: religion -> lower social welfare -> religion.
dinazimmerman
Incurious Bastard
Fusebox said:
Both are correlated with irreligion. But since most people aren't very smart, not even in predominantly irreligious countries, the broader demographic trend is probably better attributed to rising prosperity.
dinazimmerman
Incurious Bastard
I take back what I said in my last post. People have become more intelligent over the years, due to better education. But I believe, that for most people, this added intelligence alone has not been enough to diminish their interest in religion, except indirectly by increasing their material prosperity.
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