Atheists who don't hate religion

[quadraginta]

Thank you JESUS!

Of course, but at the same time, some of those laws are just still on the books because no one has taken the time to get rid of them. It doesn't mean in the here and now people are advocating for them based on religious influence.

There are a lot of old laws still on the books.

http://justsomething.co/the-22-most-ridiculous-us-laws-still-in-effect-today-2/

Booze laws are not anywhere near the list of left-over laws that may or may not be enforced.

You might want to dig a bit more. Start here.

There are literally hundreds of towns, cities, counties, etc. in the U.S. which are "dry". Most if not all of them have epic battles on a regular basis between businesses that want to quit losing trade to "that place just over the line" and church groups that believe they have the moral right to tell other people how to be moral. Elections are won and lost over this one issue.

My personal favorite? Moore County, TN. (In Tennessee all counties are dry by default, and have to pass a local referendum to change that status.) Completely dry, except for the Jack Daniels distillery, which is allowed to sell souvenir miniatures, and (probably not coincidentally) is one of the biggest employers in the county.

Nothing like a little hypocrisy with your bible beating.

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

I never really understood the 'does more good than harm' view. Is it really a trade-off and do you really sum up the one vs the other? Why is it necessary to do harm at all?

If you have a doctor who treats 99/100 patients wonderfully with high success rates but feels the need to shoot every 100th in the head - is that OK because he's doing more good than harm?

Religion provides support for a lot of nasty, unpleasant ideas and actions and impinges on the freedoms of others to do what they like. These nasty, unpleasant things serve no real purpose and are based on nothing.

That being the case, I'm not sure how many soup kitchens you need to run to compensate - I really don't see how that arithmetic works.

 

[HansMustermann]

Good point. Zealots compelled to recruit are much worse. Like those people who tell me I should stop smoking when I'm out sneaking a cigarette. (They want me to join the ranks of ex-smokers.) Or those buggers who think I'm a bad pet owner because I didn't have my dog's balls lopped off. (They want me to adopt their notion of pet ownership.) Or those ice-bucket people who "challenge" other people and recruit them to the cause. It's a spectrum of bad behavior.

We need to increase the notion of personal space to several meters.

Maybe, but at least those tend to limit themselves to what the harm done is, plus they can actually point at something. You know, like the actual stray dogs population and how many have to be euthanized each year.

Maybe I'm not reading the right boards, but I don't remember bumping into threads to the effect of what imaginary benefits I'd have if I took the dog to an imaginary vet, nor bulverisms to the effect of what repressed fear and anger towards the imaginary vet I must have if I think that's stupid.

 

[HansMustermann]

I never really understood the 'does more good than harm' view. Is it really a trade-off and do you really sum up the one vs the other? Why is it necessary to do harm at all?

If you have a doctor who treats 99/100 patients wonderfully with high success rates but feels the need to shoot every 100th in the head - is that OK because he's doing more good than harm?

Religion provides support for a lot of nasty, unpleasant ideas and actions and impinges on the freedoms of others to do what they like. These nasty, unpleasant things serve no real purpose and are based on nothing.

That being the case, I'm not sure how many soup kitchens you need to run to compensate - I really don't see how that arithmetic works.

I'd be more relieved if most people even admitted that there IS such an arithmetic there. Most of the case the implication is that look at all the wonderful things... err... you have to take on faith that it does, and it has no downsides whatsoever. Ever. All the bad stuff? It apparently doesn't count, see, because it's some other BAD Christians that do it, and those somehow totally don't count as being motivated or inspired by religion too.

Couple of poor kids get donations? SEE, RELIGION IS GOOD! Couple MILLION kids get beaten with rods because some psalm says so, often not even for anything wrong they actually did? Nah, see, that doesn't count. Couple thousand kids in Africa get acid in their eyes in the name of exorcising demons? Nah, don't be silly, that doesn't count either. Few more thousand kids killed, and even more left orphan when Catholics, Orthodox and Muslims in Yugoslavia try to ethnically purge each other? Nah, of course that doesn't count either

And I even understand when the religious do it. Of course they're not gonna tell you the bad sides too when doing propaganda to convince you. But I'm left scratching my head when even the "I'm an atheist but <insert the same apologetics that the theists do>" (believe it or not, most of those too switch track very quickly from whether their religion is true, to how good it is) gang do the same propaganda spiel.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

I'd be more relieved if most people even admitted that there IS such an arithmetic there. Most of the case the implication is that look at all the wonderful things... err... you have to take on faith that it does, and it has no downsides whatsoever. Ever. All the bad stuff? It apparently doesn't count, see, because it's some other BAD Christians that do it, and those somehow totally don't count as being motivated or inspired by religion too.

Couple of poor kids get donations? SEE, RELIGION IS GOOD! Couple MILLION kids get beaten with rods because some psalm says so, often not even for anything wrong they actually did? Nah, see, that doesn't count. Couple thousand kids in Africa get acid in their eyes in the name of exorcising demons? Nah, don't be silly, that doesn't count either. Few more thousand kids killed, and even more left orphan when Catholics, Orthodox and Muslims in Yugoslavia try to ethnically purge each other? Nah, of course that doesn't count either

And I even understand when the religious do it. Of course they're not gonna tell you the bad sides too when doing propaganda to convince you. But I'm left scratching my head when even the "I'm an atheist but <insert the same apologetics that the theists do>" (believe it or not, most of those too switch track very quickly from whether their religion is true, to how good it is) gang do the same propaganda spiel.

Now first where we agree - yes, religion is more bad than good and you don't need religion to have good.
But now where we might disagree - how do you know good? Or if you don't accept good, how do you know harm?

With regards

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

Now first where we agree - yes, religion is more bad than good and you don't need religion to have good.
But now where we might disagree - how do you know good? Or if you don't accept good, how do you know harm?

With regards

You can ask the people who are harmed. For one.

If they aren't dead. I think we can agree that being dead is probably and example of harm.

 

[arthwollipot]

Except I can't imagine not finding one, since UNICEF is always available.

It depends on what you want to donate to. The Fred Hollows Foundation, for example, focuses on blindness prevention throughout indigenous Australian communities and in Africa and Asia. Donate to them and you can help them restore sight to children in poor and developing communities.

UNICEF is a great organisation, it is true. But there are others. How about the Emergency Architects Foundation, who help to literally rebuild communities after natural disasters? And there is always Médecins Sans Frontières.

My point is, there are lots of organisations out there doing good work. Some of them happen to be tied to churches. If they practice good accountability, transparency, and the separation of religious activity from charitable work, then why not support them? Remember, charity is one of the Five Pillars of Islam, and Catholics believe that salvation comes through faith and works. If you donate to Caritas (to take just one example), the money you donate goes to Caritas, not to the Catholic Church as a whole, because Caritas practices those principles of accountability, transparency and separation.

 

[Frozenwolf150]

Bla, bla, bla, repackaged fear, bla, bla, bla.

Actually you'll find that most anti-theist arguments are just that religion is a bad thing. But I suppose it's easier to do BS about how they fear theists than address the actual arguments.

Right, I'm addressing the specific argument I've heard from some other atheists who say they despise religion but that's okay because they despise all religion equally (their words, not mine).

I'd be more relieved if most people even admitted that there IS such an arithmetic there. Most of the case the implication is that look at all the wonderful things... err... you have to take on faith that it does, and it has no downsides whatsoever. Ever. All the bad stuff? It apparently doesn't count, see, because it's some other BAD Christians that do it, and those somehow totally don't count as being motivated or inspired by religion too.

Couple of poor kids get donations? SEE, RELIGION IS GOOD! Couple MILLION kids get beaten with rods because some psalm says so, often not even for anything wrong they actually did? Nah, see, that doesn't count. Couple thousand kids in Africa get acid in their eyes in the name of exorcising demons? Nah, don't be silly, that doesn't count either. Few more thousand kids killed, and even more left orphan when Catholics, Orthodox and Muslims in Yugoslavia try to ethnically purge each other? Nah, of course that doesn't count either

Not what I said. You have to take the good with the bad. Religious people are still people, after all. I was writing as someone who is well aware of all the religious abuses in the news and throughout history, and who has spent years condemning religion for it. It was not easy for me to admit that religion is capable of doing good in the world.

And I even understand when the religious do it. Of course they're not gonna tell you the bad sides too when doing propaganda to convince you. But I'm left scratching my head when even the "I'm an atheist but <insert the same apologetics that the theists do>" (believe it or not, most of those too switch track very quickly from whether their religion is true, to how good it is) gang do the same propaganda spiel.

That would be assuming I went straight from being religious to being non-religious, without ever changing my beliefs. That would be missing the whole point of this thread. I had to change my mind many times to get to this point.

 

[Delvo]

If you want to consider religion's good deeds along with its bad deeds, you need to also check the circumstances in which each arose. The worst ones happen when & where religion is the most in control and free to do whatever it really wants, so that is its true nature. The best ones happen when & where it has lost a bunch of power and is the most constrained by other cultural factors competing with it, so it needs to put on a disguise and pretend to be something it's not.

 

[JoeMorgue]

You have to take the good with the bad. Religious people are still people, after all.

But that's the whole point. You really don't have to "take the good with the bad." We've just all agreed to pretend we do because religion is such a power social force nobody wants the hassle.

The earlier metaphor was 100% accurate. If a doctor saves 99 patients but just randomly shoots the 100th in the head and someone made the crazy suggestion that maybe the doctor shouldn't soot that guy in the head no one would launch into a "Oh so you're saying we just shouldn't have doctors? We have to take the good with the bad!" tirade.

Like I said early there is no form of "goodness" that religion has a monopoly on. And if you can have goodness and compassion and charity and so forth without the scientifically bankrupt, intellectually hollow crap that religion brings along then why wouldn't you want it that way?

You only have to take the good with the bad when the good and the bad are inseparable parts of the same thing. The sting of an inoculation shot, the misery of chemo, those are things you have to take the bad with the good. Telling millions of AIDs sufferers in sub-Sahara Africa that the giant invisible sky wizard says condoms are evil and then throwing some token medical care and canned food and claiming you're a charity isn't one of those things.

 

[marplots]

People you don't know are approaching you in public and telling you to get your dog neutered? Or telling you about the benefits of neutering without even knowing whether you have a dog?

(you certainly aren't comparing tv commercials to religious proselytizing, are you?)

They are knocking on your door on Saturday mornings to tell you to quit smoking?
(btw, perhaps your blowing smoke in their face is what is initiating the encounter?)

On a ranked list of people who irritate me, there will always be a number one. That's how ranked lists work. But it only takes a couple interactions a year to get on the list, and I'm not overrun with religious proselytizers, allowing their competition to gain ground.

I have to admit that the dog in question with the balls at issue is a Great Dane, and his, um, "equipment" is quite prominently on display (this breed walks with tail elevated). And, to be fair, there have been a few awkward questions from kids to parents along the lines of "Mommy, what's that? The dog has a little purse."

(And no, I'm not blowing smoke in people's faces.)

 

[HansMustermann]

Right, I'm addressing the specific argument I've heard from some other atheists who say they despise religion but that's okay because they despise all religion equally (their words, not mine).

That may well be, but if you have a problem with their despising religion and presumably think they're wrong, ever thought of actually addressing the ACTUAL arguments? You know, instead of just pulling out of the ass an equivocation between despise and hate, and then proceeding to do the Internet armchair shrink act about how that's really about fear?

I mean, Jesus F Christ, it's not like it's we're all sworn to secrecy about it. You don't need to be initiated into some dark brotherhood and learn the secret handshake, to be told exactly why some think religion is a horribly bad idea. Hell, some will tell you exactly WHY and WHAT FOR do they despise religion, without even asking.

Not what I said. You have to take the good with the bad. Religious people are still people, after all. I was writing as someone who is well aware of all the religious abuses in the news and throughout history, and who has spent years condemning religion for it. It was not easy for me to admit that religion is capable of doing good in the world.

Except you didn't say that. There was no mention of taking the good with the bad, just that it does good.

And except that that doesn't matter alone, or isn't enough by itself to justify religion.

Al Capone ran soup kitchens too, for example. Yet nobody says you've got some psychological problems if you despise Al Capone. Ted Bundy worked at a suicide prevention hotline in 1971. Yet nobody says it's some psychological problem if you remember him as a mass murderer instead. Or if we're speaking about organizations, hell, even the KKK did SOME good stuff, like funding a university, among other things.

Now I'm not necessarily saying religion is as bad as Ted Bundy. But just doing SOME good things too isn't enough to build a case for why you shouldn't despise an entity or institution or organization. You actually have to make the case that the good far outweighs the bad, not just that SOME good exists too. You have to do exactly that maths that was mentioned before.

Are the many people that Ted Bundy talked out of suicide, i.e., lives he saved, outweighing the 30+ women he murdered? That's not even a hypothetical example like the doctor who kills every 100'th patient. It's an actual case that happened. Should I stop using Ted Bundy as an example of a very bad person?

Is the KKK not worthy of despise, because they did some good stuff too?

Or speaking of religion, should I just gloss over the fact that yeah, even the KKK is one thing that is on the bad side of its balance?

Again, we DON'T have to take the good with the bad, unless you make a case that either
A. the good FAR outweighs the bad, and/or
B. there aren't alternatives that do the same good with less bad.

The fact is, nowhere else do we simply take ANY bad with with the good, if there are better alternatives. We don't still fumigate people with mercury, if antibiotics do the same job with less bad sideffects, do we?

That would be assuming I went straight from being religious to being non-religious, without ever changing my beliefs. That would be missing the whole point of this thread. I had to change my mind many times to get to this point.

You'll notice that nowhere did I say that, nor anything that relies on that. I frankly don't care how many times you changed your mind.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

...

Again, we DON'T have to take the good with the bad, unless you make a case that either
A. the good FAR outweighs the bad, and/or
B. there aren't alternatives that do the same good with less bad....

I can't prove a negative, can you?

Edit: Who is that we in "Again, we DON'T..."?

 

[HansMustermann]

I can't prove a negative, can you?

You can however support the idea that your alternative works better than other known alternatives. We use that in science all the time, really. You can't prove that there aren't better and safer antivirals than AZT, but you can show that it works better than the stuff we know about. Starting with that it works better than placebos. You know, disproving the null hypothesis and all that.

Edit: Who is that we in "Again, we DON'T..."?

Everyone. Anyone. You. Me. The guy over there. You name it.

There is no established principle that anyone whatsoever HAS to take any and every bad, as long as it comes packaged with some token good thing.

 

[barehl]

Except I can't imagine not finding one, since UNICEF is always available.

Your imagination or lack of it isn't the issue. The local food bank is run by half a dozen different churches. There is no religious content in this work; they simply volunteer to provide the labor. The original food back was in the basement of the Catholic church but now it's in a separate building across the street. It's a good organization that provides a valuable service. I don't know of any other organization in the area that is offering to do this.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Your imagination or lack of it isn't the issue. The local food bank is run by half a dozen different churches. There is no religious content in this work; they simply volunteer to provide the labor. The original food back was in the basement of the Catholic church but now it's in a separate building across the street. It's a good organization that provides a valuable service. I don't know of any other organization in the area that is offering to do this.

Proving yet again that the less religious a group is or acts, the better job they do. Thanks.

 

[IanS]

Not what I said. You have to take the good with the bad. Religious people are still people, after all.

They are still people. But is there some reason to think they would do very bad things if it were not for their religious faith persuading them against bad behaviour towards other people?

If we are talking about the sort of theists who do overseas charity work, or try to help disadvantaged people in their local community, or who make cakes to raise money at church fates for repair of the church roof etc., then are they not likely to be the sort of caring conscientious individuals who would probably try to help others in similar ways anyway even if they were not religious?

I don't think those individuals are only doing such things because they fear the violent wrath of God and hope for a material reward in heaven, are they?

But conversely, there are unfortunately rather a lot of religious people who are seriously intolerant of people who do not share their same faith. And at the extreme end of that, the intolerance very often extends into outright violence.

And that's an intolerant violence (e.g. currently seen very clearly worldwide in Islamic extremism, but also seen to a lesser extent even now in fundamentalist Christian groups), which derives from a belief in things which modern scientific education (if not other non-scientific education too) shows to be almost certainly no more than ancient superstitions of imaginary beings and quite ignorant belief in the supernatural.

I don’t think most atheists "hate" religion itself. And I don’t think they hate religious people in general. I doubt if even Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris etc. actually hate either religion itself or most religious individuals. What they hate is the violent consequences and the anti educational (anti scientific in particular) consequences of religious belief. What they and many atheists hate is the way religious belief has a very obvious and persistent habit of leading to all manner of intolerance, bigotry, misogyny, violence, hatred of other non-theists, denial of education, and countless wars and countless deaths.

 

[barehl]

I'd be more relieved if most people even admitted that there IS such an arithmetic there. Most of the case the implication is that look at all the wonderful things... err... you have to take on faith that it does, and it has no downsides whatsoever. Ever. All the bad stuff? It apparently doesn't count, see, because it's some other BAD Christians that do it, and those somehow totally don't count as being motivated or inspired by religion too.

I think this can be framed more precisely.

1.) Political authority. I don't know of any case where a theocracy has been entirely benevolent. It seems to be the case that any time you try to control what people think, you end up with something oppressive and dysfunctional. There are clear examples in communist countries and also clear examples in modern theocracies. Religion seems necessarily to be about what people think so perhaps it is impossible to have religion involved with political authority without a negative result.

2.) Educational authority. There would seem to be an obvious conflict between religion and secular knowledge. Presumably a religion based curriculum would not want to teach anything that was critical of itself, that was supportive of an opposing view, or that would indicate that it was unnecessary.

3.) Charitable authority. This would also seem to be a conflict where distributions could allocated by loyalty or opportunities to convert. You could also have donations diverted to other causes.

4.) Cultural authority. Certainly one could define culture so that it supported a particular view and not others.

None of these categories are strictly limited to religion. Each can have secular abuses. I think the only real conclusion is not that religion itself is bad but that situations where a monolithic ideology is prevalent are likely to be abused in some fashion. So, when a free flow of ideas is present there is no reason to assume that religion would have an especially negative influence. I'll admit that I can't think of that many examples where this has happened though on a large scale. The call for Vatican II back in 1962 is one and the current Interfaith Alliance is another. Sadly there are so many more examples of the opposite of this such as the Association of Religious Broadcasters. I think it might be fairest to say that religion can be a positive force but it takes effort, openness, and cooperation.

 

[barehl]

Proving yet again that the less religious a group is or acts, the better job they do. Thanks.

Nice try but that wasn't the original point. It was suggested that religious organizations were unnecessary because there were secular organizations that could do the same job. I gave an example where that is not the case. It is kind of difficult to argue that people are being less religious by volunteering when other groups are not.

 

[HansMustermann]

Proving yet again that the less religious a group is or acts, the better job they do. Thanks.

I was just thinking that. Thanks for putting it so succinctly and clearly.

Most of the arguments so far seem to boil down to, "yeah, but some of them act completely secularily, and don't use any religion guilt-trip to ask for donations, and..." And I'm thinking, at that point, WTH, so at that point what's the difference between that and a secular charity where, incidentally, some of the people involved are religious, but keep it to themselves?