Religion is not evil

[arthwollipot]

Maybe my view is a bit limited, but I think a good deal of the consolation provided by religion is based on false premises, the same as homeopathy and spiritualism, people really do feel better though.

The harm in homeopathy (to take just one of your examples) is in discouraging people from seeking proper medical attention. This does happen with religion (faith healing, etc), and I've already stated that I'm against that.

 

[Lamuella]

In terms of charitable giving, the individual in this world who has given most to charity is an agnostic.

 

[arthwollipot]

In terms of charitable giving, the individual in this world who has given most to charity is an agnostic.

Yes, but I wasn't talking about individuals.

 

[CriticalSock]

Arth, do you think that the good that religion does outweighs the bad?

 

[HansMustermann]

Religion is a tool. A hammer is a tool as well. A hammer can be used in the building of a house, or it can be used to cave in someone's head. A hammer is neither good nor evil regardless which of the two it has been used for or how many times it was used to do either or both. It is like religion in that aspect, however unlike religion a hammer is a useful tool. What use is religion?

Except it's not a tool. It's a set of false data and rules to base some decisions on.

You can be perfectly rational in deciding to use a hammer for X or not for Y, because the hammer itself doesn't screw the rules and data involved in that decision. Just having a hammer won't make you think that it's rational to bash someone's head in.

Religion messes up the rules and data. You can't honestly and in all faith believe, and I mean truly believe, that God rewards X or punishes tolerating Y, and not have it screw up your decisions whether to do X or whether to leave someone alone who does Y. If you really believe it's a fact that God hates gays and any town which tolerates gays, then it's only taking it to the logical conclusion to try to drive the gay couple across the street out of town. Or if you really believe that God watches over you and will skew probabilities in your favour while you're doing risky activity Z, then you suddenly have less of a reason to avoid activity Z.

And that really goes for any woo that introduces false data in your inferences. If you think your incredible luck, or lucky rabbit's foot, or the lucky numbers you dreamed last night, or whatever make you lucky at roulette, or just (a common belief) that some kind of cosmic balance has you due for a win to compensate for something else, then you have one extra reason to go and play the roulette and to take higher risks. If you believe that some sort of luck or karma or today's horoscope or whatever makes it less likely to have an accident today, then it becomes only normal risk management if you take it to the logical conclusion and drive faster today. Etc.

A hammer doesn't do that. You don't see people thinking, "I won't fall off the roof today because THE HAMMER is with me!"

 

[Lamuella]

Yes, but I wasn't talking about individuals.

well, you were. You were talking about the good that religions do in terms of charity. Religions can only do this perceived good either through their financial holdings or through donations. Organizations like World Vision Australia are entirely driven by individual donations.

 

[Mister Agenda]

Yes some religions do charity work, but give us secular humanist types a couple of milennia and we'll be as big or bigger than anything that religion has come up with!

I hope we put in the effort to make it a little sooner than that. We should be competing with theistic religion institutionally to do more good than traditional churches, but organized humanism seems to be building at a glacial rate.

 

[iknownothing]

My position is that we can capitalise on the good that religion does while we are stamping out the harm.

Are you wanting to change religion rather than eliminate it?

I understand that it is very comforting to people. I would hate to take away hope of an afterlife from, for example, people who have lost a child and are comforted by believing that they'll be together again.

But the problem is that the religion that gives them comfort comes with strings attached. If they believe that they'll be reunited with their child in heaven, because that is what their religion teaches, then they also have to deal with the not-so-comforting things their religion teaches. Like, that while they're in heaven with their child, their non-believing family and friends will be tormented in hell forever. And that they need to fear gay people. And that scientists are wicked, dishonest people who are out to destroy everything they love.

Not all religions teach those same negative things, of course. Some are very liberal regarding all the bad stuff. But I don't really see those churches surviving long-term. Because once people start removing the blatantly horrible things from a belief system, it becomes glaringly obvious that the entire belief system is really just a matter of preference. Which doesn't give the kind of rock-solid support and comfort you get from believing wholeheartedly.

Besides all that. It's not up to me to tell a Catholic how to be a Catholic, or a Baptist how to be a Baptist, or a Muslim how to be a Muslim. It seems disrespectful, to me, to try to redesign other people's religion to be more acceptable to you. They are what they are, take it or leave it.

 

[Cheetah]

The harm in homeopathy (to take just one of your examples) is in discouraging people from seeking proper medical attention. This does happen with religion (faith healing, etc), and I've already stated that I'm against that.

Sure I agree, some good and some bad, just like religion, what about the other example?

I'm just arguing with you to get my post count up so I can also have a cool avatar like yours (not really ).

I'm also sure a LOT of people are tricked by religion into doing good deeds, which they would not have done otherwise, by promise of a later reward. Luckily no one complains when it doesn't pan out eventually.

 

[Cheetah]

I would hate to take away hope of an afterlife from, for example, people who have lost a child and are comforted by believing that they'll be together again.

I would rather be miserable than tricked into a, what I see as, 'false'
happiness. But that's just me, I'm sure other people, maybe most, feel differently.

 

[Good Lt]

Without the organisational structure, they're less able to do good works.

Get your drift, although whether or not one is able to do something 'good' is independent of whether or not there is some kind of 'organizational structure' to support the act.

Perhaps "effective on a large scale" is a better fit than "good."

Semantics, I know.

 

[Trent Wray]

My position is anti-antitheism.

A theist has given magical properties to ideas and used that to justify their own intolerance. The same as an anti-theist. They are foundationally similar to a theist but with a different mask, because they are both focussing on nonsense to justify their lack of tolerance.

So an anti-antitheist has gone one step further. They are yet foundationally similar to both the religious person and the antireligious person ... they are still focussing their intolerance on something as though it were important enough to give it entity like elements, magical properties, etc.

You are against certain types of PEOPLE. Bottom line. Why do you need to use nonsense to justify that you are intolerant ? People being intolerant of each other on some level is normal.

This is the "do people kill people or guns kill people" debate. It is people that kill people. Take away guns, and they will find other ways to kill people. Take away ideas and things they worship and treat as good and evil, and they will find new things to treat as good and evil. Those who anthropomorphize science once they drop religion have the same root issue as the religious person. They have merely changed masks. It isn't the gun, the religion, the video game, whatever that is the problem ... it is the person who is doing things we don't want them to do.

Religion is not a monolithic entity.

This. Not trying to sound elitist, and I know I'm being redundant, but I don't understand why people keep anthropomorphizing religion and science, and ascribing them moral and ethical qualities, or treating them like they are entities which provide, do good and evil, etc. Seriously.

An alcoholic has problems. Not a bottle of alcohol. Someone who uses kool aid to murder children has problems. Not kool aid.

It is a constant, seemingly never ending "debate", because it always focusses on nonsense. And that nonsense is whether or not "concepts" are good, evil, etc. Come on. Is math good or evil ? Is Pokemon good or evil ? It is people. And I don't think you'll ever really "get anywhere" if you continually redirect the blame and responsibility elsewhere. And if you begin to ascribe entity like qualities to things, and ethical and moral principles to things, it is no different than someone worshipping sticks and stones and saying they're magical. Again .... alcohol, kool aid, pokemon, science, religion, math .... are not entities with magical properties. The moment you start arguing as though they have these properties, you treat the red herring as though it was the main issue.

 

[CriticalSock]

I hope we put in the effort to make it a little sooner than that. We should be competing with theistic religion institutionally to do more good than traditional churches, but organized humanism seems to be building at a glacial rate.

It is like herding cats but, in my opinion, it's the best option. The alternative is charitable works with a side dish of evil deeds as is being served up by religion.

 

[westprog]

I don't know. When it falls on people it crushes them to dust beneath its uncaring monotlihic form...

I think it's the people within the religions which are the shining rays of individuality which you are seeing as evidence of non-monolithicness.

the good, caring, charitable, individual Catholics, Muslims, Hindus etc etc etc..

It's these individuals which use the organisational structure of whatever religion they're in to do good works.

This is the double standard which is inevitably applied. It's entirely visible when it's seen from the outside, but from the inside, it can't be seen at all.

So when a Catholic priest - totally acting against the precepts of his religion - abuses children - that's an example of the evil of religion. Every catholic who ever put a penny on the collection plate is implicated. But when a vast organisation, set up by the church, organised by the church, helps people worldwide - that's just "good caring charitable individuals".

Of course this double standard is operated on both sides. I've noticed that the people quickest to spot it one way are the quickest to apply it the other.

Whether or not religion (or atheism for that matter) is a good or a bad thing involves totting up the good and the bad, and comparing. All too often it's a matter of adding up just one and ignoring the other.

 

[westprog]

Here's a statistic. In the 2010-11 financial year, World Vision Australia - a faith-based organisation - generated AU$310,764,196 in charitable donations. The next largest was Médecins Sans Frontières - a secular organisation - which raised AU$53,615,234. (source - p.27).

Of course, there may well be people with religious belief supporting MSF, and people with no religious belief supporting WVA. And while MSF might be a secular organisation, it's not explicitly atheist, in the way that the faith based organisations aren't atheist.

That's not to decry the original point, which was an excellent one - just to point out that it's very complicated to quantify the whole of human behaviour.

 

[Dinwar]

So, to summarize: Religions by and large do a lot of harm, in various and well-documented ways. The good they do amounts to 1) providing hope in the form of some afterlife, and 2) charities. The first has no evidence supporting it, and the second can demonstrably be accomplished via private, secular efforts, and most religious organizatoins are ruled out of consideration because of issues with the transparency fo the organization.

That about right?

 

[westprog]

Why do they volunteer? I'd suggest that they volunteer because of their religious convictions.

I know that it's quite common for atheists to decry such motivations - what, you'd only help out your neighbour because God told you to? That's the viewpoint expressed most recently by Penn Jillette. It's not a fair point, because that's not how religious people see things. They see the world in a way where helping their fellow human beings and believing in God are part of the same way of looking at the world.

 

[Lamuella]

So when a Catholic priest - totally acting against the precepts of his religion - abuses children - that's an example of the evil of religion.

No, that's the evil of the man. The evil of the Catholic Church comes when they cover it up and allow him to abuse again. Which they did. Often.

 

[CriticalSock]

This is the double standard which is inevitably applied. It's entirely visible when it's seen from the outside, but from the inside, it can't be seen at all.

So when a Catholic priest - totally acting against the precepts of his religion - abuses children - that's an example of the evil of religion. Every catholic who ever put a penny on the collection plate is implicated. But when a vast organisation, set up by the church, organised by the church, helps people worldwide - that's just "good caring charitable individuals".

Of course this double standard is operated on both sides. I've noticed that the people quickest to spot it one way are the quickest to apply it the other.

Whether or not religion (or atheism for that matter) is a good or a bad thing involves totting up the good and the bad, and comparing. All too often it's a matter of adding up just one and ignoring the other.

True, which is why I made a partial retraction on the child abuse issue and Cleon keeps re-iterating that religion is not a monolithic entity.

The problem is that the premise we're discussing is "Religion is not evil", so in order to address it some kind of generalisation has to be made and individual examples given.

It's that or just close the thread... and that would be dull!

 

[iknownothing]

The thing about religion encouraging charity and volunteerism:

Partly I think that is just a matter of butts in pews. If you go to church, you spend a certain amount of time being told to donate or volunteer. There is value in just having a regular reminder -- people who don't attend church (believers or not) can intend to give, but too easily get lost in the daily grind and forget to get around to it.

Tied in with that is accountability and status -- if your church is your main source of community, and you want to be respected in your community, then you want to be a part of the things they do. You know that if you sleep in and skip the soup kitchen this weekend (or preaching on the street corner, or whatever) that they'll be disappointed in you. You know that, although the whole congregation doesn't know, some people in the church are aware of whether you really tithe your 10% or not.

Both of those things are tricky to recreate for an atheist community, but with some creative thinking it can be done. It's a matter of encouraging people who have good intentions to follow through.