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Religion is not evil

arthwollipot said:
Of course not - read my arguments again. I'm saying that we can address the killing and the child abuse without denying the good that religious charities perform.
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One of the ways to address the child sacrifice issue is to try to convert the people who believe that killing a child is a way to achieve success into a secular atheist worldview. Another way to address the problem is to convert them to mainstream christianity or Islam. Of course, the fundamentalists regard all religious belief as part of the problem set, and if it encourages "magical thinking" then it's bad.
 
CriticalSock said:
Actually I'd like to refute my own argument about child abuse. That is something that individuals within a religion do and is not something generally condoned by religion.
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Up to a point. The catholic church never condoned child abuse - but in protecting thousands of priests, it might as well have. In practice, that's what it added up to. Clerical child abuse was more than just individual priests acting in a way totally contrary to the teachings of their church - it was a massive institutional coverup. What was a good concept - forgiveness and redemption - became twisted into the enabling of perverts.
 
arthwollipot said:
Actually, Caritas (the Catholic aid organisation which is signed up to the code of conduct that specifies no-strings-attached charitable work) generated AU$25,898,458 in charitable donations in the 2010-11 financial year. Same source as before. Twenty five, almost twenty six million dollars is hardly bugger all.
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While I wouldn't claim that such charity work is entirely no strings attached, the aid provided by Christian charity organisations is certainly not restricted to members of their religion. Indeed, one of the reasons for the hostility of Hindu fundamentalists to Mother Teresa was the fact that her order treated the lower castes as equals.
 
arthwollipot said:
Not always, anyway. Religion gives millions (billions!) of people all over the world comfort and hope in a world that seems bleak and uncaring.

I do not condone those evils that are perpetrated by religion (child abuse, terrorism, subjugation of women, etc), but nor do I overlook the tremendous good that religion is capable of.

Many if not most religions include charity as a cardinal virtue. This drives people to genuinely work for the betterment of others.
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All true. But it's also a breeding ground for fanaticism. And that's where the problem lies.
 
what, you'd only help out your neighbour because God told you to?
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You've missed the argument entirely. Atheists argue that most people would volunteer anyway, whether religion was around or not. The quote here is meant either to shock people into realizing that, or to point out that those who wouldn't help out others unless God told them to aren't people most of us--religious or not--would want to be around.
 
westprog said:
While I wouldn't claim that such charity work is entirely no strings attached, the aid provided by Christian charity organisations is certainly not restricted to members of their religion. Indeed, one of the reasons for the hostility of Hindu fundamentalists to Mother Teresa was the fact that her order treated the lower castes as equals.
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whereas one of the reasons for the hostility of some secularists towards mother Teresa is that her order didn't really treat the lower castes particularly effectively. She felt that suffering brought people closer to Christ, so her order often refused to administer painkillers, on the grounds that it was "the most beautiful gift for a person that he can participate in the sufferings of Christ". Teresa's organization also came in for considerable criticism for the huge amount of charitable donations it spent on building convents and encouraging converts rather than treating the sick.

Mother Teresa's horrible brand of self-aggrandizing "charity" is a symbol of everything that can go wrong with trying to help through religious charity.
 
Dinwar said:
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?
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Apart from leaving out the harm done by secular and atheistic organisations - IOW, much of the history of the twentieth century. It's a quaint superstition that removing religious belief can in itself generate an improvement in the human condition. It's not born out by the evidence.
 
lionking said:
Wolli, I agree with you and respect people with sincere religious belief.

Sadly, intolerance and hatred of those who don't share their religious beliefs is the hallmark of many religions. That's the main reason for the blowback.
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Hallmark, indeed. That's what happens when you claim to have the irrefutable truth and that this truth is worth everything.
 
westprog said:
While I wouldn't claim that such charity work is entirely no strings attached, the aid provided by Christian charity organisations is certainly not restricted to members of their religion. Indeed, one of the reasons for the hostility of Hindu fundamentalists to Mother Teresa was the fact that her order treated the lower castes as equals.
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Reproductive rights are pretty much a linchpin in conquering poverty; Ole Agnes, she wasn't much down with birth control I don't think.
 
Lamuella said:
whereas one of the reasons for the hostility of some secularists towards mother Teresa is that her order didn't really treat the lower castes particularly effectively. She felt that suffering brought people closer to Christ, so her order often refused to administer painkillers, on the grounds that it was "the most beautiful gift for a person that he can participate in the sufferings of Christ". Teresa's organization also came in for considerable criticism for the huge amount of charitable donations it spent on building convents and encouraging converts rather than treating the sick.

Mother Teresa's horrible brand of self-aggrandizing "charity" is a symbol of everything that can go wrong with trying to help through religious charity.
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As I've pointed out, much of the anti-Teresa propaganda originated from Hindu fundamentalists - the same people who are burning Christian churches in India. It's been seized on by people in the West with their own agenda.
 
westprog said:
As I've pointed out, much of the anti-Teresa propaganda originated from Hindu fundamentalists - the same people who are burning Christian churches in India. It's been seized on by people in the West with their own agenda.
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I'm sure you can provide some evidence of this.
 
Apart from leaving out the harm done by secular and atheistic organisations
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Not the issue at hand, so this is entirely irrelevant.

Also, unless you're in the sixth grade I'd say you should realize that "But you do it too!" isn't a valid defense. Wrong is wrong, whether one person does it or 7 billion people do it.
 
arthwollipot said:
Can it actually be demonstrated that religion does more harm than good? Can it be quantified? Many have opinions on this, but they are seldom backed up by actual evidence.
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Homeopathy doesn't do much actual harm, and makes a lot of people feel better, but it stands in the way of real treatment.

Religion works the same way with short-term feel goodiness, but standing in the way of real understanding and real solutions.
 
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