NationStates Jolt Archive

So, do you think religion helps more than it harms, or harms more than it helps. Perhaps you think it's pointless superstition and should be abandoned. let me know.

Depends on the religion, how one interprets it, and how far they take it.

Depends on the religion, how one interprets it, and how far they take it.
*agrees*

why would you have a poll that doesn't include the option of "i believe that religion is the key to heaven."

umm i think religion is ok it helps explain things to people who need stuff explained to but i think it hurts twice as much as it helps

why would you have a poll that doesn't include the option of "i believe that religion is the key to heaven."

It isn't religion that is the key to heaven, it is faith.

**Thank god I'm athiest**
:p

**Thank god I'm athiest**
:p

How could you thank someone you don't even believe exists? :confused:

So, do you think religion helps more than it harms, or harms more than it helps. Perhaps you think it's pointless superstition and should be abandoned. let me know.

I think the mixed bag option is ill worded because it implies that some religions/sects are automatically evil. It would be better to have said something like, "Religion is a mixed bag as it brings good things as well as bad." This is less confrontational and doesn't label people as evil simply because of what they believe.

Religion is a tool, devised by the intelligent/wise few, to enslave/silence the masses.

Take christanity for example:
what do you have to say about a world in which 2 billion people cannot or will not make up their own moral decisions about life, and trust their existence to a 2000 year old book to tell them what to do with their lives?

In my opinion religion is like a warm, fluffy pillow smothering humanity

religion is used to explain things that cannot be explanned at the moment

I hate to sound unoriginal but in brevity I must be.
* Religion is the result of primitive explanations for existence.
* That is why belief has been shaped over our history from supernatural to Polytheism to Monotheism to Secularism.
* Religion puts unnecessary restrictions upon us because everyone is different and hence everyone, except the completely moronic and dependent, have an individual interpretation of God or Nibanna or whatever.
* It causes no good, nor evil but is a medium for those elements through human expression. Humans are good or bad or average, and religion serves to exagerate the emotions - hence evil corrupters such as Hamza or selfless saints such as Mother Teresa.
* Unfortunately religion as some form or another will always exist because pathetic, yes that's right pathetic, people need to be told what to think and what to believe and be led like sheep. Otherwise if eveyone in the world thought for themselves and were leaders then there would be anarchy and the human race wouldn't survive very long. Religion is a deplorable side effect of the human condition.
* It makes mockeries of fine people like Daniel Hamilton, who is a friend of mine, a Jehova's Witness who is one of the most intelligent people I know, yet he has been degenerated into a thoughtless minion of the submissive multitude, and he will never excape.
* Finally Hamilton makes a good case study because he also shows why some would say religion, even if wrong in faith, is a good thing. He is happy in his what is potentially ignorance. However, this is not logically sound.

If I live in a house with the front door wide open, great holes in the walls and ladders leading up to the roof, which has an open trap door - you would say my house is not very secure. Now if the said house is filled with wonderous treasures and comfortable surroundings you would also say it should be made secure. The house is a symbol for a person, you can either except that your beliefs are without strong foundation and work to correct the fundamental flaws. Or you could adopt the fideist view of Hamilton and insist that the house is secure. Over time the holes in the roof and walls and the open doors will incur decadence upon your home. Still you maintain that your house is perfect and the most solid house in town whilst increasing your supply of treasure and improving your internal surroundings. Eventually someone walks into your home and leaves with all your treasure in hand and your environment in tatters. Only then does the fideist accept the failings of his/her house. Or, as what happens in the majority of cases including Hamilton, you fervently deny that the treasure has been stolen and your comfort lost, you lose your temper with people who claim your house to be insecure and rant on about how evil nature is that the rain seeps into the holes in your roof. Always remember that your house is perfectly safe, its nature and other people who are to blame for your insecurities and the only way to protect yourself is to go to their homes and ruin them either by force or by convincing them their houses are shameful with the absence weaknesses. Make them guilty that they have such a lovely house whilst you live in a wreck, forget to mention it is of your own fault. Preach that only by allowing the corruption of nature directly into their homes and therefore by tarnishing their treasures and surroundings may they suddenly have the power of a permanent home. For previously even the most perfect of homes would eventually feel their flames extinguished by the relentless way of nature. You however, realise that by allowing nature into the home and rather than questioning it and fighting it, welcoming it and aniticipating the moment the fire in the home is put out. For your impeccable rational brain has calculated that if you live in a miserable home but appreciate it and make that appreciation of how lucky you are to live in a house full of holes your main priority then you will be rewarded with an eternal flames in a perfect block of flats somewhere. You either know this to be the case because you dreamed it, and dreams are never wrong, or because you met this pleasant old fellow who related the truth of the world to you - only it was difficult to establish exactly what he was saying because he was a lunatic afterall. But you sat there determindly for decades and decades, the mad man always talking, and you managed to find marvellous prophecies, along with the complete works of Shakespeare, and set them down in a great book 'The housekeepers Guide' a remarkable acheivement that you apply to all houses whether made of stone, brick, tall, small, on land, under water, existent, non-existent, the guide explained how to maintain all houses regardless. One day people begin to question the 'Great Book' and there are too many of them to burn anymore. These people claim that the universal 'great book' doesn't apply to their concrete mansion (concrete being quite rightly a sin against God), they believe that the basis of holes in the walls and roof are now redundant since windows can now be fitted that remind us of the ravages of nature but protect us from any adverse affects. You vehemently protest against such abominations asserting that the only way one can can be grateful for something is to have never experienced it, so that when your single flame is extinguished you can - and if you don't you're dead and you won't worry about having not experienced life. Finally in today's religion you sit back whilst watching the world behind one of your windows, prefering them to the symbollic and traditional holes that you still keep for appearance sake. What happened to the glory days of terror and power? Of times when homes were more hole than house. Modern day religion nows realises the mistakes it has made in past, the pointlessness of the gaps in the home. As the last holes in the homes disappear, you fade into oblivion along with your precious Jehova - The God of the Gaps.

Well since brevity is the soul of wit, I was brief.
I do tend to get carried away, but then this issue is a complex one and even with this large reply I haven't even scratched the surface of the issue.
I would however, be very impressed if anyone had the recklessness and courage to read the whole post.

Jeez, what a ridiculous bunch of questions on your poll. Next time consult with someone of maturity and depth before you post something like this.

Jeez, what a ridiculous bunch of questions on your poll. Next time consult with someone of maturity and depth before you post something like this.
Agreed



Anyway, I picked the third option.


Religon truly is a mixed thing.

Some religons promote racism. Others promote peace. Some religons have caused wars. Others have saved lives.


It's all how you interpert it.

Hey, no sex. I thought brevity = being brief.

How could you thank someone you don't even believe exists? :confused:

I somehow get the feeling that the statement was supposed to be ironic.

You beat me to it. lol.

Jeez, what a ridiculous bunch of questions on your poll. Next time consult with someone of maturity and depth before you post something like this.
It was meant as a joke.

no sin, that is easily the best argument I have heard from this forum before. Unfortunately the one point I had was covered in yours. Sooooo...I agree with no sin.

in the past religion served a necessary function, filling a hole that society and human knowledge couldn't. today, in the developed world, there is no need for religion; those who turn to it are choosing what is in some ways an easier path, but at the expense of all the most triumphant acheivements of the human mind. i think good things are done in the name of religion, but those things are good by their nature and not because they have anything to do with religion...indeed, their good would increase were they not done in the name of religion.

i have nothing but the utmost pity for those who are dependent on faith. i make every effort to comfort and assist them, and i hope they will find the strength to one day break free of their addiction. i don't hate them or try to deny them their right to religion (in fact, i defend their rights whenever necessary), but i do make every effort to eliminate the problems that make their religion necessary.

in my opinion, eliminating the need and desire for religion would be the first step toward paradise on Earth.

Religion good.
People very very bad.
Canon of every religion I have ever encountered good.
Human element upon that doctrine, very very bad.
We are what is wrong with religion, not the other way around.

don't we make the religion? :confused:

don't we make the religion? :confused:
Only pagan ones were made by man, silly rabbit

don't we make the religion? :confused:
No we as a whole do not.
The worshippers do not make the religion.
The orginal Founders o a sect create the Dogma.
This is usually good.
I realise it is time for every "I am an intelligent Atheist" to come and enlighten the foolish believers. I was however approaching it from a more honest position.
The position that the doctrine of every major faith on the planet if follwed would create a utopia.
However mankind at large seems incapable of actually following any doctrine other then self service.
That is truth.

Since there seems to only be room for zealots(Atheist and Faithful alike).
My simple statment of religion good/people bad recieves the absurdity of being dragged into the Did we create God or did create us arguement that can not be supported genuinely with imperical data either way at all.
The FACTs are religion as it stands is a good moral idea.
The practice of religion however falls very short of the idea.

I think I'm a christian but I don't know I've never been to a church though and my gf keeps trying to get me to but i don't wanna (pouts) so yeah I know little of religion just that churches complain alot I don't know whether to believe in god or not. :confused:

I picked the fourth choice. Because if there's anything I am, it's dull.

In fact, I'm completely normal in every way.

*ratchets the pie catapult down another few notches*

In fact, you should trust me to watch your kids.

*loads a three foot pie onto the catapult*

We'll have oodles of fun! :D

My problem with religion lies in the fact that people use it as a "moral guide," but instead of promoting peace and tolerance, it's lead to more deaths than any other single motivator in all of history. Tens of millions of people. It's sick.

Religion is an excuse for being a bigot.

Religion is an excuse for being a bigot.
Bigots always find excuses.
If not religion then something else, you are generalizing(the trait of a bigot).
I am a believer, does that automatically make me a bigot?
You ever been seen a HammerSkin Rally? They support Atheism in their members.
Nazis sought to create their own quasi-religion, because no doctrine would support their actions(people did, not religions)
National Alliance an American racist orginization forbids members from being praticing Christians(on the basis it is a semetic religion) They promote Humanism(Atheism).
Religion is the guide, the map, people are just not good at following it.

My problem with religion lies in the fact that people use it as a "moral guide," but instead of promoting peace and tolerance, it's lead to more deaths than any other single motivator in all of history. Tens of millions of people. It's sick.
Religion is a moral guide.
You note that when people start commiting attrocities in God's name they very often are taking from the true Doctrine of their faith, and the understood meaning of things(Much like Muslims today and the term Jihad).
They twist their religion(which they obviously have no real faith in) to suit their own agenda. Religion is not sick, Mother Teresa feeding and helping Hindis is not Sick, My father traveling to Honduras to be with peasents, to help with building, and food distrabution and to council men in prison is not sick.
The millions of small kind acts done daily in the name of various faiths across the globe is not Sick.
The fact that is far more is done for the good because of religion then bad, it is just that when someone twists it up to suit their own means they are usually doing something bad enough that God is the only sheild big enough.

Religion is a moral guide.
You note that when people start commiting attrocities in God's name they very often are taking from the true Doctrine of their faith, and the understood meaning of things(Much like Muslims today and the term Jihad).
They twist their religion(which they obviously have no real faith in) to suit their own agenda. Religion is not sick, Mother Teresa feeding and helping Hindis is not Sick, My father traveling to Honduras to be with peasents, to help with building, and food distrabution and to council men in prison is not sick.
The millions of small kind acts done daily in the name of various faiths across the globe is not Sick.
The fact that is far more is done for the good because of religion then bad, it is just that when someone twists it up to suit their own means they are usually doing something bad enough that God is the only sheild big enough.
hhmm i think im interested now :gundge:

Religion is not sick.
I never said Religion was sick. I guess I wasn't as clear as I meant to be. When I said, "It's sick," I was referring to the number of people killed in the name of religion, not religion itself.

I believe that religion as a whole has done more good than harm to our society.

Nothing unites people quite like religion, and when people are united, the people usually perform better than if they were not.

Of course, nothing dis-unites people quite like religion too . . . and religion has been used as a tool to promote war (although religion is never the only cause).

But, religion has brought billions of people a happy life. It doesn't matter if the religion is actually true or not--they live a great life, and they have the religion to thank. According to Dr. David Myers, Exploring Psychology 3rd. Ed. Worth Publishers, Inc. 1996., actively religious people are happier, and as we all know, the happier you are, the longer you live. You can also check out this site : http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0826/is_1_20/ai_111932533

So, it shouldn't really matter if religion is actually real or not. It does more good than harm.

Bigots always find excuses.
If not religion then something else, you are generalizing(the trait of a bigot).
I am a believer, does that automatically make me a bigot?
You ever been seen a HammerSkin Rally? They support Atheism in their members.
Nazis sought to create their own quasi-religion, because no doctrine would support their actions(people did, not religions)
National Alliance an American racist orginization forbids members from being praticing Christians(on the basis it is a semetic religion) They promote Humanism(Atheism).
Religion is the guide, the map, people are just not good at following it.

Indeed. I would say the largest cause of human suffering is human greed, cruelty and apathy. In my opinion, while some conflicts may in fact be mainly religion-based, most "religious" conflicts are in fact nothing more than the above-mentioned trifecta, using religion as an excuse and justification.