The Good of religion

[Jeff V]

I read a post the other day that said which would you rather cure- cancer&AIDS or religion?

Would the world be better off without religion? I’ll definitely say that some horrible atrocities have been done in the name of religion. The inquisition, crusades, Sept 11th etc are horrible events no doubt. These people were definitely not “practicing what they preached”. However the argument could be made that an atheistic worldview was behind the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, and Mao Tse-tung, since they were all influenced by atheism.

Anywho.

I would say that the world is definitely better off with religion. IMO the church throughout the years has done much more good than bad. While I don’t want to diminish in any way what bad things were done I don’t think they out weigh all the good either.

Whether you believe or not, people have used their faith as reason, duty, purpose etc etc to do good things. Whether you believe or not, people that believe in a Creator, and that they can have a relationship, are loved, and will even be judged by Him drives them to do things, and try to leave this world a better place than when they got here. So many religions are deeply involved w/ helping the poor and less fortunate but tends to get overlooked somewhat.

At the beginning of October on the gulf coast when FEMA was basically gone, The Red Cross was making spotty at best appearances who was there day in and day out cleaning, rebuilding, crying, helping? Churches. Churches that were being used as shelters, distribution centers, and ware houses. There were masses of anonymous people that just wanted to help in any way they could, and 99.99% (of what I saw) were organized by churches of all denominations.

It was a sight to see- whether you believe or not.

[David Sklansky]

A good argument for Sklanskyanity.

[theweatherman]

[ QUOTE ]
The inquisition, crusades, Sept 11th etc are horrible events no doubt.

[/ QUOTE ]

So funny that Sept. 11th is giving as par with the inquisition and the crusades.

Anyways,

Religion can help as a community conerstione, as in your New Orleans example. However it is not necessary as a conerstone. Government could provide the same services without religion.

You examples of terrible atheist actions disregard the terrible actions of religious sects that are on par. The holocaust is nothing compared to the destruction of the Native Americans as westerners demanded their "God given" right to span the continents.

Religion influences EVERY event in history, because it acts as a social force. There is no way of knowing how the world would be if there was no relgion. Even hitler and Stalin were influenced by relgion, albeit a hatred of it. Still without this relgion they would be completely different.

[kbfc]

The good of religion???

I see religion as a result of evolution, albeit a form of exo-evolution. I say evolution because like dna, it transmits from generation to generation, and in fact does it truly faster than physical evolution. It does so, as other cultural artefacts, it is by no means the only one. Now, being a result of evolution, it may have been useful for survival at one point in time. Useful, from the point of view of binding people together in their activities and attitudes for instance. Being so, like all evolutionary processes, it will, if not already is, be superceded by new cultural artefacts as understanding of the importance of cooperation dawns, for instance, or it will fall in uselessness (not neccesary for, or able to contribute to, survival edge) as circumstances (ie the environment) changes. Will the replacement be better or worse, is a moot point, I will say that it will be more appropriate/useful to the circumstances at the time(like people intelligence and knowledge increase, new tools, or even global climatic changes even if caused by humankind).

[hmkpoker]

See, it's really difficult to say that religion is this big horrible thing that's responsible for all the evil and wars and such, because we have no basis for comparison. Show me a world history without religion and let's figure it out from there.

[Peter666]

The Crusades for the most part and the Inquisition were awesome. People seem to have been ingrained with a negative attitude toward them, like Pavlov's dogs. But an examination of the facts will lead one to conclude otherwise.

The Middle East would certainly be better off if there were no Jews or Muslims in the Holy Land. Muslims should be in Saudi Arabia, and the Zionists shouldn't even exist. But if they insist on a land of their own, they should have gone to Madagascar which was one of their plans.