Is Religion A Force For Good In The World?

[Belisarius]

It really isnt so ethical as it is a warning of revenge and saying that those who like others shall be liked. It is not morality. Imagine we have a masochist. Hilarity ensues.

I already said it doesn't cover all cases, Kant tied himself in knots trying to get it to cover all eventualities. Maybe his "universal law" formulation has it covered, I couldn't say. And anyway I don't believe it is about being liked or wreaking revenge on those who harm you.

It's very simply an explanation of why it's wrong to do so-and-so.

Let's put it like this:

CASE A: Don't steal from me or I'll steal back from you, or worse.

That's a threat of revenge and it will probably work if you believe I can really exact my revenge on you. If not, it will probably cause you to "get your revenge first" and eliminate me as a problem.

CASE B: Don't steal from me because it's wrong. It's wrong because if everyone in the world was stealing, property would cease to have any meaning and we'd be living in chaos.

There's no threat here, nor is it important to be popular or well liked for the argument to apply. All that's necessary for the argument to be effective is that you recognise that the world would be a different place if the "wrong" action was universally accepted. This argument will only work if it is universally accepted, which in fact it is.

(By universally I don't mean everyone, I mean nearly everyone everywhere).

Ethics doesn't have to be holy or sacred to work. It only has to be recognized as a universal "same rule for everyone" thing.

 

[Ark]

No, any positive effects organised religion may have do simply not outweigh the atrocities committed in its name alone, and even allowing for that, they don't outweigh the fact that billions of people are being led to abandon reason and embrace mysticism and irrational modes of thought, bringing the entire species down a significant notch on the intelligence scale.

And before anyone even mentions the "atheist genocidal dictators", let me just point out that not one has murdered people "in the name of atheism and rational thought". The most commonly cited examples of 20th century godless tyrants were themselves either deeply religious or had reasons entirely unrelated to their atheism for committing the crimes they did.

Living in delusion is never good, no matter the outcome.

This basically sums up my feelings. For every person fed or clothed or educated by religious charities, at least a hundred lie dead throughout history from religion-oriented violence. And promoting blind faith without rational evidence is detrimental to the species as a whole.

 

[fsci123]

There will always be an excuse for people to kill each other. If you remove religion, people will find something else to rally around. It just so happens that religion (as it stands now) is a convenient excuse for idiots to go at each other with (figurative) pitchforks and torches. A lack of religion won't remove the problem, though, merely redirect it to something else.

There's a funny Family Guy (?) clip on YouTube that illustrates this point. The characters are shooting at each other, yelling about how they are the best atheist and all that. Humor aside, it's effectively the same thing, I think.

Good point by the way its south park...
http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s10e13-go-god-go-xii

 

[T.Neo]

For every person fed or clothed or educated by religious charities, at least a hundred lie dead throughout history from religion-oriented violence

I doubt it. Religion-related wars throughout history are isolated incidents, even if they are numerous and have been severe, but activities related to religious groups, at least, positively affect many millions of people around the planet on a continuous basis.

And there is also the fact that many religion-related wars have had other geopolitical or racial reasons for their occurance, and religious differences were either not the only cause, but also just an "excuse".

And promoting blind faith without rational evidence is detrimental to the species as a whole.

Well... there is a difference between faith and 'blind faith' (which is bad), but that sentence seems too much like a quote from an idealistic science fiction novel...

 

[Keatah]

Do you have prove of this?

I would of course like to know why you think religion (in general) is evil. Most religious people I know are considerate and kind...

Uhm, yeh especially when parents and relatives would use religion as a form of punishment and discipline. And even more noteworthy, when they would use it to make you feel bad. That is all the proof I would ever need. Sorry.

 

[Linguofreak]

This basically sums up my feelings. For every person fed or clothed or educated by religious charities, at least a hundred lie dead throughout history from religion-oriented violence. And promoting blind faith without rational evidence is detrimental to the species as a whole.

For every person fed or clothed or educated by *any* charity, at least a hundred lie dead from violence of *any* motive. Humans are simply more prone to kill each other than help each other.

To address the original question of the thread: A religion is simply a set of beliefs regarding the structure of reality (especially as regards the supernatural), and how we ought to react to it. So asking "Is religion a force for good in the world?" is tantamount to asking "Is (having a) worldview a force for good in the world?".

The answer is that having a worldview is a part of being a living, sentient being. It's not good or bad. Specific worldviews (which are probably at least as numerous as people) can be good or bad according to how well they conform with reality, but having a worldview, in and of itself, is neutral and unavoidable.

The problem comes in that whenever somebody has a worldview that is not in conformance with reality, there's a good chance that that will cause injury to someone else. And people have a tendency, when they think that they might be that "someone else" to try to suppress the other person's wrong belief by whatever means necessary. So the reaction to disagreements on worldview tends to be violence, and since people fear violence, we see a vicious circle: People perceive that a disagreement on worldview may make them a victim of violence, so they strike first.

But this is a purely human characteristic, and applies to all worldviews, not just those that avow the existence of the supernatural. And the solution is not to stop having worldviews, but to individually hold back the instinct to shoot anybody that might shoot us.

 

[T.Neo]

Parents and relatives also unfortunately think it is a good idea to use wooden spoons, rulers or canes as a form of punishment and discipline.

Are spoons, rulers and canes intrinsically evil? No.

Spoons can be used to stir stuff, rulers to measure stuff and canes to... well, I don't really know. Maybe to make sound effects for action films. Punishment and discipline are not their intended uses...

 

[ZombiezuRFER]

I already said it doesn't cover all cases, Kant tied himself in knots trying to get it to cover all eventualities. Maybe his "universal law" formulation has it covered, I couldn't say. And anyway I don't believe it is about being liked or wreaking revenge on those who harm you.

It's very simply an explanation of why it's wrong to do so-and-so.

Let's put it like this:

CASE A: Don't steal from me or I'll steal back from you, or worse.

That's a threat of revenge and it will probably work if you believe I can really exact my revenge on you. If not, it will probably cause you to "get your revenge first" and eliminate me as a problem.

CASE B: Don't steal from me because it's wrong. It's wrong because if everyone in the world was stealing, property would cease to have any meaning and we'd be living in chaos.

There's no threat here, nor is it important to be popular or well liked for the argument to apply. All that's necessary for the argument to be effective is that you recognise that the world would be a different place if the "wrong" action was universally accepted. This argument will only work if it is universally accepted, which in fact it is.

(By universally I don't mean everyone, I mean nearly everyone everywhere).

Ethics doesn't have to be holy or sacred to work. It only has to be recognized as a universal "same rule for everyone" thing.

Different cultures have different values. And would property truly stop having value? If everyone stole, and nothing had value, then that would eliminate stealing because there is nothing worth stealing, no?

 

[Kveldulf]

Uhm, yeh especially when parents and relatives would use religion as a form of punishment and discipline. And even more noteworthy, when they would use it to make you feel bad. That is all the proof I would ever need. Sorry.

So wait, is your argument "because some religious people are bad, religion is bad", or "Because most religious people you know are bad, religion is bad"?

You're either blaming religious institutions for the acts of the minority, or commiting an argumentum ad populum, which is a fallicious argument.

I wont deny that people dont use religion to justify things like you point out, but thats the fault of the people, not the fault of religion. I would also like to take this time (in the interest of fairness) to point out that I have a strong dislike for people who commit atrocities in the name of Religion. I'm just wise enough to not blame it on the religion as a whole (I only blame the institution).

 

[Belisarius]

Different cultures have different values. And would property truly stop having value? If everyone stole, and nothing had value, then that would eliminate stealing because there is nothing worth stealing, no?

There is not one single culture on earth where stealing, violence, sexual abuse and murder are considered good things, though they are practised by some of the members of all of those cultures. This is probably because half the world is female, and women recognise that they are more likely to be on the receiving than the giving end of any criminal or violent action. So they teach their kids not to steal, etc. My mother said "Don't hit your brother - what would the world be like if everyone hit everybody else for the smallest disagreement?" I'm sure most mothers have educated us in the same way. That's the golden rule in operation.

Regarding property, the things themselves would still have value - a car would still be a car, and useful to transport people in. But the very concept of property - that's mine, this is yours - would have no meaning. If instead of buying cars, we all stole them, then the car manufacturers and dealers would go out of business. And so on.

Did you really read the Wiki article on the golden rule or just give it a quick look? As I said, such diverse philosophers as Buddha, Jesus, Zoroaster, Aristotle, Confucius and Kant have all tried to formulate it. Jesus said it was the only important part of his teaching, a fact conveniently forgotten by the Christian religions who love to pile up a load of theology and dogma around it.

 

[jedidia]

Jesus said it was the only important part of his teaching

slight correction: he said it was the most important part of his teachings related to morality. Jesus had some other fields of teaching as well, allthough morality played a role in most of them.

But yes, it's all too convieniantly forgotten by a lot of people, especially if they get to power positions within whatever church, that is true.

I think we're asking the wrong question here: what should be asked is really wheather humans are a force for good or bad in the world. Because, well, we're the ones doing stuff, so probably we should judge ourselves by our deeds, not by whatever we happen to believe (an attitude shared by Jesus too, by the way: "by their fruits you shall know them...").

 

[Belisarius]

Thanks for the correction, checked some "scriptures" and you're absolutely right.