Does religion do more harm than good, /his/?

>>569388

Doing good or evil is up to the individual himself. Religion can not do good or evil on its own.

The only real problem with religion isn't even a problem with religion itself but rather a problem with human beings and their inability to be subjective, cosmopotilan creatures.

"It's different therefore I must kill it" and "They have more than I do therefore I must kill them" have been human traits since we were even human. Religion, in the hands of people who are this debased, will always end badly.

>>569405
but it influences the individual's choice, especially if you are raised as a religious person. People won't blow themselves up in the name of logic and science.

>>569413
Science has had its fair share of atrocities. They've just been less genocidal and pronounced.

>>569425
That might be true, but I can't think of one proper example. Experimenting on animals maybe

Depends on what kind of religion you're talking about, I resent the dumping of all religious traditions in one category. Something being a religion doesn't make its worldview justified, nor does something being a religion make it unreasonable.

>>569462

The desperation of anatomists for corpses led to graverobbery, back in the day.

But I guess really big one should the atomic freaking bomb. I'm not saying it was science's goal to create a weapon that killed millions of people but I am saying that scientists worked on it every step of the way, with the full knowledge that it would be used against someone.

>>569388
The right of religion does more good than harm. whether religion itself does more harm than good is then ultimately irrelevant.

>>569388

In my view, the history of ideas demonstrates that no matter how good the idea is, some retard will get it wrong or wilfully misinterpret it in a self serving way. Once ideas are out there, they take on a life of their own. Even blatantly made up religious ideas like scientology have demonstrate this.

It's literally like watching the evolution of a memetic virus. A mind virus that adapts to its hosts and is spread orally or via literature.

>>569462

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation

>>569499
>memetic virus

reminded me of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc

>>569410
>>569492
>>569525
True, but religion is definitely the perfect tool to maniplulate groups of people and slaughter others and think that they are doing the right thing at the same time. Without religion, how could anyone achieve that?

>>569552

Political ideology.

>>569552

Nationalism did a pretty good job of that

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>Good
>Evil

Oh how I pity the haunted.

i think you need to define religion because some ppl here might mix it up with general worldview

>>569531

>video

>>>/trash/

>>569556
did the nazis actually think they were doing the right thing when slaughtering millions?

>>569573
Actually, I'm taking part in an argument, where I have to defend religion, so I came here to see your reasons. The topic of the argument is the sentance "religion does more harm that good" and I have to argue against it.

>>569577

Since it benefited them... absolutely. They saw it as removing cancer from their homeland. Jews, gypsies, the poor, the homosexual were all seen as a drain on their society and a pockmark on the skin of their fatherland and needed to be dealt with. Nationalism is a crazy fucking thing.

>>569552
>Without religion, how could anyone achieve that?
Any sort of ideology of any kind.
Or even without that, it's suprisingly easy to make regular people literally torture and kill other people:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
>>569577
Yes.

>>569590
I would like to discuss it also, but need OP to state the basis so that i can even start.

>>569619
I guess in the context of the argument, it means christianity, islam, buddhism and other religions

>>569552
The same man that killed more than Hitler was an atheist.

>>569556
The lines between religion and political ideology can be very thin. Communist worldview has been spread with the same spirit as religious fundamentalism.

>>569413
People will kill others in the name of progress, goodness or logic. Like the holocaust

>>569629
But communism isn't a religion, so...

>>569622
If it is the point i think that pragmaticaly speaking religion should be a peacemaker and i am not the one to make any comparisions cuz i dont have any unit in which i can present depair/hapinnes causeb by religion

>>569639
Marxism is metaphysics disguising itself with economics. Define religion how you want, I see it as allegorical metaphysics, and communism fits that pretty well.

>>569639

>alcohol is a drink, not a drug!

It's a utopian worldview that promises a better tomorrow if people subscribe to the belief system and act upon its tenets.

The difference is that it promises heaven on earth, rather than in the sky.

>>569629
if you go on that line of thought, then you get an retarded junction where either any social movement that turns bad is a religion, so we need to destroy any ideology, or religion can't be tied to anything, since it's tied to political circumstances.

>>569646
>>569653

Still. not. a. fucking. religion.

Religion is a thing which makes you believe in better tommorow, it makes promises happier times everything beyond that is a side effect of following rules which try to make your world a brighter place. Therefore it makes peace for you as a concious being. Even better when it helps you help ppl around you.

>>569668
>Religion is a thing which makes you believe in better tommorow, it makes promises happier times everything beyond that is a side effect of following rules which try to make your world a brighter place.
So everything from science to democracy to economic freedom to secular humanism?

>white people think of religion as some kind of abstract metaphysical pastime

Whose fault is this?

>>569678
Scholasticism.
>fault
It's what made western religion superior to all others.

>>569662
You're right, it's a cult.

>>569677
That plus gnostics i think

>>569685
So, a useless definition.

>>569696
Nah, just amking an addnotation to my previous post. Religious belief is based on something more than experimental experience and senses, even in some cases overcoming logic. You dont make illogical politic views, just false assumptions. Religion reaches deeper into you than politics.

>>569388
Depends on the religion.

>>569413
Yeah they do. Why do u think the world is about to atomic warfare

Religion doesn't make math for atom bombs nigga be real

>>569405

Yes, it can.

>>569388

Yes, it does.

The thread is really over. The rest is flailing.

>>571581
>The thread is really over.
It could have been, if you didn't bump it with your useless post.

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It's hard to imagine a world without religions and how they orient people.

People tend to think that religions are a top-down dissemination of beliefs in some effort to control or manipulate the population. In reality religions convey sources of meaning which people are innately wired into their physiques from everyday experiences. There's a reason why Adam and Eve has the elements it does, a talking serpent, a tree of knowledge, the banishment from paradise. These elements are archetypal representations of facets of human experience. They're collective to the betterment of the society, there's a reason why these things exist. Without them, without a shared source of meaning the world gets a lot smaller and more personal.

I don't think this would be a good thing. Religions have a great capacity to bring groups of people together in peace, they also have the capacity of brutal conflict for members outside the religion. It's almost impossible to foresee a world WITHOUT religions effect of bringing people together, i think it could have potentially more been unimaginably brutal compared to what actually happened.

The people who argue against religion do it a great disservice. Christianities "search for the truth" in the scriptures produced a more and more "rational" and "scientific" Europe as a result. This unrelenting, unrestrained search for "god's truth" resulted in the final analysis of god's no-existence(at least for some). Other cultures/religions DIDN'T have the same goal of uncovering the truth at any cost.

>>571772

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/06/peace-on-earth-atheism

>>571778

What does that have to do with what i said?

We're talking about religions and not the existence or non-existence of god.

>>571772
>Religions have a great capacity to bring groups of people together in peace, they also have the capacity of brutal conflict for members outside the religion. It's almost impossible to foresee a world WITHOUT religions effect of bringing people together, i think it could have potentially more been unimaginably brutal compared to what actually happened.
Yeah all those militant western humanist atheists sure are a big problem in the world right now, how can it ever work out.

>>571807

>Yeah all those militant western humanist atheists sure are a big problem in the world right now, how can it ever work out.

Humanist atheists existed 1000 years ago?

>>571787

And I posted an article that has nothing to do with the existence of god and was about how non-religious societies are more peaceful, to counter your argument that society needs religion.

>>571860

>that society needs religion.

Where did i say this? I just pointed out what role religion plays in a society and that historically, religion might have prevented more violence than it caused.

I'm NOT against a religionless society, but i do understand what religion means to people.

>>569388
Only on /his/