Is religion good for us?

Hey Ringo, sorry for the time out in the action . . . Wow, the word "irrational" appeared well OVER 30 posts ago. After so many posts, it may SEEM to some that your argument has become weak and/or desperate if you SUDDENLY feel the need to UNILATERALLY "backspace" an opponent's position. Just saying. Capitalized emphasis mine.I noted you wisely loopholed your position with the word "arguably," . . . TWICE for good measure. But if you still want to offer evidence that Alsace-Lorraine and the world wars that followed it are products (about 50 million killed. More civilians died than soldiers. Horrible deaths from firestorms, explosions, vaporizations, suffocation, starvation, etc.) of critical thinking, I'd be most interested.BTW, this didn't help: The following reference is for home viewers who do not understand critical thinking:

After thinking about this statement for a while I have to disagree. While applied critical thinking may produce different results for different participants considering the same question you cant blame the thought process for the undesirable outcome. Any given problem may not have a 'good' resolution but there will always be a 'best possible' resolution.I would also disagree that you dont use critical thinking when deciding what ice cream to eat. Do you like strawberries? If so you will probably like strawberry ice cream. As the personal variables come into play everyones result of applied critical thinking becomes personalized but the model remains the same.The only place I can see where critical thinking falls short is in matters of love. Even there it is likely that we fail to identify the appropriate weight to assign to facts.Do you have any other examples where critical thinking falls short when compared to a non critical thinking approach. The short list in the OP are a few examples of where the poisonous leachate of non critical thinking has cost us dearly.

Let's start with the definition that you provided:

quote:

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"Critical thinking, in its broadest sense has been described as "purposeful reflective judgment concerning what to believe or what to do."

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Are you suggesting that the governments of Germany, the U.K., Russia, the U.S.A, Japan, etc. didn't do that? And more pertinent to the topic, are you suggesting that religion rather than critical thinking was responsible for those deaths?

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Life is like a Hot Wheels car. Sometimes it goes behind the couch and you can't find it.

A "best possible" solution may well be a bad solution. It may well result in one participant killing the other one, like in the examples given in the OP. It doesn't matter whether the model remains the same. We're talking about the consequences. What If I decide (critically) that I deserve your ice cream and I won't take "no" for an answer? I don't think it has been established that the examples in the OP represent non-critical thinking. Others have pointed out that they don't necessarily represent religious thinking.

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Life is like a Hot Wheels car. Sometimes it goes behind the couch and you can't find it.

The OP examples were examples of non critical thinking. If you were to apply critical thinking to the Pakistan/India conflict you would see that there is no gain in killing people over some frozen mountains. Take out the irrational religious dogma and you have a bunch of dogs who caught the car. If you fail to weigh the consequences of demanding my ice cream then you have failed at critical thinking.

You're looking at it the wrong way. You're using your critical thinking to analyze their thinking. But it was their thinking that caused the conflict and you're a long way from showing that their thinking is religious and not political. It's the frozen mountains they're fighting over, isn't it? I have weighed the consequences and my considered opinion is that taking your ice cream is the most beneficial course of action for me.You're sorta making my point for me. Two parties, like India and Pakistan, will each weigh the consequences of their actions and make a decision based on that weight. One party or the other (or both) may be wrong in their assessment but that doesn't mean that their thinking wasn't critical.

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Life is like a Hot Wheels car. Sometimes it goes behind the couch and you can't find it.

I think you know I can't provide negative evidence.As a wise person in another thread said, "It's the responsibility of the claimant to produce the evidence." It's your claim/argument that critical thinking ("purposeful reflective judgment concerning what to believe or what to do") caused 50 million killed, more civilians died than soldiers, horrible deaths from firestorms, explosions, vaporizations, suffocation, starvation, etc, etc, etc.Evidence please. Errr, no, I never suggested critical thinking was ever responsible for the WW deaths. (Perhaps I am reading into this question too deep, but it seems you are giving me a loaded question, yes?)PS: Seriously Ringo, at this point it SEEMS you MIGHT be unclear of what "critical thinking" fully entails. Before continuing, please review the PRINCIPLES and DISPOSITIONS of Critical Thinking at the following site which I am including AGAIN:
Critical thinking - Wikipedia

I'm not asking you for negative evidence of anything. I'm asking you what you think the nations involved in World War Two based their actions on. If you think it was something other than critical thinking, I'd like positive evidence of that. No. My argument is that critical thinking is not a magic wand that produces the same sunshine-and-lollipops answers for everybody. My argument is that conflicting conclusions, all based on critical thinking, can produce horrible deaths, etc.The topic is about whether or not religion is good for us. Somebody suggested that if critical thinking displaced religious thinking, the world would be a better place. I'm asking for evidence for that positive claim.

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Life is like a Hot Wheels car. Sometimes it goes behind the couch and you can't find it.

See the murder by prayer thread.

We're talking about a net improvement here. The OP asks, "Is organized religion in the world today a greater force for good or evil?" A few incidents one way or the other don't address that question.I asked you before how you plan to quantify good and evil to decide which is greater.

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Life is like a Hot Wheels car. Sometimes it goes behind the couch and you can't find it.

Thats correct. I guess my original thought was to pile up the evidence and weigh it. I am not sure. I thought that the difference would be apparent. I guess that I am relying on my own moral code.I see that my original list had some bad things that are not necessarily the fault of religion. Most of them still stand. Apart from an individual coping mechanism, what has religion done for us lately? Any big peace break throughs brought about by religious negotiations? Any big Catholic church funded scientific research? How are the Muslims doing with helping out in Pakistan? I couldnt buy beer on a Sunday until a few years ago. The negative effects of religion are all around us. Mostly we are used to them.I also see some religious people doing good things like the MCC and United
Way. I am not sure that these people wouldnt do good things without their religion.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu played a significant role in bringing a relatively peaceful end to apartheid. The Catholic Church sponsors (adult) stem cell research. The Red Crescent Society is a major contributor to flood relief in Pakistan.Edited by ringo, : Removed extra redundant line that was not needed.

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Life is like a Hot Wheels car. Sometimes it goes behind the couch and you can't find it.

had there been no monopoly on what to belive, and what is true by the church it is probable to belive that mars would be a turist destination now. why because alot of sience facts have been lost during the raighn of the church that sent the world in to the dark ages for abbout 700 or more years.a few facts hat where lost
- the erth is round an the diameter of erth (calculated by the greeeks way before modern sience) this belif was outloved by the church.
- surgery the romans knew how to operate there are evan records that show they did head surgery. the churc said that faith would heal you and sicness is your oun fault for sinning
- hygiene the romans knew clean is good filthy is bad for you, during the monopoly of the church it was belived that a good layr of dirt will keep sicness awayand many more things where lost

Hey Ringo,I have noted that you have abandoned your former argument like a doorstep baby: It has now suddenly been changed to: "ALL based on critical thinking"?So let me get this straight, . . .You are asserting that nations (primarily the instigator of WWII, Nazi Germany), did NOT use hateful and IRRATIONAL ideology (a doctrine of racial and cultural superiority) to guide their actions that caused: 50 million killed, more civilians died than soldiers, horrible deaths from firestorms, explosions, vaporizations, suffocation, starvation, etc, etc, etc.. But rather, you now assert that it was the conflicting conclusions, ALL based on critical thinking ("purposeful reflective judgment concerning what to believe or what to do"), that caused nations, primarily Nazi Germany in WWII, to bring about 50 million killed, more civilians died than soldiers, horrible deaths from firestorms, explosions, vaporizations, suffocation, starvation, etc, etc, etc., (and their ultimate self-destruction).I am dumbfounded by your apparent assertion. Several months ago on PBS, there was a program that briefly touched upon Nazi Germany's systemic, dogmatic, and unyielding use of irrational problem solving during the war. The show wasn't ENTIRELY about the irrationality (the doctrine of racial and cultural superiority) of the Nazis. But in this small section, the producers showed that critical thinking at any point would have interrupted the escalation of atrocities. For example: So blinded to their irrational beliefs, the German high command peremptory concluded the ONLY "sensible/logical" next step after rounding up the Polish jews in the ghetto, was their extermination. The war's conclusion (50 million killed, more civilians died than soldiers, horrible deaths from firestorms, explosions, vaporizations, suffocation, starvation, etc,) was never a goal or mission in the beginning, just an inevitable result of serial irrational thinking, entirely divorced by the process of critical thinking.BTW, Ringo, you apparently STILL have not read the PRINCIPLES and DISPOSITIONS of Critical Thinking. Specifically: "Critical thinking employs not only logic (either formal or, much more often, informal) but broad intellectual criteria such as clarity, credibility, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, significance and FAIRNESS."
Critical thinking - Wikipedia

There has been no change in the argument.The Nazis used "hateful and IRRATIONAL ideology" to motivate the German people to follow their program. But the program itself, e.g. the need for lebensraum, was based on critical thinking. That's the exact example that I would use. The decision to exterminate the Jews was arrived at by logic - based on the premise that the Jews were a detriment to German society. The problem was with the premise, not the logic. It's an example of bad data producing bad answers, not of irrational thinking. "Fairness" is a pretty fuzzy concept. Yes, the Nazis were being "fair" to the German people, protecting them from Jews in the same way they would protect them from disease. Yes, slaveowners were being "fair" to their slaves, managing their lives for them since they were (supposedly) incapable of doing it themselves.The point stands: Critical thinking produces different answers for different people. The fact that you don't like some other people's answers doesn't make their thinking non-critical.

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Life is like a Hot Wheels car. Sometimes it goes behind the couch and you can't find it.