Is religion good for us?

I dont think anyone is talking about getting rid of people. At least I am not. I am talking about identifying a bad thing and pushing back.Tolerance is a good thing and works like grease. There is a point where no amount of lubrication will suffice. Are you suggesting that it is evil for me to push back against something that I perceive as evil. Again I do not know that good/evil are the right terms but I am not sure what else to use.

By having conversations like this one.

Yes. It can be. A lot of the evil that we see in the world is people pushing back against what they perceive as evil. Is it evil to kill people? Yes, often it is. Is it evil to kill people to prevent them from killing other people? That's when it starts getting gray.

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

I am not labelling all religion as evil. That is the point of the thread. What parts are bad and which are good. It may be a reality that most people get their ethical instruction from a religious basis but it is certainly not the only base. Ethical and moral behaviour is quickly evident to the children in the playground.I see the challenge as one of separating the good aspects that religion has claimed as its own from all the control stuff. It seems to me that our instinctive sense of right and wrong has been hijacked.

Indeed it is all gray and there are precious few absolutes. But there are nuclei.

Indeed - basic morality stemming from empathy and a desire to continue to socialize tends to give rise to some of the very basics, for the same reasons we see basic ethical behavior in other social animals.As I said, the question is what you're comparing against, because this is not a question that can be boiled down to a binary good/evil distinction. Each member of each sect of each religion is going to be slightly different. A maybe greater than B, but that doesn't mean that A is the best possible choice, or that B is the worst. Honestly, when dealing with generalities like your OP, it's extremely difficult to find where "not the best" starts to fade into "evil."If you asked me about a specific set of religious beliefs, I could answer better. But when the subject of discussion varies as widely as religion in general...you may as well ask whether people as a whole are "good" or "evil." It;s not a question that can be honestly answered that way - human beings are not as "good" as they possibly could be, but there is so much variety in human behavior and even in defining what constitutes "good" and "evil" themselves that it's not a question that can be answered as phrased.Remember, morality is subjective. The relative "good" and "bad" of any specific course of action can be determined to be different by separate individuals based on what specific moral system they're using. To a Christian who truly believes in a literally true Bible, obviously one religion would qualify as completely "good," while all other choices would be identified as "evil"...and what's more, if we assume for the sake of argument that the Bible is literally true, then the Christian would be right.Who cares? Instinctual human thought is hopelessly flawed anyway. More important is who is doing the hijacking, and whether the learned sense of right and wrong is superior to the instinctual one, and then whether the learned system is the best possible. Personally, I wouldn't trust a toddler's instinctual sense of right and wrong to make my real-life moral decisions.If we were to restrict ourselves to discussing specific religions, we could go into better detail. I would agree that the Abrahamic faiths tend to use guilt and the criminalization of harmless basic human instincts like fantasizing about the attractive woman across the street to gain a measure of control while offering no social benefit and in fact setting the stage for significant individual and social ills from all of that repression.Not all religions, of course, do any such thing. The Wiccan moral instruction, to continue that example, basically consists of "do whatever you want as long as you don't harm anyone else, because whatever you do good or ill will come back to you sevenfold." There's no control, or even an authority to take advantage of it if there were.I can do a harm/benefit analysis on a specific individual's specific beliefs. I cannot do the same across all religions, except to say that irrationality will always be less preferable than rationality, and that appealing to tradition is always less optimal than adjusting to new information when appropriate.

Personally I just wish people would learn to butt out of other people's business and let other people live their lives as they see fit.There are too many busybodies with the philosophy "what must be true for me must be true for everybody else and if not it must be made to be true".

What a great post Rahvin. I see the Abrahamic faiths as the biggest offenders but even if you take religion as a whole thing. So again it comes down to refining definitions to the first common denominator. By that I mean does my concept of good have to be acceptable to everyone? But you do. They are the same ones you had as a child, refined of course. We know what is right. We know that it is ok to eat pork if you cook it properly. We know that you change your books as you learn.As a species we carry a monkey on our back.

I've never heard it expressed that way, but that's a brilliant summation!

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

one-sided arguments likwe this one are very dishonest as it ignores all the unbelivers, athiests, evolutionists, secularists, who commit crimes like murder, rape, incest, theft, and so much more.it alsoignores the lessons of history like the communistic gov. who murder millions of their own people, dictators who abuse and kill their own, totalitarian gov. who do the same and so much more.if i were you i would be less worried about religious people and more worried about your own kind. wh do you think invents all those terrible weapons of war, mixes all those gases to be used in bombs, refines those poisons so spies and others can be eliminated without worry of being discovered and so much more...atheistic scientists that is who.

you all do not understand anything, Jesus said, 'I came not to bring peace but a sword...' which means there will always be conflict in this world because so many will reject the gospel and pursue evil.it is evil that causes people to sin and commit crimes against others NOT Jesus or God, if they are followed correctly.

Exactly the same as it has been for as long as the conflicts have been going on! People will fight for the same reasons as irreligious people involved in these conflict already fight - they will fight to protect their family, their people, from the other. They will fight to preserve the honour, territory and safety of their group. The fact that many 'groups' in today's world have religious descriptions doesn't mean that group conflict is about the religion. Nothing at all, this is the point I'm trying to make. In a world without religion, people would still form identities to make themselves feel part of a group, as people already do with nationalism, or political ideologies. People would still distrust and demonise outsiders, and conflicts would still break out between groups. People would still believe fervently in irrational falsehoods, as non-religious people do now - opinion polls in the UK have shown that, as belief in God has declined over the years, belief in ghosts and astrology have dramatically risen.This is what I meant when I said you'd got the causes confused. I don't think religion caues people to believe irrational things and engage in communal violence. Rather, religion is the result of our natural tendencies to believe irrational things and engage in communal violence.

These are instances in which a substitute for religion is constructed. The evil comes from the same mechanism: unthinking adherence to a creed and blind following of leaders. Your bigotry is showing. Not all scientists are atheists. Indeed, I have heard that in communities in the US where nuclear weapons were manufactured, the local clergy gave sermons promoting the making of those weapons. You should also bear in mind that it is GW Bush and his born-again buddies who have been running around starting wars.

It's true that atheists and religious alike are responsible for war, murder, etc. But it does seem to be the case that people need some kind of excuse to commit atrocities. Religion is a prime example of this.Religion is also quite unique in not just giving people a "justification" for committing an atrocity, but for often ensuring they are not subsequently dealt with by the normal process of justice, as in the following case of Father James Chesney.Claudy bombing: The 'dark secret' Cardinal Conway took to his grave - BelfastTelegraph.co.uk

But your quote quite clearly demonstrates that Jesus was not bringing peace. He was bringin' da rain.So, accepting this gospel indicates that we should obviously pursue violence. But you say that this violence only comes from thos who reject it. So, either way, violence is going to happen whether we take it or leave it.Is there something I missed there, or are you just hurling up more arguments without critically considering anything?