Is religion good for us?

Being the old-fashioned type, I like to get down on one knee, produce a ring, and say "will you gay-marry me?" That usually gets rid of them. Do you see what I did there?

Some religions are "... closer to harmless"? I think you are being a little too soft in your declaration.Whenever I hear this type of "harmless" statement I am reminded of Gestalt theory:
"The whole is greater than the sum of the parts".Here is an example regarding percentages of the parts:My sister-in-law likes to read National Enquirer, The Globe, and other rags from the supermarket checkout aisle. Reviewing only this "part" of her reading diet, perhaps one can say it is harmless. But if you consider the whole, that is, the entirety that in my sister's case does NOT include science articles, medical journals, philosophy, math exercises, politics, etc., we can figuratively say my sister-in-law is dining completely on dessert. And I think you would agree a diet of only chocolate bon-bons is not harmless.Thus, IMO, it is the displacement of critical thinking skills that make ALL religions ultimately harmFUL.Or, let me ask it this way, in a world that has so much poverty, wars, disease, and bigotry, is there so much critical thinking in it that we can afford to eat mental bon-bons?Edited by dronester, : clarity

I don't think displacement is the right way of looking at it. I think it's more like non-placement. The critical thinking was never there to be displaced. And I don't think the lack of critical thinking would be improved by removing religion. People would find other ways to be non-critical in their thinking.

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

While I agree that religion exemplifies a specific void of critical thinking, the fact is that human beings are not always consistent in their application of intelligence. Most people compartmentalize their beliefs quite well, to the point that they can simultaneously believe in their particular religion, and still behave like mostly-rational individuals in their everyday life. The deist who accepts everything that science discovers, who demands evidence to believe any claim except for his chosen belief in a deity, is not being too terribly harmful.There most certainly are religious beliefs that are "closer to harmless" than others. I don't think you would claim that RAZD, for example, as a science-believing deist is harmful to remotely the same degree as some fundamentalist Christian who shoots a doctor for performing abortions, or a group of Muslim extremists who burn down a school because it teaches to girls. I certainly think that RAZD's beliefs are irrational, I can't see how they actually do any real harm to anyone at all (except himself and Straggler, as the two continue to wage verbal warfare and cause what I'm sure are multitudes of frustration headaches).A lack of rationality is not harmful in and of itself. It can simply lead to harm. The fact is that for most religious people, their irrational beliefs are simply tacked-on to and separate from their more rational daily outlook. A purely rational world is preferable to a partially irrational one because it eliminates that specific potential for harm, but I can believe that my imaginary friend Fred actually exists all I want without actually causing any harm.Religion is not the sole source of irrationality. In a world without religion, we would still have wars, still have poverty, still have bigotry. Racism, homophobia, and other bigotry cross all religious views. Humanity naturally gravitates toward tribalism - religion is one way in which we separate ourselves, but it's not the only way. Soccer hooligans don't need much more than differently colored uniforms to cause a violent riot. Many religious people are completely tolerant of others - Martin Luther King Jr was of course one of the largest civil rights figures in modern history, and he was a Reverend.The basic problems behind poverty, wars, disease and bigotry are given excuses by somereligions, but removing religion from the equation would not solve the problems. Multitudes of sociological studies have shown that man will behave inhumanly towards man without reason. People who are "different" from the majority will be singled out and persecuted, and those differences can include religion, but also include skin color, social status, sexual orientation or gender, or even the support of the wrong sports team."A person can be smart. People are scared, stupid animals and you know it."Again - religion is not the optimal solution. Ideally, all human beings would behave rationally at all times, including not only discarding religion, but also discarding irrational separations between races and genders and so on. But that doesn't mean that religion can be identified, in general, as "evil."Remember - many people choose a set of irrational beliefs because they agree with the positive ethical message they carry.This doesn't even touch on the fact that most "believers" don;t actually believe, but rather believe that they believe, while still anticipating events as if their belief were false. But that's a subject for another thread.

Not necessarily . . .I don't think your suggesting that EVERY non-critical-thinking person cannot cast off the harmful chains of religion, correct? Indeed, I was raised as a roman-catholic, and now, years later, I am almost a normal human being. Almost. But, since I partially agree with you, perhaps we need to look at this as a more non-binary possibility:With a POSSIBLE convertibility in mind, would you at least agree how much sooner critical thinking COULD start if it wasn't for the upbringing of religion's harmful impediments?At the very least, you would prefer creative-problem-solving/critical thinking skills taught in primary school over religious dogma, correct? Which teachings/training would you prefer take up (displace) the most room in the mind of an early learner?

I don't know. I think some individuals can be taught critical thinking but I'm not convinced that a net improvement can be made. I was brought up in a fundamentalist Christian environment and I was never taught critical thinking but I like to think I can do it in a pinch. I suspect that somewhere there's a mirror-image of me who was taught critical thinking but doesn't do it. I think it's a good idea to teach critical thinking and hope it takes. I also think it's a good idea to teach swimming - but I was taught to swim and I still can't swim an inch.

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

Hey hey Rhavin,Again, we are in the same ball park. Some nit-picks . . . Well, I think it USUALLY leads to harm. If knowledge is power, than, ignorance is weakness. I'll grant you your remote exceptions to the rule, but let us think in general terms . . . Again, I can agree with your remote and individual exceptions to the rule. But we really need to examine the majority of the cases, the "big picture". For example; Look at how many people voted for Bush Jr. TWICE! They "thought" he was truly looking out for their best interests. By their non-thinking actions, they reduced health care for their families, reduced employment opportunities, encouraged family members to die for oil, and caused their children to live in poisonous environments. 50 MILLION voters! (and they didn't just harm themselves as the world knows) No, but religion is the BIGGEST source. I believe "choose" is the wrong word. Rather, It is ingrained/taught early in the majority of nations, especially in a powerful nation as the USA where consequences to the world have been most severe.Rhavin, I think we are generally in agreement, just not to the same degree again. At the very least, check out my post to Ringo above and particularly the last paragraph:

Gee whiz, you wrote only "SOME"?I may be highly biased, but because I was an art director for a publisher that produced books for early education on critical thinking/creative problem solving, my experience would say MOST individuals.Again, in early life/education, let's fill up with thinking skills, less bon-bons.

As I mentioned, there are also some who can think critically, to a degree, without being taught. For the most part, education refines the way a person thinks. I don't know if it can cause an actual paradigm shift.

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

It depends entirely on how the irrationality expresses itself, and how much of a person's everyday life is guided by irrationality. The vast majority of religious people I've known were just as rational as the average Atheist outside of their specific religious beliefs, and they usually tend to adhere to more modern versions of morality (discarding such antiquated notions as stoning rebellious children or burning witches and homosexuals).I think you're getting caught in a positive-reinforcement trap - those religious people who do cause harm with their irrationality are the ones we tend to actually hear about and come into contact with. We forget that the vast majority by far of everyone else we come into contact with is also religious, and for them, a bit of irrationality does very little real harm.My imaginary friend example isn't such a remote one as you suggest. For many religious people, religion is something "tacked on" to reality, an additional consideration that doesn't really change what they would have done anyway if they weren't believers.You're right that for the most part we're on the same page, though - we would both prefer all people to be perfectly rational at all times, as that would seem to be the ideal solution with the best benefit/harm ratio. I don't think religion is a source at all. I think religion is a symptom.The human mind left to its own devices (read: not educated) is not very rational. That is the core problem, and one we aren't likely to solve in the near future. Currently, the best we can do is to spread education about the cognitive defects inherent in human thought, and the more rational methods of making decisions. That's unfortunately slow. Even with education, we still tend to "feel" that topics of great emotional impact are of greater importance even if more people are affected by a more boring issue; we tend to consider something to be more likely if we hear about it more often, regardless of actual statistics; etc. It feels strange to use the word "choose" to me as well, but the fact is, many people do choose their religion. I find it difficult now to comprehend the act of consciously deciding to find a set of beliefs credible, as opposed to being forced to acknowledge the probability that a given individual claim is true or false based on available evidence. I can;t "choose" to believe in Yahweh or Thor any more than I can "choose" to believe that the sky is actually green.Some people, however, do. And while your point about childhood indoctrination is certainly valid, if you talk to an adult who was indoctrinated as a child, very frequently you come down to such things as "I choose to believe this, because otherwise I'll go to Hell," or "I choose to believe this, because otherwise life isn't worth living," or "I choose to believe this because otherwise I'd lose all sense of morality and become a murderous psychopathic rapist." We are solidly in agreement that the most preferable world would not include religion, and would instead include a great deal more education in logic and critical thinking from an early age.But as it relates to the OP, I simply cannot classify every possibility that is less beneficial than the absolute optimal solution to be "evil." Religion is a symptom of the irrationality that naturally comes with the human mind unless education and effort are taken to curb our instincts.Again I would use my analogy of a loaded rifle on a table: you probably don't need it at all, you might shoot your neighbor with it(intentionally or otherwise), and while you could use it for the good purpose of hunting food for your family, it's generally better to just buy food from the grocery store.Religion isn't really necessary. It can and has been used to cause great harm, both intentionally and unintentionally. It can and has also been used to great benefit, spreading what were for a time progressive moral systems and codifying laws so that permanent societies could form, and still today drive a great deal of humanitarian aid...but it would be better if people just cared about humanitarianism without the additional baggage of religion.

until you people start factoring in the fact that once you remove religion, especially christianity, ytou remove all morals and the need to be good. let me cite some historical examples:1. the rape of nanking
2. the comfort women of korea
3. the japanese from let's say 1890s to 1945
4. dr. megeles and his fellow nazi scientists
5. the gestapo
6. the nazis
7. stalin and his purges
8. lenin and his ruthlessness
9. communist russia
10 mao
11 communist chinaand the list goes on...religion isn't he problem...well christianity isn't the problem... it is those men and women who decide not to follow Christ and seek fame, power, control et al, and become very corrupted (but this last part is not limited to world leaders, it takes place on the local level as well as evidenced in the prayer/murder thread)christianity is good for you if you obey but if you do not then christianity cannot help you, the choice is always up to you.

what a laugh. a bunch of biased, unobkective, hatefilled people thinking they can decide for billions of people.your analogy fails for it assumes that the other person at the table is like-minded with you. with no morality, there is nothing stopping him from picking up the gun when you are not looking and shooting you to get the food you bought at the grocery store.you people just do not think things through and are very blinded indeed. your blaming of religion for things religion did not do undermines any credibility you think you have.

If only you'd also accused us of poor spelling, underuse of capital letters, and having the username archaeologist, that would have been perfect. On the other hand, with no religion this would not be a problem, since religion is what the gun stands for in the analogy. ... says the guy who just completely missed the point.

Ignoring the fact that you missed the point of the analogy, there is the likelihood that anyone shooting someone for some groceries would very likely end up in jail, lose their friends, family, possessions, and possibly even get killed themselves, which are pretty good reasons why the vast majority of people don't do things like that, and indeed why the vast majority aren't even inclined to think of doing so.

Hey Rhavin,Thanks for the well-thought reply. Your posts are always a pleasure to read.However, just a short comment on this: The word "many" is sometimes not very useful. Would you agree MOST people have religion chosen for them. That is why in USA there are mostly "christians", India mostly hindus, and Iran has mostly muslims. Wouldn't it be more accurate to say only a small percentage actually CHOOSE their religions? Absolutely. Our only 'prayer' for a better world is early education. If a child can learn to read, a child CAN learn critical thinking skills. As a previous art director for a publishing house that specialized in creative problem solving materials, I can attest to this.