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How true is it that religion has done more harm than good in the world ? I’m more curious than ever.

frazzled01 4 Dec 11
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7

Religion itself has never done any good
Most of the good that religion lays claim to being responsible for, was throughout the ages, the work of dedicated morally genuine people who happened to be religious. These men and women would have done so anyway without their faith, but are modest enough to allow their "god" to take the credit.
Unfortunately their personal god is all to often personified by smug amoral priests in extravagant robes willing to take payment for another's act of freely gifted charity.

Those events for which religions have definitely be responsible were were acts of monstrous cruelty
CRUSADES
INQUISITIONS
POGROMS
WITCH HUNTS
HERETIC BURNINGS
GENOCIDES
EXTIRPATIONS
CHILD EXPLOITATION
DEATH BED THIEVERY
TERRORISM
HOLOCAUSTS
FORCED CONVERSION
SEXUAL DISCRIMINATION
HOMOSEXUAL PERSECUTION
AND UNENDING WARS

Lets not forget Slavery

7

Not sure how to measure a quantity of truth but it's pretty obvious to any object observer that the claim that the harm is small ignores reality.

5

I do not know whether it has caused more harm or more good in the past, and I don't think that it would ever be possible to tell. What is certain is that its claims to be the originator of morality are certainly false. Since being a social animal we certainly had an instinctive morality in the beginning, and the earliest codified moralities, probably started with political institutions like clans, tribes and trade networks, since almost all known early religions are morally neutral, and politics began long before religions saw the profit to be gained in being players in the morality game. They were late on the scene.

The problem with religion however is that, there are, both, good and bad morals, and religion alone of all human intellectual institutions makes no distinction between them. It can support anything from, giving all your goods to the poor, to human torture and sacrifice in order to feed the blood lust of the gods. Without any demand for proof or justification. Unlike philosophy which at least demands logic, science which demands that as plus experimental proof as well, and democracy which at least asks for the weak justification of popular support.

And given that traditional theist religion, has now been totally eclipsed in the market place of ideas as a provider of good morality, by modern secular institutions, such as human rights, secular law, respect for democratic principles, secular education, moral philosophy, social sciences, and international law etc. etc. The only people who will have a real use for religion in the future, are those who wish to pedal bad morality, and need to find ways to justify that, by using institutions which can command unthinking respect without asking questions. So that to my mind at least the love affair between religion and evil, will only get ever deeper, closer and more totally complete as time goes on.

A good response.

I wrote the reply below to a similar remark. -- "No way to measure scientifically."

It is similar to your ----"I do not know whether it has caused more harm or more good in the past, and I don't think that it would ever be possible to tell."

My reply.

What???

The vast majority of our history is of a religious world, thanks to the inquisitions and jihads and the murdering of gays.

Religions were respected thanks to the Noble Lie of their worth.

How can the vast majority not be responsible for the vile history they created?

Regards
DL

5

Religion itself has never done anything to anybody 4 good or 4 bad. On the other hand It has been used by many to hurt many more. However, religious misuse good and bad pales in comparison to what people have done to each other with money or for money.

What about the thought that all of religion was created as a way to make money and redistribute it to the poor and infirm? Jesus was a response to the merchants who had infected The Temple, after all.

@rainmanjr then money drove that bus. humanity is what is guilty not religion or money either one. illness, disease, meteors and the like you can blame i suppose but religion and money are on people.

Never for bad? I disagree.

@barjoe ? for both "good" and "bad", its humans that are responsible. like money, religion, is an idea used for the intentions of people.

Churches are the original crypto-currency that exist for money for a supreme being that should not anything.

@Trueheartbc Are there any fiat currencies in this picture?

5

No way to measure scientifically. Opinions will vary according to personal preference. My personal view is that religion originally saved H.sapiens from extinction, but is now probably pushing us toward it if not reformed.

skado Level 9 Dec 11, 2021

By that idea religion may have been thought to succeed when the main out (from extinction) was migration into a new land which hadn't, yet, been despoiled by human consumption. Now we turn desperately to Mars, or mere orbit within a station, for that space. The success of "new frontiers" keeps us from looking at ourselves as the cure for extinction (if one exists at all)?

@skado How did religion save homo sapiens from extinction? Enlighten me.

Many religions consider the extinction of mankind a blessing.

@Trueheartbc
That’s news to me. Which religions?

@rainmanjr
I doubt religion was ever “thought to succeed” from an extinction perspective, by anyone other than a few recent anthropologists. Practitioners didn’t, and still don’t, think in those terms.

@barjoe
By serving as a cultural counterbalance to evolutionary mismatch. Many species, including some human cousins, have been pushed to extinction by smaller environmental changes than we have caused to ours, but we have adapted where they didn’t because of our capacity for cultural complexity. Biological adaptability would have been too slow, as it apparently was for the Neanderthals, Denisovans, and others.

looks like sticks and stones.....

@skado So Neanderthals are extinct because they didn't have a religion? (which I suspect they did) They roamed the earth longer than modern man has (or probably will)

@barjoe
I don’t think anybody knows why, for certain, but we do know they are extinct and we aren’t. It’s way too complex to hash out on a social media thread, but evolutionary mismatch is scientifically accepted as an extinction maker, and culture is scientifically understood as having more rapid adaptability than biology, so it is a very scientifically plausible hypothesis that religion served at one point to help humans adapt to agricultural life.

@skado There are theories that modern man caused the extinction of Neanderthal, among many other species. Neanderthal were on earth between 350K and 400K years. Modern man is here 200K years Do you think humans will be on this planet 100K years from now? If they are it won't be a fictional "god" that keeps them here.

@barjoe
The mention of Neanderthals was not central to my point. I mentioned it as an example. There are lots of other examples of species that have gone extinct because their environment changed faster than they could adapt biologically, and they didn’t have the cultural capacity to offset the change.

"No way to measure scientifically."

What???

The vast majority of our history is of a religious world, thanks to the inquisitions and jihads and the murdering of gays.

Religions were respected thanks to the Noble Lie of their worth.

How can the vast majority not be responsible for the vile history they created?

Regards
DL

@Greatest

100% of our history is of a human world. Do you think the removal of religion would automatically turn humans into peaceful, kind, caring animals? It was the belligerent human nature that religions were created to mollify. Remember “Thou shall not kill, steal, bear false witness, etc., etc.”?

The fact that religions are not 100% successful in that task only speaks to the persistence of our evolved nature.

Humans are 100% responsible for the vile history they created.

But this OP is not asking whether religion has done bad things. It’s asking whether it has done more bad than good. And to answer that scientifically one would have to quantify both the bad and the good, and then compare those numbers.

As I am sure you are aware, science doesn’t go by popular impressions. It goes by measurements. The bad stuff gets recorded in the history books, but the multitudes of examples of religion-inspired kindness and perseverance under hardship go unrecorded. So I say it is impossible to measure, and problematic to guess.

Regards
sK

@skado

" It’s asking whether it has done more bad than good."

Religions are tribes. We are all tribal by nature.

Tribes fight, be they religious tribes or some other form.

If not religious, our tribes would still fight, but in our long history, religions have been the major tribes, and can be clamed for the fighting, even if we would have fought if not religious.

Religious, en masse, is what we were, and that cannot be denied.

Regards
DL

@Greatest
Smelly, en masse, is what we were, and that cannot be denied.

@skado

A thinking mind. Be still my heart.

An unexpected xmas gift.

Just had a sip of brandy toasting you buddy.

Regards
DL

5

Watch some videos of Christopher Hitchens, or read "God is Not Great -How Religion Poisons Everything" by Hitchens.

4

I'd say it is very true.

If you just consider the insistence in believing myths, so people start from a position believing a lot that just isn't true. It puts people at an intellectual disadvantage.

Then there is all the hate, and the use of beliefs to discriminate, do general harm and kill those who believe differently, or have different cultures, or just don't fit into the narrow minded box of beliefs of a particular religion.

4

Ask the Jews.
Religion is superstition, so how useful is superstition?
If religion is needed to compel sharing, where does that leave true kindness?
Under religion, charity is poisoned with insincerity and reduced to being a cheap recruiting gimmick.
Religion is all about imposing absolutes where they turn into hate and exclusion.
Religion utterly destroys the intrinsic ethics people are born with, replacing them with idiotic myths.
Where is the true, honest, honorable good provided by religion?
What good provided is by religion that isn't poisoned by greed and ulterior motives?

Thank you for this detailed explanation, couldn’t have said it any better.

4

The worst harm, billions brainwashed.

I would not mind if the brainwashing were to an ideology that was less homophobic and misogynous.

I want to love my children the same whatever they are. LGBTQXFUKINGNORMAL

Those, our fellow humans, are children of the only Gods we can know; Ourselves.

Regards
DL

@Greatest you would not mind, good to know. I mind. Brainwashing is despicable, do not confuse it with education.

3

On a site like this, one sees most often criticisms of 'religions' rooted in how they've directily fueled and motivated many overt forms of terrible human destructiveness. My opinions don't exclude those kinds of connections but go what I believe to be more deeply and primarily as causes of harm. Whether the harm or good is 'true' depends on the scope of one's world..

Frame of reference has EVERYTHING to do with how things like religion, good and harm are defined. My frame predates current and even many ancient religious narratives and myths. Things exist for reasons and truth is best discerned by accurate (sometimes lucky) interpretations of motivations served by outcomes, expected and not.

Human imagination is a gift of powerful but often dubious value; depending on who is doing the conjuring. The world, in the broadest and longest sense is a frightening place for all species. Having reasoning and imagining ability ought to better serve us than it has and probably would have, had our 'kind' not been so ready to turn over the work required to reason and imagine to others only too anxious to assume those duties for us. Somewhere in the nascent fog of paleolithic existence we hungered for understanding when our fledgling ability to think and reason welcomed assistance. This was also a time of dawning for the world's oldest profession. No, its not the one you think.

My best guess is the earliest profession was also the earliest 'racket' as well; feeding, as all rackets do, on human insecurities, fears and ignorance. In later microcosm, that racket reappeared as the earliest organized crime racket. Protection is the, incidentally, elder twin of Salvation and both are functionally identical; just as politics and religion share common functional principles. The names differentiate and change depending upon theaters in which they are employed, but they are as united as right and left hands.

With a reaction to a new environment being, as it makes sense to be: 'What is this place? Whats it about? Why am I here? The most natural behavior is to set out answering those distinctly human concerns. When trauma touches us fear results and how much more ripe a condition could there be to welcome answers and protection from those fears? Cultures readily provided canon compatible functionaries to provide for those insecurities while also serving family/clan/tribal associations and traditions.

These were relatively benign aspects of ancient cultures into the Neolithic period wherein human societies, hand in hand with advancing agriculture and migrations necessitated by desertification began to become more male dominated and property oriented. Along with the expansion of both concepts of rightful male domination and property definitions concomitant changes also occurred in religions. Strong, angry, jealous, proprietary male godheads also proliferated and goddesses waned in status along with women and children. Women and progeny further degraded in status to that of property, like slaves and livestock.

This is where I see the dawning of religion as a destructive, cursing presence over human societies. It is rightfully observed that the family is the building block of societies. They are also the building blocks of character structure and function. The individual human character structure is but a building block of the family; albeit differentiated. One and all, individuals are the ELEMENTS of society and 'building block (compounds) families'.

We wonder how do millions of people for eons readily accept enslavement to some iconic, exalted leader who ultimately becomes a tyrant? It is the structure of that into which they were born; an omnipotent, unquestionable 'father' upon whom ALL depend for definition, protection and sustenance. We're hard-wired for it after 6,000 or more years of variations on the same male dominated principles.

Theology has never completely separated from secular authoritarian institutions even with the advent of self and relative self-government. The last, best attempt was made in the USA and with relative success. But to be charitable to our nation's founders; who can crawl out of a cesspool without a coating of residue? Theology, the oldest profession, has never ceased to hold out that post-life guarantee of Paradise and to a degree, morsels of present life salvation for any and all 'takers'. Read 'rice Christians'.

Newbies and serious competition for theologies were ideologues ala Marx et al, offering their own brands of promises in return for loyalty to the ideology 'godhead' promising more palpable forms of Paradise right here on terra firma but still, always, sometime in the future. Pie in the sky and on Earth are both forms of salvation to frightened mental captives. The price? Loyalty says it all. Merely surrender, abdicate your most precious human gifts of reasoning and imagination and the 'ism' will take care of the rest in either or both 'worlds'.

Denominations of people like currency, have ideological and theological value assignments, with 'their own' members being highest, god and destiny favored specimens with all others of lesser status. As lessers they're expendable, beginning with the least. It is the basis for dehumanization and license of our most murderous, distinctly male propensities.

Religion more harm than good? There's no contest but between gods and ideological competitors. Both are products of exclusively male dominated "civilization" for 6+ thousand years. Both merely serve up protective, infallible fathers to feed deeply ingrained expectations within flawed human character structures.

A world wherein women and children share parity of status and importance within their respective natural roles in human societies and in which property no longer includes humans in any status holds a promise of real protection and salvation. Would that any of our generations could survive to witness it.

Wow, very insightful and well said!

3

Both the most conservative and most liberal apologists take the position that religion was a crutch that the world no longer needs.

We are tribal by nature and that tribal-ness equals fellowship, that we all need.

The crutch is our selfish gene seeking fellowship via a religion/tribe.

It is a real need that atheist churches are being formed to assuage.

If you see the fellowship need, what would you replace religions with?

If you do not see the fellowship need, look again.

Regards
DL

3

Religion has caused more harm than anything else ever!

. . . I doubt religion causes
earthquakes
volcanoes
hurricanes/typhoons
pathogens/diseases
. . . 'natural disasters'

@FearlessFly You're point is well taken. Religious fanaticism has caused more man made suffering than anything else ever.

@barjoe . . . your opinion (and that of the other commenters on this 'post' ) is not accompanied with credible sources 😛

@FearlessFly This is not a term paper. Let religious apologists give CREDIBLE sources. It's not a "post"? What the fuck is wrong with opinions? SMGDMFH

@FearlessFly

Are natural disasters not caused by some God?

Yahweh, for instance and floods are attributed to God by the believers.

Regards
DL

@Greatest . . . are you trolling ?

. . . put your Critical Thinking cap back on !

. . . someone/anyone espousing notions that natural disasters are caused by 'gods' doesn't make those notions credible. 😛

@Greatest Your fictitious "god" didn't create anything. The fools who pray never get any relief ever, unless it's pure luck.

@FearlessFly

Read again buddy.

I said believers believe that.

Not me.

I am a naturalist Gnostic Christian and we hold no supernatural beliefs.

Regards
DL

@barjoe

I do not have a fictitious god, and my comment showed what believers believe, not what I believe.

Gnostic Christians hold no supernatural beliefs.

Regards
DL

@Greatest Xtian is a Xtian. I don't care what you choose to call yourself. Jesus is a fictional character as well. I don't go on Christian websites and troll them, don't troll atheists.

@barjoe

I do not share your deficiency.

Kiss my eh, what looks like your face.

Regards
DL

@Greatest Crybabies always cry. Make sure to get up early for church tomorrow.

Do you do harm reduction?

Does your ideology include a clause that says you should raise hell against evil religions?

Seems like a decent overall ideology.

Does your ideology include a clause that says you should raise hell against evil religions?

This, --- for evil to grow, all good people need do is nothing, --- is a part of my ideology/theology, given that I call myself a Gnostic Christian.

Does yours, and how do you exercise that degrading chore?

@Greatest What do you propose good people do?

@barjoe

Fight them verbally, till the evil bastards are no more.

Regards
DL

2

Stop it.

You sound stupid.

2

Any who have studied war will know that religions are the major cause of war.

Even as we speak, the religious use homophobia and misogyny to mentally war against better than half of the world population.

Nothing quite like religions that have you hate your own women and gay children.

Regards
DL

2

Religion does no more harm than the equations of quantum mechanics. People who claim to be religious do both good things and harmful things in the name of their religion. It is helpful to think analytically about such matters.

So homophobia and misogyny and all k8inds of lies do no more harm than scientific principles.

Nice analyzing and conclusion, for a dim mind.

Regards
DL

@Greatest Your failure to use your grey cell is not my problem, pismire.

@Triphid You might be amused by the words of wisdom coming a new kid on the block, to wit the @Greatest.

@Greatest I agree with you but don't be an asshole.

That is true in the same sense that the argument used by the gun lobby is true. That. "Guns never killed anybody, it is people who shoot people." But just as, the usual reply to that is to point out that. "If you want to kill a lot of people, then it is a lot easier with a machine gun than a club. Which is why most mass murders don't carry clubs." So it is also true that while religion never did any harm, it does put a powerful weapon in the hands of those who would do harm, giving them both the means to recruit otheres, and a way to justify the harm they wish to cause.

It is generally not too hard to justify good ideas to people, because they can usually see the benefits for themselves. But if you want to sell a really bad idea, which hurts and endangers people, or promotes pointless hate, for that you need a really good source of fake authority, like the word of a god to help you promote it.

@Fernapple That was the point that I was driving at. Ideas never killed anybody. It is people with certain ideas that kill people.

@anglophone Hmmm, about as enlightening as a dark night with no light to show the way.

@anglophone

Ditto, you piece of mental garbage.

Regards
DL

@Greatest So you want to play the Game of Insults? It's just too bad that you have already lost, sweetheart. 🙂

2

Religious leaders hungry for power do the harm religion just makes it easier

bobwjr Level 10 Dec 11, 2021
1

In the past I would spend hours to fill pages with a long list of independent examples of how religion has destroyed the lives of specific individuals. As for the world? religions based on faith (belief in things wished for without ( and in some cases defiance of evidence supported truth) has hobbled the minds of many faithful to be oblivious to the reality that our actions have consequences. The results of religion inspired faith over facts supported by evidence (scientific method) have provided and continue to provide significant damage to our world. For example, religious inspired "Jesus will keep our world good until he comes to save the faithful" climate change deniers in positions of authority who promote the unsupportable degradation of the chemical balance of our world by failing to recognize and subsequently support or fail to manage fossil fuels have and will continue to destroy the fragile ecosystem we have thrown out of balance. Years ago I taught my middle school science students research climate change. No longer. Too dire. Long ago I was stuck for about an hour next to a minister while waiting for a helicopter. He asked me why I didn't respect his authority. I explained to him his position as a promoter of faith "truth" devoid of fact or actual fact based truth damaged the way people understand the world and we can no longer afford to make decision based on fact free faith based "Truth" over real world demonstrable testable truth Before the helicopter arrived he recognized his position as a promoter of faith over facts was damaging our world. He was in tears. I told him about checking out the Clergy Project but months later, he was still promoting his faith.

If you are actually curios, check out potholer54 youtube channel and other feeds that end with .edu (domain name reserved for college and university). Science deniers (people of faith) are in the process of destroying our world.

On a simpler lever, this debate exemplifies evils conducted specifically by the Catholic church.

No argument.

What would we replace religions with?

Would it have to be imposed and have the best voted on ideology, --- or more likely most powerful and rich, --- do it's own form of inquisition and jihad?

1

I recommend that you not worry about it at all. It is Saturday night afterall....

1

In my opinion, it was more the people who did all the harm in its name by perverting whatever was written in the considered "Holy Books". In older times, where life was brutal, might have been needed to give a sense of guidance to people. Nowadays, it has lost its purpose as people have better sense of right and wrong. Nevertheless, the same way many religious people did very wrong in the name of it, also many did good. Those people who did wrong in itsname, and many still doing, give religion a bad name.

Most Holy book do not need to be perverted, they are perverted and evil filth.

It is hard to have a good name when your god is a genocidal prick who kills when he could just as easily cure.

Not to mention his homophobia and misogyny that his immoral right wing tribes embrace.

Regards
DL

0

Retiredstev

The religious have been the vast majority forever and to think they are not the greatest force of evil in the world is foolish.

It would be like saying the vast majority did not breath the most polluted air.

The religious can be said to have dominated most reals, --- except for the truth in most of us, that says that there is no supernatural god, --- but we will stay in that belief for our tribes and families.

Love for family and tribe first, Truth second.

Nice that the lie part from believers is dying.

0

It seems you are moreso referring to theocracy a form of government.

Religion ... pure and faultless is this: to help widows and orphans in need and avoiding worldly corruption. James 1:27

There are forms of theocracies that has perhaps done more harm than good. It also depends on what side you are on as to viewing if it was good or not. And the sixe of the theocracy and how much population it had an effect on.

Like the United States of America theocracy government of the Masonic lodge secret religion racist devil worshipper European invador governmental terrorist since their freedom from England July 4th, 1776 raping these lands from the original indigenous inhabitants calling them such as Mexicans, indian and native American to establish their mark of the beast-666 capitalism slavery in accordance with biblical text is often considered "good" by some "patriototic" people.

On the other hand some small theocracies by people like atheist and agnostic Jim Jones only really effected the 900+ people killed by drinking the agnostic atheist koolaid.

Word Level 8 Dec 11, 2021
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