[The D.S.]

I'm going to agree with reason when he says, "The problem isn't that people choose to believe something, its the imposition of their beliefs on others who have made different choices."

This is mainly where I was heading to. I'm afraid I have a slightly biased opinion on religion, and although I really shouldn't when it comes to philosophizing and debating, I do.

In my experiance, religion has done both good and bad. It encourages fellowship and community, good deeds among people, and the ability to head forward to a better common goal. I also know that religion tears couples apart, it can argue and get in the way of science, it argues with truth and understanding.

Religion, in the past, truly WAS a harm to society in that Middle Age monks kept science, medical knowledge, and political philosophy away from the people and the church rose into power. THAT is a harm. I suppose the true focus should be on the modern age.

Today, religion looks down on stem cell research, calling it "playing with god" when it could indeed help millions of lives. They laugh at evolution, when it could very well lead to answers regarding how species survive above others and maybe, someday, provide essential knowledge needed for a future time. Religion calls upon Jesus and God to help in situations, when a person should rely on their OWN abilities and not a supreme being to aid their lives. People call upon God in prayer, in vain, when they should look in a mirror at the true person who could help them.

I state my case.

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by The D.S.

Religion, in the past, truly WAS a harm to society in that Middle Age monks kept science, medical knowledge, and political philosophy away from the people and the church rose into power. THAT is a harm. I suppose the true focus should be on the modern age.

The counter-interpretation is that the monks kept it from disappearing when no one *wanted* it!

I guess you could try to justify the argument that there was a conspiracy to keep people ignorant, but I don't think its supportable...

We are here and it is now. Further than that all human knowledge is moonshine,
Buffy

[The D.S.]

My statement can be interpreted in both such ways, indeed, you have found a fault.

I suppose my views are the ones out of line. Are we saying that religion, has both good and bad qualities? And that it's the people, not the religion itself that sometimes give it a bad name? Also, that in the end, religion and spiritual searching, are all in the eye of perspective, meaning, its up to interpretation when it comes down to the line?

I'm more than open to being wrong, it wouldnt be the first time, nor the last.

[InfiniteNow]

Originally Posted by The D.S.

I suppose my views are the ones out of line. Are we saying that religion, has both good and bad qualities?

Of course.

Originally Posted by The D.S.

And that it's the people, not the religion itself that sometimes give it a bad name?

Definitely.

Originally Posted by The D.S.

Also, that in the end, religion and spiritual searching, are all in the eye of perspective, meaning, its up to interpretation when it comes down to the line?

Indeed.


What I take issue with are the emergent properties of religious practice, and the psychosis that comes when large groups of people with individual interpretations of spirituality adjust their own interpretations to suit the community.

I don't hate the drug user, I hate the drug.

[Pyrotex]

Originally Posted by The D.S.

I'm ...Today, religion looks down on stem cell research, calling it "playing with god" when it could indeed help millions of lives. ...

So far, I have enjoyed your posts. Good job at a balanced presentation.

Notice how when religions accuse this group or that person of "playing god", they ignore all the logical fallacies they generate??

It's "playing god" every time you have surgery, every time you wash your hands and kill all the germs on them, every time you use disinfectant and bandaids, every time you take aspirin for pain. In the ages of the 1st Millenium and before, all infections, diseases, aches and pains were visited upon Man by god, either as a punishment, or a test.

What does it really mean to "play god"? Does it not mean to take away god's authority and decisions? To do the things that god had traditionally done? Did not god create the day and the night? What are WE doing making electricity and flourescent bulbs?

Religious pundits too often are guilty of "cherry-picking" just those specific circumstance to call "playing god" -- and they ignore the vast realms of other circumstances where we have long since taken or made godly powers for ourselves, and altered the paths of god-decreed happenstance that should have occured by his will.

To those pundits, I say, "deal with it".

[The D.S.]

Thank you, Pyro, and you have extreme Kudos to your previous statement concerning "playing God" and the logical mishaps that fall with it. I wonder what people would say if we called them out on such a statement? I can imagine a very quiet response...

[HydrogenBond]

Is religion harmful to society?. There is one social experiment that showed that the opposite was true. The case in point is the old Soviet Union which did away with religion. This experiment gave us a lot of data involving hundreds of millions of people and the affect of religious taboo. Utopia didn't form, rather it became a repressive society with high rates of alcoholism, little individual liberty, little economic prosperity, high rates of systematic murder and imprisonment, etc. There was a lot of good science.

The experiment changed. "Would religion help this society without religion". In the early 1980's religion was allowed to make a comeback. The autonomy of countries was restored, human rights improved, economic prosperity increased. There was still a lot of good science. So the answer based on that experiment was, lack of religion was harmful. While adding religion to a society without any religion, was very beneficial.

If we tried to analyze the data, without religion man tries to act like God but it too limited to do a good job. He gets paranoid and repressive. When a higher power is assumed in control there is more self restraint and a greater willingness to accept others since one is not the final judge. One can push the limit, but does so more in the constraints of an open society.

[Rade]

I do not think religion, in itself, is in any way harmful to society. Religious abstractions are the product of the primitive human mind--they represent a primitive form of philosophy held by humans early in human evolution as their attempt to offer a comprehensive view of reality. Thus to say that religion is harmful to human society is to say that philosophy (in primitive form) is harmful to society--which is false.

Now, what has become harmful to society, is that a small group of alpha humans many many years ago decided to twist (transform) the meaning of religion abstractions such that they were held to be the product, not of the human mind, but of Divine revelation--of the essence of the reality they attempted to comprehend. They did this because they understood that this was the only way to control the individual human mind, and thus behavior, of the primitive humans in their tribal groups. Today this small group of people go by the titles of minister, rabbis, priest, imam, mystic, witch doctor, etc.

Thus, I conclude that all religion derived from Divine revelation will always be harmful to society, while all religion derived from abstract reason within the human mind is worthy of the title "good".

[Rade]

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

Is religion harmful to society?... There is one social experiment that showed that the opposite was true. The case in point is the old Soviet Union which did away with religion....

Not at all--the Russian Orthodox church was never diminished in the hearts of the people in the former Soviet Union. Communism is nothing but a variation on the religious theme--it substitutes the Divine Revelation of God with the Divine Revelation of the "State"--the vast majority of the common folks in the former Soviet Union rejected this philosophy. It was not religion that transformed the Soviet Union, it was the economic folly of Communism.

[Buffy]

Of course, especially over the last decade or so in the US, the political parties sure have taken on the trappings of religions: their positions are absolutist and taken as faith, and those who speak against those truths are accused of apostasy ("lowering taxes," "universal health care," etc.)....

Have we replaced one demon with another?

I think one of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don't encourage you to be nasty. We encourage you to be neat, obedient, loyal and faithful and all those Boy Scout words, which would be great around a campfire but are lousy in politics,
Buffy