Does Religion Do More Harm Than Good?

[supercutebutt]

Wars, insurrections, child abuse, homophobia, misogyny, racism, hatred, delusions, lies, QAnon, Taliban, the list goes on and on. Is religion the ultimate problem? Is religion just another name for cult?
Vote below!

Yes

No

[Craftsman]

If one looks deep enough, religion can be found at the root of most evils in this world. Religion has been used as a tool to manipulate the masses while not always following what the religion teaches. You brought up some good points. Leaders of nearly all religions have abused the influence and position they hold. Religion has been the cause of many wars, and has always claimed God is on its side in the conflict. Religion seeks to control and manipulate the population. This is seen especially well in Christianity. Christian leaders call the congregation leaders "Pastor" and the congregation "The Flock". Pastor is an archaic word for Shepherd, and the flock is usually sheep. Get the shepherd mad enough, as in a ruler of a nation, he will whip up the sheep to go die for the cause he espouses. In truth, all sides lose in war, and in the intolerance of people, one group versus another. Divide and conquer seems to be the hallmark of many religions using the 'us versus them' approach to life. Religion has set people against one another all through history. It's been Jews against Babylon and Egypt, Christians against Moors (Islam), Catholics against Protestants, Jews and 'Heathens'. The list goes on.
Bottom line: Religion can be found at the root of many large evils. Perhaps the evil outweighs the good. Maybe not. It does depend on what kind of accounting one accepts, and from whom.

[FoghornLeghorn99]

Secularism is the new religion,

And all those flaws with religion you listed are more profound in secularism.

[FoghornLeghorn99]

Also, murders, rapists and pedophiles are not weekly attendees of church services.

[Oigit]

"Wars, insurrections, child abuse, homophobia, misogyny, racism, hatred, delusions, lies." Those have been issues before the majority of religions came to be. Humanity has always been its own worst enemy. In a lot of ways religion isn't the issue. It's always been that not a lot of people want to accept that. The first step to fixing a issue is being willing to fully accept the cause of it. So long as we are unable to accept the ugly truth, we will be locked in the same cycle we have been for far too long.

[DarkWinterNights]

This is a good explanation. Too many people focus on the symptoms and use false comparisons to reinforce their biases.

[purplepoppy]

As an atheist I'm tempted to say yes. But I believe people will always find a reason to do bad things, religion may be a useful excuse but without it those people would have just came up with another justification.
While it's easy to measure the bad it does, the good isn't always so clear. How many through history didn't rape and murder because of religion. How many fed or sick cared for by the church?
Religion may be heading for obscurity now, it's usefulness waining but in days gone by when life was short and hard it offered both social support and comfort.

[supercutebutt]

I think religion has done some good. I am just wondering if it has done more harm than good. There is no way to know I guess.

[FoghornLeghorn99]

Murders, rapists and pedophiles usually don't attend weekly church services.

[supercutebutt]

@FoghornLeghorn99 LOL. Have you ever opened a newspaper or watched the news? What a doofy comment. Right, no priest has ever molested a child. What cave are you living in?

[FoghornLeghorn99]

@superdumbass Hate to tell you. Well be fore the Catholic existed pedophilia was quite prevalent

Think ancient Greece and Rome.

While the priesthood had a number of pedophiles, the vast majority of victims suffer at the hands of family members or friends.

So you might want to learn a few things before you spout your stupidity.

[supercutebutt]

@FoghornLeghorn99 Congrats, dude. You have been blocked. Spread your angry ignorance someplace else, please. :)

[CountessSarah]

Yes. Religion /only/ does harm.
There's no benefit from religion that cannot be attained through secular means. But there's plenty of bad that religion can motivate.

[Medhat-M]

Without religion there will be anarchy... With religion, well.. We don't need to explain.. I would say.. You can't live with it... And you can't live at all without it... That's why it's still there until they find a good replacement to control the masses...

[yahyahyah]

We most definitely can live without it. The vast majority of young people in the UK, for example, don't believe in God.

[Medhat-M]

@yahyahyah I know you can and I can and many others.. But just think about the other billions of people... Not everyone has a good moral compass by their own...

[yahyahyah]

This is the thing, though - religion doesn't give a moral compass to those who don't have one. We can have morals without religion. Religion isn't a good provider of morals - just look at what most of the religious zealots of the world do with it.

[Medhat-M]

@yahyahyah it does give morals (conscience) to some people and it serves as a scarecrow for some.. You can't just say it does no good at all... That's as radical as religious fanatics... And I didn't say we can't have morals without religion... even my little nephew who's only 2 yo has morals.. In fact some bad traits and mindsets mainly originated from religion.. you refuse to understand me.. I'm not talking about you and me and similar people... I'm talking about people on a larger scale.. The billions of people around the world...

[yahyahyah]

@medhat-m Humans have a conscience without religion. Many atheists have good morals and a conscience. Religion is just one source of morals, and not a very good one - it has a lot of nasty baggage with it. Luckily, most educated people in the world are realising that religion isn't true, and science is the future.

[Lionman95]

I wouldn´t say that religions do more harm than good because all the bad things you named aren´t part of a religion but can also happen in an atheistic culture. Look in the Soviet culture of the last century or the modern Chinese culture both claim to be atheistic and you still have those phenomens there as well. Humanity has bad traits that are no invention of religion.

[Kdizzle85]

What makes religion be harmful is it’s practitioners. We have to be Bereans and examine Scripture for ourselves to see if what they’re saying is true. A lot of people have likely twisted it, starting at or before the Crusades. I mean, killing in the name of religion when there is a clear Commandment that says thou shalt not murder/kill. Good grief!

[loveslongnails]

Bad interpretations, or assumptions to actions, of religious doctrine and dogma are what does more harm than good. As far as I'm concerned, you can believe whatever the fuck you want, as long as:
a) You do no harm because of it, and
b) You don't try to force others to believe what you believe

[FoghornLeghorn99]

Plus, I doubt that murderers, rapists and pedophiles attend church services on a weekly basis.

[loveslongnails]

@FoghornLeghorn99 Probably not "en masse", but hey - you have pedophiles RUNNING the services sometimes !!

[Deathraider]

Religion in of itself is not necessarily directly responsible for causing the harm. But in general, if you have people not question ideas, it could really spiral out of control into something very bad. So yes, I would say there’s more harm than good. It’s easily used to justify abhorrent practices and people will buy into it.

[FoghornLeghorn99]

I doubt that murderers, rapists and pedophiles attend church on a weekly basis.

[Deathraider]

@FoghornLeghorn99 I’m pretty sure many still do. Are there not murderers, rapists, or pedophiles that go to church?

My point is simply about the fact that the ideas push forward, especially ones that are unquestionable doctrine, do affect people and their action. And I don’t think there is any significant useful social services that religion offers.

[BCRanger10]

Generally speaking, no. Some are objectively wrong and evil, others are just life philosophies, and others are good but are either misunderstood or have overzealous followers (which many organizations do, whether religious or not).

[FoghornLeghorn99]

That Catholic has done more for education over the last 1,000 years than any other entity.

Not only on the university level, but the Catholic church has had the best elementary and high schools around.

Unfortunately, recently Catholic schools have taken a crap along with other educational institutions due to political correctness.

[RACSKC0B]

The Catholic church has done so much for education, more then any other entity for the last 1000 years?
First, no. How about the Department of Education of just about any developed nation. They educate all the people in their whole country, regardless of they're religious background, most don't care about race, nationality, class, and some don't even care about gender, or get this, sexual orientation.
Crazy right?
Just trying to give everyone the same tools, making all things even, so it's all fair and what not.
Never happen, thanks to things like religion, virtually every religion has the same image for a "family". 1 man, 1 woman (most are kinda OK with a girl in place of a women, you know because worst case she's only 18 years away from being a women, right? She'll get there eventually, one day, you'll see.), and 2.5 kids.

And then there's the other thing,... you know, come on, we all know. Just moving them to another city doesn't make that go away. Especially when they just start doing the exact same thing in the new city.
Oh, oh no, that's not,... OMFG is that what you're counting as them doing for education?
The irony of that is the catholic church says homosexuality is wrong, and immoral. But if you have gay sex with an underaged boy, and you're "a man of the cloth", the church will help hide not just the immoral wrong you've done, but you as well.
Yeah, you're right.

[acooke-13]

Yes, a world without religion would be so much peaceful. Just look at what's going on in the world, a lot of wars are to do with religion.

[GoodGuyBreakingBad]

I believe Religion can be good and bad but it all depends on the people themselves I have been to Churches where the people were really nice and another one the people was somewhat greedy so it all depends

[Pj1981]

I said no because people need something to believe in and religion has probably saved more lives than it has cost but I'm not naive to the fact more wars have been fought over religion than anything else.

[krin_m]

I believe so! Obviously there are a lot of good aspects to religion but they get overshadowed by power hungry leaders of organized relision (no matter what religion it is).

[John_Doesnt]

Is the Taliban an atheist religion? No, it's "religion of peace".

[supercutebutt]

LOL. Yeah. Taliban's definition of peace is different than the one I am familiar with.

[John_Doesnt]

Taliban is a Muslim religion and they represent everything that Muslims want.

[supercutebutt]

So basically raping and killing.

[John_Doesnt]

Yup, exactly what Islam stands for. Remember 9/11.

[mazharhussainkhan]

No, Islam doesn't teach violence. But the problem is: any religion can be waponized if religious leaders are bad people.

[John_Doesnt]

@mazharhussainkhan Islam teaches lots of violence and lots of sexism.

[DarkWinterNights]

If you think it’s more harmful than good you haven’t seen the complete and total devastation that hopelessness brings.

[yahyahyah]

Not having religion doesn't mean people feel hopeless. Most atheists feel content and confident.

[Anonymous]

https://www.youtube.com/embed/V7-lFfEIS9U

Why not listen to an expert on the subject?

[msc545]

Religion can be very important for the mental health of some people.

[supercutebutt]

But is that enough to counteract all the negatives?

[msc545]

Maybe - I think that varies from case to case.

[DarkWinterNights]

@supercutebutt Just because religion is abused doesn’t mean it needs to be removed. Nearly every government in the world is corrupt, broken and inept, it doesn’t mean we get rid of government.

[supercutebutt]

@DarkWinterNights Where did I say it needs to be removed?

[aB7375]

People can use religion for bad, but mostly it adds a higher purpose to people's life, and hopefully makes it that people don't just live for themselves.

[PrinceNeo]

Depends on the lessons you take from the stories if you're inspired by evil then you're evil if you're inspired by good then you're good

[Hispanic-Cool-Guy]

If it isn't the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ then it's bad religion and it does a lot of harm.

[supercutebutt]

Sounds biased.

[Hispanic-Cool-Guy]

Too bad. The narrow way leads to life. The broad way to hell.

[Kelly6]

No it does not.
humans do more harm.
if there is no religion, humans will use any other excuse

[supercutebutt]

But does religion stop people from using logic?

[Kelly6]

No
It’s does not.

[michol123]

I don’t think religions cause the evil but their an excuse for it.