I would like to add that I do not believe the scripture confirms or denies my above assertions but in not taking a clear stance scriptures leave themselves open to interpretation which over time and with varying cultures can and will change. Thus a statement that at one time served to proliferate a belief in X will in several generations become a confirmation of Y. This flexibility while inherently needed for a religion to survive allows groups to find religious evidence and scriptural support for an idea not originally supported by the founder/s. Some examples of this are good as in the recent re-readings of the christian bible which support LGBTQ marriage; but others are inherently bad, like ISIS interpreting the Quran to support the rape and murder of innocent yazidi women and children. No one can predict the future or the course a religion will take and before I submit my loyalties to one of these ever changing factions I have t ask myself: "In 10 years will _______________ still align with my beliefs?" If i am unsure why should I subscribe to that belief?

Yes, blame religion and not shitty people. I'm sure religion caused Hitler and Stalin to commit far worse atrocities than anything you just listed. 13/7 logic

http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/abandon-thread-snail.gif

YOU KNOW WHAT?! Religion is responsible for such insanity as Christfags believing that beating someone half to death with a 2,000 year old book will heal them and that some cosmic fucking Jewish zombie can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a skinny rib woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree somewhere in a metaphorical paradise with animals chilling alongside each other. Muslims believe that if they blow themselves up they will get 72 virgins.

And how do you know they won't get 72 virgins? That's not exactly such a lofty promise, I'm sure if I ask 72 people on this site I could find 72 virgins.

That dis made me snarf, yo.

This flexibility while inherently needed for a religion to survive allows groups to find religious evidence and scriptural support for an idea not originally supported by the founder/s. Some examples of this are good as in the recent re-readings of the christian bible which support LGBTQ marriage; but others are inherently bad, like ISIS interpreting the Quran to support the rape and murder of innocent yazidi women and children.......!!!!!!!!!!!!!




____________
kaleem

Sweet as

"'Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." -- Steven Weinberg

That Muslim god is a crafty bugger. On Earth you live your 3 score and 10 and on average, all things being equal, have 1 virgin, working out at one virgin per human lifetime. Scale that up to the afterlife and yeah, 72 virgins sounds a lot, but you have an infinite amount of time to spread them out over. Suddenly the ratio of Virgins to human lifetimes ain't looking so peachy. Suddenly sticking some high explosives down your underpants and riding your mum's pushbike as fast as you can peddle towards an Israeli command post doesn't have the same appeal it used to have.

Nothing but a cheap salesman's trick.

I'm curious if the OP would say the same things about peaceful organized religions like the Amish or the Mennonites?

Or how would you respond to the data that suggest that, while it has its black marks, many organized religions have been a force for good in the world? Modern hospitals and the abolition of slavery are two of the most drastic and recent examples of the good that Christianity has wrought upon humanity.

Part of the problem is in the philosophically bankrupt statement posted by aklimkewicz from Weinberg. Without a religion we ultimately have no dignity, we have no "good" nor "bad." Without a religion good and bad are merely social constructs as they are the fruit of time and chance.
To be clearer, Weinberg is way off here philosophically. With or without religion we would NOT have good people nor evil people. You would just have people; good and bad no longer exist.

If by religion you mean organized groups, cultural practices, trying on your own power to do the right thing, etc., then religion isn't going to save anybody. A relationship with God, however, can transform our lives.

they're all wrong

I would like to see a side-by-side comparison of Planned Parenthood against the other organizations listed.

Organised religion, like all human social constructs, promotes a sense of belonging. It can (and has) achieved great good. It can (and has) achieved great evil. And, as it is made up individuals, the same is true at that level.

Being religious (of any bent) does not make you a good or bad person, or the organisation good or bad. It is the actions of the individuals, and through them, the organisation, that matter.

I believe them all to be wrong, but that doesn't matter.

I also disagree with bartdogg - good and bad would exist without religion - they are human definitions of behaviour, and the fundamental things we consider bad (murder, theft, lying and so on) make absolute sense to be proscribed for a species that has the intellect to understand beyond empathy and instinct about how cooperation benefits all

@"Part of the problem is in the philosophically bankrupt statement posted by aklimkewicz from Weinberg. Without a religion we ultimately have no dignity, we have no "good" nor "bad." Without a religion good and bad are merely social constructs as they are the fruit of time and chance.
To be clearer, Weinberg is way off here philosophically. With or without religion we would NOT have good people nor evil people. You would just have people; good and bad no longer exist."

Smells like Bullshit. And i'm calling it.

Religion doesn't even define good and evil; we've had countless arguement on this forum where religious people have concluded that there interpretation of their faith didn't include contraversial topic A, because A is evil - so we apply human morals to our religions to make them fit.

Religion is as much a social construct - though far from chance, religions have had time to evolve - the ones which are good at accumulating power have survived (like any other organisation). Survival of the fittest, mutation, adaption to different environments (apparently Catholic dogma has it that Beavers are fish - because they spend so much time in the water and Catholics needed to eat fish on a friday - so when Beaver was the only thing available they changed the rules...)

Ok, it is not the same as genetic evolution, it is memetic. But the same can be said for all social norms. And dignity? Seriously?

Just to clarify I acknowledge the good that religion has created but I also acknowledge that many of the good listed had less religious motive as more religious support that seems to me to be the difference. Many abolitionists forged a belief in the equality of men after witnessing some haneous act of violence against African slaves. Then seeing that a problem existed they moved to correct it, that movement needed some form of support and the best place for flexibly interpreted support comes from the bible and other scripture. I am not as well versed on the history of hospitals but I will make a prediction that these are also a result of this process: Person + Motivation ( often worldly motivation, but sometimes religious) + religious support = positive change.

Now on the other hand the evils that religion supports quite often did their motivation within the scripture as well as their support. That tends to be the difference, and while a small one it has major effects on the decisions of the believers.

To add even peaceful religions like Mennonites and the Amish have very cruel rules which if implemented on a larger scale would mimic those of Islam and other religions. One such belief is the various forms of punishment that are considered acceptable these are often used against children and women ( let me add on a less serious note "Amish mafia" which directly shows how a person could interpret Amish scripture for nefarious purposes)

Again I acknowledge the positive contributions of religion but I think that religion had far less to play in the motivations for those actions than it has in evil actions.

On to the morality/good and bad argument- I think religion was nessecary to teach humans morality but I think that to assume ALL morality is a virtue of religion is ignorant. I mean morality is like religion ever changing. 100 years ago being gay was completely immoral and today being gay in many peoples eyes is acceptable. 200 years ago women wearing skimpy clothes was immoral and today we promote sports illustrated, playboy, and kim kardashian.... So I mean morality isn't the most accurate measurement of a humans good and bad.

re: OP and Orathaic

If religion doesn't define good and evil, what does?

Given no creator God, we are simply the product of time+chance. The very notion of good and evil do not exist. Nor does dignity. Nor does even the value of life -- so saying our species has learned to adapt to what fits us best is cheating because there is no best.

The problem with having the opinion that "all religions are bad" is that your claim is a faith based claim. You are stating something is true, while all others are false. It is a religious claim.

This must drive some of you crazy -- to know that while you are hating on religion you are actually espousing your own. Only your own religion says that your religion is crap, along with all the others. What a despairing place to be!

Is Humanism a religion?

Sure! At least the way I understand one -- a set of principles around which one understands the world.

Well humanists don't believe in a higher power and still somehow come up with ways to differentiate good from evil in an attempt to understand humanity and what we can do to make our lives fuller and more prosperous.

Humanism is a philosophy.

How do you define "fuller" as a humanist? Or good and evil? Why is prosperity assumed to be a good thing?

@bartdogg- I did say ORGANIZED religion. My personal belief while religious is not organized, I do not have a book, or a messiah, or any other written and widely accepted practices and beliefs. The problem isn't that individuals have personal beliefs, those would exist regardless of the presence of organized religion. What I am arguing is that organized religion provides support and motivation to the evil people who otherwise would have simply had motivation.

If I wanted to I could start a cult that reads the bible to say that the mass killing of muslims is accepted and then proceed to kidnap and slaughter hundreds of muslims. I could do this and move forward with it with ease. citing X, Y, Z in the bible (interpreting any phrase as I see fit) and being that the bible is considered a document handed down from religious figures of the past, notably with influences from jesus and god, the people would then legitimize my claims using the now corrupted interpretation of the bible.

While that scenario could be mimicked without the bible it would be inherently difficult. Imagine trying to convince people to kill hundreds of others without the slightest reference to a major source of legitimacy.

as an example even Hitler himself made numerous religious references in his speeches. Stalin who was cited as committing atrocities without religion did in fact commit his actions with religious ideals; he slaughtered hundreds of religious figures because communism is partially supportive of a religion-free government. Stalin did have written agreed upon ideology as his backing it is called Marxism.

Again I want to clarify to the religious who see my OP as an attack; I DO see the benefits of religion historically but I personally believe that many of these benefits could have happened without religion, and that those that couldn't of likely wouldn't have been necessary as the issues they corrected were created by religion.

"If religion doesn't define good and evil, what does?"

People. We then project them unto religion.

"Given no creator God, we are simply the product of time+chance."

We are the product of a certain specific set of astronomical characteristics and evolutionary stability over time. It is not chance.

"The very notion of good and evil do not exist. Nor does dignity. Nor does even the value of life -- so saying our species has learned to adapt to what fits us best is cheating because there is no best."

These exist among no other known life forms. Intelligence, communication, the use of technology and tools, the manipulation of ecosystem and environment, and other human characteristics do, but philosophy does not. That isn't to say that having common understanding of good and evil is bad, but it is not necessary for the existence of our species. Our world is not anthropocentric like that.

"The problem with having the opinion that "all religions are bad" is that your claim is a faith based claim. You are stating something is true, while all others are false. It is a religious claim."

It is a philosophical claim and an argument. Do these definitions overlap with that of religion? At times, yes, but an apple and a brick overlap at times as well, and I bet one would hurt your teeth a lot more than the other because they are not the same thing.

re: bo_sox

I am not saying that our species relies on a notion of good and evil to exist -- I AM saying that our species lives as though good and evil DO exist. We simply cannot avoid it.

Also, a philosophical claim and a religious claim are the same thing. You're hiding a religion behind other words. That can be convenient at times socially I'm sure, but they're really the same thing. I mean, the very definition of philosophy is: "the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence." If that isn't a definition of religion than I don't know what is. Calling a philosophy an apple and a religion a brick is an analogy that is way off the mark.

re: Byron

"Again I want to clarify to the religious who see my OP as an attack; I DO see the benefits of religion historically but I personally believe that many of these benefits could have happened without religion, and that those that couldn't of likely wouldn't have been necessary as the issues they corrected were created by religion."

I see the post as no attack. Don't worry!

I've just been trying to point out that I disagree strongly with "many of the benefits could have happened without religion." These "benefits" are based on moral claims: slavery=bad, sexual hate crimes=bad, lack of health care=bad, kindness and gentleness=good. I don't believe we can hold a morality that says these things without some sort of god that instilled this morality into our being somehow.

When, and how, and through whom this god instilled this morality into our being is another question altogether.

It's quite common to be "religious" but not to be connected to God. Second Timothy Chapter 3 verses 1-5 read, You should know this, Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult times. 2 For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. 3 They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good. 4 They will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God. 5 They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. Stay away from people like that!"
New Living Translation (NLT)

The same is true for people who call themselves Christian but don't know God. In Matthew 7:21-23, Jesus himself says,

21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
New King James Version (NKJV)

Conclusion: Religion as a morality system or an organized group does not give people the power that a walk with God does, through accepting Jesus' payment for our sins. John 14:6 reads, John 14:6New Living Translation (NLT)

6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me."

"We simply cannot avoid it [good and evil]"

If by "we" you are referring to much of the Western world and what I assume you are most familiar with, then yes, you are correct, and we have made ourselves that way. However, if you look at something of another nature like Daoism, which can be applied as either a philosophy or a religion by the way, you might find that many believe good and evil to simply be part of life and that, no matter how one lives life, one will be both good and evil. This does not discount the idea of good and evil; rather, it simply accepts both as fact rather than forcing oneself to bind to the goal of always doing good and avoiding evil at all cost.

"Everything can be a 'that'; everything can be a 'this.' Therefore, 'that' comes from 'this' and 'this' comes from 'that' - which means 'that' and 'this' give birth to one another. When there is no more separation between 'that' and 'this', it is called being one with the Tao."

Chuang Tzu, a Daoist sage, said this in order to convey the idea that everything, particularly opposites, spring from a common well of being. This is the philosophy of yin and yang, and in Daoism, life is both yin and yang - good and bad (or evil). Rather than avoiding evil, yin and yang allows us to embrace both good and evil and determine the quality of our lives based on how we respond to such things instead of whether or not they simply exist in our spheres.

"Also, a philosophical claim and a religious claim are the same thing."

Hardly. As I said, and as you said, they are tightly related. A philosophical claim, however, is largely objective. It is reached through logical means, rationality, and through one's own education and discussion of the matter. Religion, on the other hand, is spiritual. It is inherently a guiding force in one's life, and within it are a number of philosophical claims, typically reached by the scholars and leaders of that respective religion, which serve as the underlying principles behind that guiding force. Maybe a more appropriate analogy would be a square and a rectangle. A square is a rectangle, but a rectangle is typically not a square; however, it can be. I'm sure you have heard that before.

re: bo_sox

Yeah, I like the square and rectangle analogy much better. Solong as the "religion" in the analogy is the rectangle (think square+, and that + being a spiritual element) because my religious belief, for one, is reached and upheld through "logical means, rationality, through my education and discussion of the matter."

And I'm not familiar enough with Daoism to speak directly to much… But I must say that the problem of evil presents a massive problem for them. Yin and Yang is a fine principle objectively, but when a mass of soldiers come in your town, rapes your women, kills your children, burns your buildings and carries you off into a faraway land to be their slaves I would have a hard time believing a Daoist COULD simply shrug and say, "This is neither good or evil, I must embrace it just as it is."

The same could be said in smaller terms. I feel like being a Daoist is probably fine until someone kidnaps your kid or breaks into your home. Then, the proof will be in the pudding whether or not you can embrace those things as neither good nor bad.

Of course the problem of evil is massive in Daoism. It is a religion, after all. I never said that it wasn't. I simply said that many scholars suggest that living within both good and evil is okay, whereas Christianity and other mainstream religions suggest that there is some sort of inherent wrong in simply encountering and committing evil. Like I said, in Daoism, it is how you handle the presence of evil that determines the quality of your life, a philosophy that mainstream Christianity and Western society seems to have taken as their own, which is why murder carries a much stiffer sentence than, say, shoplifting. You are getting into the topic of horrendous evils, which is where most people take this discussion, but seeing as I addressed that and you are simply ignoring it, I don't want to go there.

You flipped the analogy. I figured you would. Your religious belief may be upheld through logical means, rationality, your education, and discussion. However, in the great majority of cases, your religion was not chosen based on these things. Your religion was given to you, likely by your upbringing. On occasion, people elect to change their religion or encounter reason to change their entire beliefs system, but in general, this is not the case. Philosophies, on the other hand, are developed throughout your life. Like religion, some are handed to you by your upbringing, but you are not an unchanging person - you continue developing philosophies based on your life and what you feel is appropriate to meditate on.

My main point, though, is that religion does not exist without philosophy, just as a square does not exist without a rectangle. Philosophy, on the other hand, stands on its own. They may overlap, but it is always clear which piece is the original. There is no chicken or egg debate.

re: bo_sox

First, on the Daoism. Your last sentence speaks of the problem with evil that Daoism (and other eastern religions as well) have with evil when you said "You are getting into the topic of horrendous evils…" In the Daoism you have laid out, there is no distinction between "horrendous" and normal evils. It just is. Evil is evil is good is good. You can't say anything is more horrendous than any other.

And on the analogy… Wait, what?

A philosophy is developed throughout your life, but a religion is mainly handed down to you? How is that? How can that possibly be quantified? If you are talking about ONLY organized religion, than that may have an ounce of truth to it, but that hasn't been what I've been talking about the whole time.

This is bizarre. How do you think the vast majority of people on this earth develop their philosophies? Is it not just from the cultural context in which they live?

This distinction between philosophy and religion is weird. What do you gain by the wordplay? Why can't the two simply mean: The way in which we understand the nature of existence, being, and reality? Why must one be bigger than the other in your view?

As for Daoism, you are ignoring what I said and adding your own flavor to it. Of course there is a distinction between horrendous evils and "normal" evils. I made that obvious. Go read my post. The basic syllogism is that evil exists, we live in a world where evil exists, and therefore, we must learn to live among evil. The conclusion that Daoism draws, as I said before, is that it is how one handles evil that is committed unto him or done by him that determines the quality of one's life, not just the fact that evil is done, as is the case in Judaism (and Christianity by extension), which says that one can be absolved of one's sins through repenting and prayer.

As for the analogy, you once again ignored my point. I will simply copy and paste.

"My main point, though, is that religion does not exist without philosophy, just as a square does not exist without a rectangle. Philosophy, on the other hand, stands on its own. They may overlap, but it is always clear which piece is the original. There is no chicken or egg debate."

A religion, as I defined earlier, is "a guiding force in one's life, and within it are a number of philosophical claims, typically reached by the scholars and leaders of that respective religion, which serve as the underlying principles." Philosophy is contained within religion but can stand alone. Sound, logical philosophies can be upheld through evidence and rationality, whereas religion typically requires a certain degree of belief and spirituality - faith, as you might call it. This is not complex. It does not make one "bigger than the other" nor does it mean that the two cannot overlap. I don't know how you're drawing those conclusions.

Since you don't seem to understand what I'm saying we will end this here. Thank you.

My opinion is that organization amplifies the effectiveness of anything. An organized army is more effective than a disorganized one. An organized office is generally more efficient, etc.

With regard to organized religion, it is incumbent on the congregations to make sure the effect of their organization is a positive one. It is their behavior that will cause others to judge the religion (philosophy, political party, etc) either positively or negatively. A group that follows an organized religion is really not that much different than one who follows an opposing political party. You can fantasize that all people give up the capacity to think rationally when they follow a religion but that's hogwash. The mere existence of so many different sects of religions is evidence that people do think critically about the subject and every one of them was an example of someone refusing to blindly follow their leaders.

This: ' "If religion doesn't define good and evil, what does?"

People. We then project them unto religion.'

The next question might be 'but how' which, even if i couldn't answer, begs the question - how does God define good and evil?

It's just the Euthyphro dilemma. There is no right answer. The actual answer is that there are people that attributed certain qualities to God, and that's what God became.

Seriously, who give a flying fuck about what your PERSONAL view is on organized religion?

For all I know, you are a deranged asshole, who's opinoin is driven by a self-centered, sociopathic interpretationb.

CLEARLY, given the fact the murder and torture are prevalen t in the world, and individual interpretation of morality is subject to an understanding of the perverse "intellect" behind said interpratation.

That fact that you made this post....****MY***** fucking idea about organized religion....is indication enough to men that YOU are an self-centered asshole, and therefore, because you want to take a presumablt universal concept and digest it down to SELF means that your entire post is bullshit.

Fuck off.

Die.

Quickly.

@krellin- I simply stated it to see the discussion that would ensue. The discussion has been very interesting and free of serious personal attacks until now. It seriously brings into question your own maturity that a personal attack is your ONLY contribution to a thread as opposed to an actual belief in the topic of discussion. Simply I will ignore you from here forward, and continue to enjoy reading the lively and interesting discussion of those who are also enjoying the discussion. Remember you can always mute a thread Krellin.