Prove it... My take on religion.

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I am fairly confident that we have hashed this out quite extensively previously. I am strongly anti-religious and like Bill Maher categorize being religious as some kind of mental illness. More sad than anything else.

 

There is no God, therefore it logically follows that all clergy are bad people who don't deserve to breathe the same air as the rest of us? Point B does not follow point A, my friend.

The issue of God's existence is independent of the inherent "goodness" of an individual priest/minister/pastor/Imam/Grand Poohbah/etc. If God exists, bad priests who abuse their power and take advantage of their flock will still be bad and untrustworthy people. If God does not exist, good priests who take their power seriously and work hard to care for the needs of their congregations are still good and trustworthy people.

Now, if you wanted to argue that God is a delusion, and therefore priests are delusional, point B would follow point A. The problem here is that God's non-existence would not negate the good work that people of faith do for the community at large and for each other. I abandoned religion long ago, and while I do not miss my faith, I do miss that community. The work they do is good work.

 

What about the bad stuff that's done in the name of religion?

I understand and appreciate that most people today (and perhaps in the past) are well-meaning, good-natured people who do good from religion. But undeniably, in the past AND (more rarely) the present, religion has led to plenty of conflicts, wars, and deaths. I'm not trying to undermine or negate the good stuff people have done - but I'm wondering if, on a balanced scale, the good outweighs the bad throughout history. In other words, has religion on a whole done more harm than good?

 

Churches make loads of money, add to that, most churches which offer counseling are done by unskilled individuals, and i have never seen a church which acts to serve the homeless.
George Carlins take on religion is pretty good.

 

I'll not deny any of this. Religion is a double edged sword. That said, really nasty stuff doesn't usually happen until religion gets mixed up in politics. When we keep religion and politics separate, though, religion becomes much more positive and beneficial to society.

I don't know. Personally, I think it'd be a wash.

While a lot of atrocities and injustices have been perpetrated in the name of religion, I'm not convinced that many of them weren't going to happen anyway. If our political leaders were cease (ab)using religion to accomplish their selfish and often destructive objectives, I'm convinced they'd just use something else with more or less equal facility. There's always an excuse to go to war.

 

I think there's really no point trying to prove/disprove religion as it's a very personal thing to each individual. If it gives them some sense of purpose and belonging, and makes them better people, so be it.

As for me, even if god himself came down to earth, performed a couple of miracles and told me the eleven secret herbs and spices used to make KFC, you still wouldn't be able to prove it was god and not some powerful imposter.

 

Thats the problem. There are always reasons to go to war, but religion is an exceptionally easy way to stir fanatic fervor allowing said wars to be supported by the populace.

 

Awesome! We've never covered this topic before! I'm sure we'll all come to a logical conclusion that we can all agree with on this one.

Personally I think there are just as many crappy loser religious people as there are crappy loser non-religious people. There are a few cool intelligent religious people and a few cool intelligent non-religious people.

 

What about all the bad stuff that's been done in the name of freedom, or fairness, or any political movement, or money? On the issue of abuse of power, religion isn't really at all peculiar.

I have yet to see a church that doesn't help their community somehow. Maybe not necessarily the homeless (though they're a common focus), but the community as a whole. Also, most counseling can be done simply by someone who's willing to listen. Both my father and my wife (psychologist and counselor respectively) agree with this.

Religion's hardly the only one, though. Just look at Hitler and the Nazis, or Stalin's communist Russia, or the French Revolution. Most people will jump at any chance to hate anyone else, no matter what the excuse.

 

the only thing local churches do here is threaten people who dont worship with slogans like "If you choose not to believe in god, you had better be right!" on boards outside.

You can get that in a pub, they still have to pay tax.

 

Why is everyone so keen to prove/disprove religion? Does it really matter? Are our lives so empty that we have to dismantle other peoples beliefs?

 

I think I am with Silvery on this.

Religion is one of many hobbies that people have. We don't go around trying to disprove stamp collecting or ironman triathlons. Some of my friends try to encourage me to do triathlons, but I don't come on here and complain about preachy triathletes. If some people want to go to church on Sunday morning and others want to go for a 200km cycle ride, it's awesome that they both have the freedom to do what they want.

 

Amen, brother! And sister, too!

 

I dont like organised religion, it is merely a tool of for control, I have no problem with individuals having spiritual beliefs.

to me a church is a business and should be treated as such, most ministers earn far more then I do in a year.

 

The thing about the 'leave me alone and I'll leave you alone' attitude advocated earlier in the thread is that it's entirely possible for something to be harmful but not harmful to me. As an example, the brand of Evangelism seen in the Left Behind series is deeply misogynistic and, as a practical matter, encourages (implicitly in the books, and I'd guess explicitly in the pews) battered women to remain with their abusers.

Which, so far as I'm concerned, gives me license to savage it whenever I'm so inclined.

Because so many people's beliefs are mutually exclusive.

Believing all priests to be equal is not a natural consequence of atheism.

 

First, let me apologize for the lack of replies...work and RL are a pain...

I'm not trying to disprove anyone's religion. I'm just stating that you can't prove that any of it is true.

That’s an excellent perspective that I had never thought of. Thanks.

This is what I'm talking about. It's true that there *is* archeological evidence out there. I'm not debating that portions of the Bible, namely points of interest, didn't actually exist.

What I *am* talking about consists of your second paragraph. Jesus might have very well lived and been a real person...however, you can't prove anything that he may or may not have done in life. Did he raise Lazarus from the dead, or did Lazarus just wake up from a coma? They didn't have any sort of "modern medicine" back then, and as actual accounts from witnesses gets spread around, the story changes. When that story was written down, was the scribe standing in the doorway watching, or did he write it down after some time had passed and his brother's friend know knows a guy, who's sister heard the story from some random guy she heard it from at the market told him the story?

 

Like I said before in the previous thread, nothing can be proven.

Also, belief comes with a certain amount of conscious doubt. What I mean with that is that people who chose to believe in something, know that whatever they believe in can also be false. What would now be the point in believing that the earth is round and that we do not fall of the edge? What would now be the point in believing that the sun will come up the next morning? The act of believing in those things only become important and meaningful when we know that those things could be otherwise. Now we take those things for granted, and even as facts, but not thousand years ago, then those things were doubted.

Also, I think that the act of believing requires a certain amount of sacrifice. I think that the thing of which a part is being sacrificed, is rationality. People shouldn't take that as an insult: I also sacrifice a part of my rationality because I have the nasty feeling that too much rationality leads to nihilism.

 

One thing my very religious mother told me was that the Holy Ghost speaks to her and she can feel its presence when she prays. Now, that touched on a hot topic for me. I rarely pray...even growing up as a good little Mormon boy I didn't do it very often. In fact, I only prayed when I was scared; usually during a major Asthma attack. I would pray, and I would feel a comforting feeling in my chest, my heart rate would slow down, I would stop shaking, and the attack would subside much faster. Now I can't prove that some spirit was in fact in my presence comforting me...it may have very well been merely an altered state of consciousness that allowed my mind to put my body back in balance...

However, over the years, I no longer feel those things. When I pray now, I feel nothing. I don't get the comfort I once felt...It's just as if I'm talking to myself and no one is there. If it was indeed a mind over matter issue, then my mind is so overwhelmed these days that I can't even connect with my body anymore...

 

how do you figure that one out?

 

That's as much of a generalization as saying the clergy are all pedophiles.

How poor are you? Looking it up, the average pay for most pastors in the US seems to be between $20K and $40K a year, depending on years of experience and city that you're living in. $20-40K for a man with a master's or doctorate degree, earned in a private university (MUCH more expensive than a State university) is peanuts! With my master's, I can earn $50-75K starting salary.

Left Behind did this, you say? Where? I have never heard any of my churchs claim that a woman should stay with an abusive husband, and I'm in that Evangelical group. In fact, the only churches I've even heard accused of saying this are the religiously conservative (as opposed to policial conservatice religious folk) like the Catholic Church.

And no one is saying it can be proven, so why are you asking us to? Basically, I'm asking: what's your point?

This is the problem with the "scientific" perspective on religion. Even if it is true, and there are witnessable events that evidence it, they're all due to sentient, willful beings. Repeatability and predictability pretty much go out the window at that point, especially if a thing is being done specifically for proof.