Religious faith is not good

Again, I don't mean to try to convince anyone that god is real. All I'm saying is that when looking at faith in religion I believe anyone will benefit the most from keeping an open mind.

A statement like "religious faith is bad" is sort of a blanket statement over most areas of religion and faith which seems an attempt to discount those things. I simply believe that there's far too much good knowledge and insight within religious teachings, and by that I mean the ideas which are prevalent in most all religions. People are always so caught up in the meaningless stipulations and rituals of any particular religion that they miss the big picture.

Religion causes a lot of problems in the world. This is a statement I agree with. Even blind faith of the kind that you're describing is a great detriment. People have a tendency to fuck everything they get their hands on up. That's why I believe that religions became, over time, nothing more than means of mass control. Still though, I would venture to say that true faith not in religion, but in the feeling of god as any one person understands it, does more good than bad.

The conclusion I've drawn from the religions I've been exposed to is that the really big underlying idea is just to be a good person, do good things, try to help. This is something that I simply cannot argue with, and it's what I live my life by. My religion and my religious faith are based on a logic/reasoning approach to spiritual experiences which I've had and the learning that I've done about them. After having an experience which fills me with faith in god past the point of controlling it consciously, I can only hope to explain why, but either way I now know that I must believe it to be true.

I can never hope to convey the actual feeling which brought me to believe the things I do, and thus to try and convince anyone of the conclusions which resulted is not feasible. I can only advise that people keep their minds open. A closed mind is the greatest detriment to the quest for understanding, and this is a problem because modern science tends to perpetuate a very closed minded view of reality.

 

The statistical analysis that meagain puts forward is flawed in it's conception.

We have of quote of billions adhering to religion or having religious faith but the proportion of those who have "faith that can not be substantiated", are relatively few. That is faith that cannot be substantiated represents radicalization, the lunatic fringe. In most statistical proofs the extremes are tossed out as not meaningful or representative.

Most of those with serious religious faith can point to improved relations as substantial support for their faith.

The population of the world at large has a certain proportion of those who maintain superstitions about the world regardless if they practice religion or not.

 

Yes, it does but it's not all religious faith does. It contributes to many things, some make sense to nonreligious (and even religious, since they have very diverse thoughts) folks and some things don't. I guess just like the world economy, right?

Although what you wrote here is what is really called delusional indeed and makes no sense when you try to project it on our reality because of the details of the situation I just wanna say: The art is to nuancate. How many people with religious faith are willing to kill themselves irl to promote their views, isn't there a separation of church and state (that religious people are not banned from political parties or such just because their ideas might be influenced by their religious faith would be something advisable to you?). And what exactly is the problem with other people having the urge to perform 'magical ceremonies' and sing with each other in church? Is that really bad by definition...

That's kind of a pity indeed. Religion is often as much cultural and historical tradition as it is just some weird alternative thought on reality (this is how most modern non-religious people seem to regard it).

Yes, that would be kind of weird. But not just because the reason you state but once again because of the details. For one, it happened over night. Pretty strange. Anyway, I am not so sure how many people belief in visiting aliens already It is much more logical in our reality that the amount of people you stated have religious faith since they learn it was part of our lifes for centuries. Before we all knew this stuff we think to know now (essentially we are still just told all this science stuff is true but how many really understand the details of it? We just accept because it seems plausible. We don't KNOW. Not to say I do not find it plausible but I'm just saying ) we just didn't have any proof. We believed what the peeps with some kind of authority told us. This is the situation we as humans all came from, hence a total different situation than above.

Well, I think being delusional is all in the details too of how people experience and carry out their faith. It is best to determine this on an individual basis and not generalize/stigmatize every person with religious faith.
Of course we regard that as normal since religion was the norm once. Hell, be glad you didn't live a century ago with your perception. It would be much more frustrating (although you could skip the focus on the muslims then since they weren't made such an issue in the western world at that time. You'd pull all your hair out just because of the reality of christian society ). What I'm saying is it was not a normal thing for nothing AND how we look at religions changes over time. It is always in development, for a large part because we use our knowledge and compared it with our dogma's. There are lots of things in religion that were holding us back but the faith on itself is not one of them in my opinion and we are on a progressive way to implement it better in our (religious and nonreligous) peoples life. Like I said, compare it to earlier times.

I'm not so sure what's the absolute leading cause but to me it seems to be opportunism much sooner than faith. Actually, I am pretty sure it is not faith. That people ought to act upon their religious beliefs in a negative way is, I think, all based on the actions of extremist minorities and a past where we didn't know better. The majority of people with religious faith is being stigmatized by you here.

 

1000% agree with you, given the chance how long would it be before a lot of these religions start burning people at the stake for witchcraft, i am totally and completely free of any religious indocrination.

 

I am free of religious indoctrination as well. Religious indoctrination is a different thing than religious faith, smoothie.
Anyway, how long would it take for christians in our society to want to burn so called witches when given the chance these days? You could wait pretty long for that I think.

 

I mean there is nothing substantial in your claim that no religious faith can be substantiated. It is based on insufficient sampling. What the minority believes is not the majority opinion, regardless of republican keystones.

Religious faith is a term that denotes abstract qualities of mind that range from a sense of well being to a militant rejection of any opposing viewpoint. In your analysis you are taking a miniscule slice of the spectrum of the qualities of religious faith and claiming this represents the entire spectrum.

So. Are those contributions made by groups of secular citizenry to the degree that they are by the religious? I would posit that many lack a community motive absent religion.

Nor is life, but devotion to our own good cause is endemic to ours.

And you have thus far argued without any substantial evidence.

In your appreciation of this subject you limit the definition of religious view to your own personal apprehension of what that view might be and beyond that it is not well defined for us. Certainly you are not the measure of what true belief is. I think the hypothesis you put forward here are heavy on criticism and light on appreciation of extant things,
even to the common state of our humanity.

The distortions you complain about are present in every human institution because institutions are instituted by human beings. The cause of mans inhumanity to man is not religion but mans overall level of self identification, ego. It is the ego that says, they are not me nor mine. that seeks allies to confront the interlopers, to raise armies and go to war.

 

:2thumbsup:

 

If you are defining religious faith as the belief in unsubstantiated postulates then you are limiting the definition to an extent that the majority of the faithful are not represented, and further, you would not be able to distinguish the faithful from the merely civil using that metric. Superstition can be found in every demographic.

The belief that thor was a hammer wielding god has net zero effect on humanity at large and is relevant only to the mind that focuses mental energies in such a way. There is no substantiation for that belief as you say and consequently there are no consequences that emerge from it at large, that is unless you count that such beliefs occupy space in the mind that could better be filled with something else.

I agree with your thesis if it is suggesting that belief is the root of much discord in this world but I do not agree that the malaise is in whole, or even significant part, the work of religion. Human beings are prone by the the abstract nature of mind, to imagine things.

The universal moral is the instinct for self preservation/extension. To take on community is to offer substantial protection as a part of self. We naturally seek to preserve and protect that which we consider, ours. It is why you see some people volunteering for military service in times of conflict.

I suggest your statistics in reserve are not needed or significant at any juncture.
You simply cannot officially weigh the qualities harm and good. You don't know how much harm weighs and you don't know how much good weighs.

I am not. I am saying that religion is not prohibitive of it.

I hope I have clarified that what you are talking about is not representative over all.

I didn't say anything about true belief, you did;

"If you truly believe the words of the Bible, or Koran, or whatever, would you not be willing to sacrifice yourself for god's greater glory?"

In both instances the recognition that superstition is a propensity of the abstract mind, not the effect of religion.

Agreed.

Sincerely, likewise.

 

Which certain teachings?

My point is those types of beliefs are innocuous on the face of it.

Nor does the fact that an organized religious community exists, prohibit doing good.

You need a scale to determine relative goodness as in, does more harm than good. The idea that you can distinguish in all cases good from bad is consistent with that of religious fundamentalists. There is only one reliable moral compass and that is the impulse to be. Good or helpful, is a matter of timing. What is good for one in one instance may not be good for another in the same or even another instance.

We agree on many things.

Very well an example;
The measure you give is the measure you receive.

 

I have to agree with meagain mostly.

Religion, specifically Abrahamic religion, causes many of the problems in the world today.
War, for example. The only reason we are at war right now is because of religion. Muslims, Christians and Jews all fighting eachother. Another problem with this is that it seems almost 'acceptable' for religion to be used against eachother here. The term 'muslim extremist' is interesting because without religion involved then what does that make the said person? What motive would he have?

The main problem I have with religion is its structure, its based on old books with little to no evidence of any truth. In Christianity especially there are rules set out, for example not committing afultery, but then the people are given free will meaning 'go ahead and do as you please but if you don't follow my rules then you are going to hell' - that makes no sense to me. God gives us free will but if we don't do as he wants we burn for eternity.

Also, the books are sexist. It was Eve that ate the forbidden fruit and so man kind were punished, but I feel that some religious people are still being sexist and punishing women for what Eve did. Religion to me, screams inequality.

 

Uhm, war is rarely solely a religious matter. This also counts for most current wars but if you think about some of the more famous 'religious wars' they are generally also for power, lands, influence and wealth. The crusades are a good example, religion was mainly used as an excuse which of course I agree is a pity and it is only admirable we (as societies) are in progress of losing such motives entirely. I don't think most western nations these days would start wars over social or religious matters (although the social excuse can replace the religious as it has in the not so distant past).
Without religion it would still make a muslim terrorist a terrorist, but why has he become a terrorist? That has more than just the religious origin cause if everything was peace and harmony there was no reason to get riled up about. Just because there is a radical muslim organization does not mean religious faith should be regarded as bad, evil or insane! You can apply the same logic on other problems where a small part of a group is making a bad example for the whole.

I can see people have problems with hell and the supposed reasons how we would all end up there but isn't that a very specific part of religious faith and should what we think about this aspect be projected on religious faith as a whole?

About the sexism, this is as much a cultural and social problem than just a problem of religious origin (this also counts for other things in the bibe I think, like some of the punishments or logic we see as remarkable but it was millenia ago and we humans have come from a long way with dreadful barbarism to here). I think today in our society much of the sexism isn't even religious anymore at all. Anyway, I think the inequality is unfortunate too but I think it screams/says more about the culture and social structure of the people and time it was written in than that it says anything about religious faith. I'm glad societies are progressing so the religious faith can be interpreted in more objective ways, apart from trivial social traditions from more than 2000 years ago, as has obviously has been succesfully done in western societies in the past few centuries. We have come from a long way and still have a long way to go. But as long as there are good people that happen to have religious faith I hope the ones without will not fall into another form of barbarism and stigmatize those who still have it.

 

As long as there continues to be "harmless" people of faith, the truly murderous religious extremists will always have a sea to hide in and recruit from.


"Because we are a people of faith, taught to concern ourselves with the sinfulness of our neighbors, we have grown tolerant of irrational uses of state power." -Sam Harris

 

Yes, we should definately get rid of the harmless people of faith. How dare they exist and provide a so called sea to hide extremists in right.

 

There is no such thing but,
I am created by god in the likeness and image of god.

 

thedope:

lol What for?