Belief in Religion

[maverixk]

I know a thread similar to this(ok pretty much exactly like this) was quite fired up a while ago, but I wanted to see if anybody had thought of new arguments.

So, belief in religion. Is it dangerous? I personally think belief in religion(meaning following the instructions of a religion) is not dangerous in itself. It's when people decide to bend the instructions a little to suit their own needs that it becomes dangerous. As far as I know most religions don't say, "Go kill any man, woman or child who looks at you funny." Or anything like that. Although, I'm not a religion expert. Any thoughts?

Edit: I'm not including fanatical individuals who do not make up a majority of a religion's followers.

[jmdt]

Well I'm not a fan of religion as I see religion as man's addendum's to spiritual works, but I take my work for God very serious.  Thanks to my belief in God I am able to help drug addicts, alcoholics, prostitutes and others with life issues to kick their issues and work on become better people.  Just today I was counciling with a guy that is a former convicted fellon and struggling with drugs.  As is the case many times in the past, with a dose of accountibility and a dose of faith he will get past his problems and become a better man

To me the 2 core ideals of my 'religion' are 1.) worshiping my God and creator and 2.) working on becomming a better person.  We can debate #1 for days and come to no general conclusion as a community, so i won't bother.  For #2, we can generally all agree that working on becomming a better person is a fundamentally good idea.  Religion is a catalyst for life transfomations that is often not seen otherwise.

That's my 2 cents worth before bed.

[maverixk]

So you don't like the religions that we have but you like the ideas of some of them.
Many people use religion to do just what you described you doing.

[Nepycros]

It's a shame some people realize you don't need religion to learn how to be a good person. There are/should be other, less harmful ways to teach morals and using methods so that people would want to be good for the sake of being good, rather than being good for the sake of pleasing an invisible deity.

[Xoff]

Please define religion.

Because I really think we are all religious, and that communism, capitalism or atheism are all religions. So the point is not "Is religion good or bad ?",
but "What is really my religion (my system of belief) ?"

To partialy answer your question, I think that without god, it's very difficult to honestly define good/bad or morality, because it becomes very relative...

[maverixk]

It's a shame some people realize you don't need religion to learn how to be a good person. There are/should be other, less harmful ways to teach morals and using methods so that people would want to be good for the sake of being good, rather than being good for the sake of pleasing an invisible deity.

Well, I'm not saying that you need religion to learn how to be a good person. I hope you don't think that's what I'm saying. And yes. It is a shame.

Please define religion.

Because I really think we are all religious, and that communism, capitalism or atheism are all religions. So the point is not "Is religion good or bad ?",
but "What is really my religion (my system of belief) ?"

To partialy answer your question, I think that without god, it's very difficult to honestly define good/bad or morality, because it becomes very relative...

touche.
Although I don't think your replacement question accomplishes anything other than finding out who believes what. And even with god good/bad is relative. Because with god those who believe in him say everything he does is good(to generalize anyway) and everything against him is bad. without god it's up to the individual to determine good/bad for themselves.

[jmdt]

To partialy answer your question, I think that without god, it's very difficult to honestly define good/bad or morality, because it becomes very relative...

I agree here.  Whether people want to admit it or not, the current accepted western moral system is heavily rooted in the value system presented in the bible.  Things we consider good and bad were not always so and are different in many parts of the world.  We generally consider killing to be bad, but there are many societies throught out history and even some today that have much more lax views on killing.  If you study history back far enough, the moral attitudes of a civilation generally developed based on the ideals of the predominant religion in the region.

So yeah, even if a person is not themselves religious, there moral code is in some way guided by religious beliefs.

[Nepycros]

Hopefully we can move more into a natural moral system that works out of compassion for other humans, rather than fear of divine wrath.

[jmdt]

So you don't like the religions that we have but you like the ideas of some of them.
Many people use religion to do just what you described you doing.

To clarify.

I find issues with many of the organized religions.  Quite frankly some of their teching are either theologically broken, or they added in rules and regulations that are complete useless and often destructive.  I am however a minister in a 'nondenominational' church so don't take this as I'm opposed to 'religion' completely.  We try to stick close to the bible and cut away the extra fluff.

[maverixk]

So you don't like the religions that we have but you like the ideas of some of them.
Many people use religion to do just what you described you doing.

To clarify.

I find issues with many of the organized religions.  Quite frankly some of their teching are either theologically broken, or they added in rules and regulations that are complete useless and often destructive.  I am however a minister in a 'nondenominational' church so don't take this as I'm opposed to 'religion' completely.  We try to stick close to the bible and cut away the extra fluff.

Quite frankly, I also find issues with many organized religions. I agree with you there, and I am the son of a minister in a nondenominational church, so I know what you're talking about. However, can you say that religion is bad? Sure, organized religions have severely messed up the world, but is religion itself bad?

[jmdt]

So you don't like the religions that we have but you like the ideas of some of them.
Many people use religion to do just what you described you doing.

To clarify.

I find issues with many of the organized religions.  Quite frankly some of their teching are either theologically broken, or they added in rules and regulations that are complete useless and often destructive.  I am however a minister in a 'nondenominational' church so don't take this as I'm opposed to 'religion' completely.  We try to stick close to the bible and cut away the extra fluff.

Quite frankly, I also find issues with many organized religions. I agree with you there, and I am the son of a minister in a nondenominational church, so I know what you're talking about. However, can you say that religion is bad? Sure, organized religions have severely messed up the world, but is religion itself bad?

Stepping back for a moment, the core idea of most religions (Christianity, Islam, Buddism, Hinduism, etc), sans talk about dieties, is to work on becomming a better individual.  What 'better individual' means varies to some extent from group, but the ultimate goal is always to improve yourself.  In the case of Christianity, one strives to be a more loving and caring individual.  At the same time it teaches a degree of responsibilityover ones self and ones household.

Regardless of if a diety is involved or not (as I said that debate will be saved for another thread, another day), the basic principles of loving ones neighbor, being responsible, etc. show that religion has a great share of merit.  Regardless of time or society basic ideals like those will always be a positive for society.  So from this perspective religion is a positive influence on society and thus not wholely bad.

Taking it a step further, as much as we'd like to believe people are born inherently good and 'moral' such is not the case.  A child is neither moral or amoral, they have no sense of 'right and wrong'.  A child learns accepted behaviors and actions from there parents 1st and formost and then from their surroundings.  If a child is raised in a society were you kill people who wear red hats, they will follow the social norm and do the same.  To them the only moral action is kill the person and sparing them would be unthinkable.  Its an extreme example, but there is a large amount of historical presidence supporting this claim.  A famous example is kids in the Hitler youth turning in their own parents for acts against the third riech.  So yes, people are not inherently good and society needs some entity to hold up a higher moral standard for people to strive toward.  As has been the case for thousands of years, religion has stood to take the point as the standard of morals.

[maverixk]

Stepping back for a moment, the core idea of most religions (Christianity, Islam, Buddism, Hinduism, etc), sans talk about dieties, is to work on becomming a better individual.  What 'better individual' means varies to some extent from group, but the ultimate goal is always to improve yourself.  In the case of Christianity, one strives to be a more loving and caring individual.  At the same time it teaches a degree of responsibilityover ones self and ones household.

Regardless of if a diety is involved or not (as I said that debate will be saved for another thread, another day), the basic principles of loving ones neighbor, being responsible, etc. show that religion has a great share of merit.  Regardless of time or society basic ideals like those will always be a positive for society.  So from this perspective religion is a positive influence on society and thus not wholely bad.

Taking it a step further, as much as we'd like to believe people are born inherently good and 'moral' such is not the case.  A child is neither moral or amoral, they have no sense of 'right and wrong'.  A child learns accepted behaviors and actions from there parents 1st and formost and then from their surroundings.  If a child is raised in a society were you kill people who wear red hats, they will follow the social norm and do the same.  To them the only moral action is kill the person and sparing them would be unthinkable.  Its an extreme example, but there is a large amount of historical presidence supporting this claim.  A famous example is kids in the Hitler youth turning in their own parents for acts against the third riech.  So yes, people are not inherently good and society needs some entity to hold up a higher moral standard for people to strive toward.  As has been the case for thousands of years, religion has stood to take the point as the standard of morals.

Yay! Someone who thinks that religion is not inherently bad!