Is belief in Relgion dangerous?

[smuglapse]

Suppose the parents are abusive, and the child comes to associate the abuse with religion. Said child then declares religion to be false because of the conflict between his/her parents actions and religions preaching about love.

Yes, that would be illogical.

Or alternately, a child is lovingly raised in a strictly atheistic household, but lives next door to a crazed "hellfire and brimstone" type who insists that all atheists will burn for eternity. Hearing someone claim that their loving parents will be harshly punished would doubtlessly cause the child to doubt the validity of the religious person's claims, and thereafter would probably be dubious towards any religion.

I think the person would be curious if they had never heard those things before.  I imagine the parents may have prepared their child for that situation.  If the child honestly never learned a single bit about religion and just ran away from anyone claiming they were religious because of the ravings of their neighbors, yes that would be illogical.

Neither of these are logical decisions, but emotional ones.

Agreed.  I'm not saying those situations can't be true, but I doubt the individuals would be articulate enough to proclaim to everyone that is why they hold the worldview that they do.

Suppose I deeply enjoy eating ice cream (okay, so maybe I really do). I've been eating it all my life and intend to keep eating ice cream. Then a religion comes along saying that eating ice cream is a mortal sin, and I will be punished for it. I'll be even less likely to accept things said by that religion than I normally would because I don't want it to be true.

Again, it's an emotional decision, not a logical one.

Well you are dreaming up some crazy examples.  I think most people would want an explanation as to why.  If they just automatically run away when they hear the phrase "ice cream is bad", then yes, that person is being irrational.

I've met many people of a wide variety of beliefs, including atheism & agnosticism, who held their beliefs simply because of that's what their peer group frequently held. Consider:
http://xkcd.com/185/

I know there are those who like to follow the popular crowd or feel part of a group, but just blindly repeating whatever their friends say is pretty incredible.  Maybe that's why I stay away from most people.     A mindless automaton is pretty creepy.  But then again, I wouldn't want to presume that's their only thoughts.

People have actually told you that there reason for not believing in a god is because Johnny So-and-so doesn't believe in a god?

[Boingo]

It's not only me, it's the whole scientific community. There is no actual evidence in favor of any religion, at least not how the word is generally understood. You can of course take some random incident and call it "evidence", but unless the scientific requirements for credible evidence are met, it's not evidence no matter how many times you say it. For example stories written in a book are not evidence of anything but a vivid imagination.

Evidence abounds.  With regard to the Christian religion(s), the gospels are widely held to be written from eyewitness testimony.

The position you seem to be holding is that these individuals knowingly wrote down a series of interwoven and intricate lies so that, long after the liars were dead, multitudes of people would believe the lies and continue to tell the lies to others.  Of course, they decided to lie and tell others these lies at risk to their own lives as many of them were persecuted and died instead of recanting these lies.

I must say this position of yours does not make much sense to me--why would they do this?  But more importantly, there's no evidence ("scientific" or otherwise) to support the notion that the gospel writers were a conniving bunch of pathological liars either.

[smuglapse]

Evidence abounds.  With regard to the Christian religion(s), the gospels are widely held to be written from eyewitness testimony.

The position you seem to be holding is that these individuals knowingly wrote down a series of interwoven and intricate lies so that, long after the liars were dead, multitudes of people would believe the lies and continue to tell the lies to others.  Of course, they decided to lie and tell others these lies at risk to their own lives as many of them were persecuted and died instead of recanting these lies.

I must say this position of yours does not make much sense to me--why would they do this?  But more importantly, there's no evidence ("scientific" or otherwise) to support the notion that the gospel writers were a conniving bunch of pathological liars either.

Homer wrote of the Trojan War and the influence the Pantheon of Gods had in it.  Several other Greek poets also mention the Gods acting in their daily life.  Based on this do you believe Zeus, Ares, Aphrodite, and Poseidon are watching over you?

Or were the Greeks a conniving bunch of pathological liars?

As far as people being persecuted and dieing for their beliefs--that happens all the time, it doesn't make their belief true.  Here is a Buddhist Monk setting himself on fire for his beliefs. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Qu%E1%BA%A3ng_%C4%90%E1%BB%A9c)

[ratcharmer]

Any example I could cite here will be a gross oversimplification of any real-world case. It simply isn't possible to include all of the different factors that could influence someone in their beliefs. I'm trying to point out that there are a number of factors that would influence a major decision about their beliefs.

As to the "ice cream" example, I believe I made a mistake in choosing ice cream as my example, as it seems to be drawing attention to the oddity of thinking of ice cream as a mortal sin instead of what I was trying to say.

Basically what I was getting at is that if I enjoy something that religion X says I shouldn't do, then I'm less likely to give religion X fair consideration, since I have a vested interest in religion X being false.

I chose ice cream in an attempt to make it clear I wasn't trying to say that a given action was wrong and focus on the reaction being told something is wrong provokes.

I have met several people who at least in part attributed their beliefs (atheist or otherwise) to peer pressure/upbringing. But I think most of the time people don't even realize how much their decision was influenced by others.

If I can use you as an example, smuglapse, I'd point out that prior to the discussion in the other thread, you were under the impression that pretty much all Christians believed that any non-Christian is going to hell. Like it or not, this viewpoint was based on who you interacted with, and it influenced the way you thought about religion. One cannot escape one's peers effecting your way of thinking, whether you realize it or not.

[smuglapse]

If I can use you as an example, smuglapse, I'd point out that prior to the discussion in the other thread, you were under the impression that pretty much all Christians believed that any non-Christian is going to hell. Like it or not, this viewpoint was based on who you interacted with, and it influenced the way you thought about religion. One cannot escape one's peers effecting your way of thinking, whether you realize it or not.

And there were a few responders who said that they were Christians and that is what they believed.

May I ask what is it that you believe?

[Boingo]

Evidence abounds.  With regard to the Christian religion(s), the gospels are widely held to be written from eyewitness testimony.

The position you seem to be holding is that these individuals knowingly wrote down a series of interwoven and intricate lies so that, long after the liars were dead, multitudes of people would believe the lies and continue to tell the lies to others.  Of course, they decided to lie and tell others these lies at risk to their own lives as many of them were persecuted and died instead of recanting these lies.

I must say this position of yours does not make much sense to me--why would they do this?  But more importantly, there's no evidence ("scientific" or otherwise) to support the notion that the gospel writers were a conniving bunch of pathological liars either.

Homer wrote of the Trojan War and the influence the Pantheon of Gods had in it.  Several other Greek poets also mention the Gods acting in their daily life.  Based on this do you believe Zeus, Ares, Aphrodite, and Poseidon are watching over you?

Or were the Greeks a conniving bunch of pathological liars?

Nobody reasonably asserts that Homer was an eyewitness to the Trojan War.  As best we can tell, if there was a Trojan War, Homer lived at least 300-400 years after it.  Moreover, the intent of Homer's tales were to entertain and instruct, as in a morality tale in an oral tradition, but he likely did not mean for it to be taken literally or as a historical fact.

This is in stark contrast to the gospels being written by the people who had actually met and observed the historical Jesus.  The intent here was not to merely entertain, as with Homer, but to spread the word of something they felt was life-changing and very important.

[ratcharmer]

May I ask what is it that you believe?

I believe that different religions are, for the most part, different interpretations (& occasionally misinterpretations) of an underlying universal truth. What is commonly cited here is a parable about the blind men and the elephant.

There are three blind men, who have never encountered, nor heard of an elephant before. One day they come across a man with a tame elephant, who invites them to investigate it.
The first man touches the elephant's trunk and says "ah, an elephant is like a snake"
The next man touches the elephant's leg and says "I would say it's closer to a tree"
The third man touches the elephant's ear and says "It's more like cloth, where are you getting tree from?"

Each man has accurately described part of the elephant. Similarly, I don't think any one human can understand God in His entirety, so we are each given parts of the truth.

If in my own postmortem adventure I discover that I have been absolutely correct on every detail about God, I will be genuinely shocked. I am a flawed human being, I make no pretense at being anything else.

I consider myself Christian because I genuinely believe that Jesus was God's son, and that he gave himself up in sacrifice to allow humans into heaven. I do not believe that people could reach heaven without God's help (hence, Jesus) but I also do not believe that someone would necessarily be condemned for having the wrong idea. I know where I am is a safe place, but I don't know that there are no other safe places out there.

At least to me what someone believes is not so important as why they believe it. If someone is honestly seeking the truth and comes to a different conclusion than I have then I generally don't think God would penalize that person, but again I must say that in order to confirm this I would need to either die, or receive a direct missive from God on the subject.

Matthew 7:7-8

Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.

Yes, there are many Christians who believe all non-Christians will be condemned. There are also a great many who don't believe this. Generally most people hear from the former group more often because people tend to be more evangelistic if they believe that there's more at stake in converting people.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I really didn't intend to start a lengthy discussion on how logical various positions are or are not. Maybe if we want to expand on this further we can go to a new thread? If everyones okay with discussing it here that's fine, I just feel like I'm pulling the thread off topic.

[falconbane]

It is neither dangerous nor helpful, as religion is merely a tool.  As with all tools, it's only as *insert adjective* as the person(s) using it.

But historically speaking, this tool have been use excessively to produce negative results.  I guess in modern time, it's still the same.

[iampostal]

about kids and church lets face it if we didnt allow kids to go to churnch until like other issues they reached an age where they could make important decisions of their own (16 say) rather than be drilled with scared tactucs from birth you would have empty churches in 20 years

[Kuu]

No, religion is not dangerous. Some crazy people who practice religion, however, are dangerous. Also, look at all the good religions do as well. They start charities to feed the poor, send missionaries to serve communities in foreign countries, etc.

The question should be: are people dangerous? The answer is yes. There are many non-religious people doing crazy things too.

[Daxx]

No, religion is not dangerous. Some crazy people who practice religion, however, are dangerous.

Also, look at all the good religions do as well. They start charities to feed the poor, send missionaries to serve communities in foreign countries, etc.

It's not consistent to claim that a person doing an evil act is just a crazy person, whilst simultaneously attributing good acts to religion and not just the acts of a good person.

[Kuu]

It's not consistent to claim that a person doing an evil act is just a crazy person, whilst simultaneously attributing good acts to religion and not just the acts of a good person.

Crazy wasn't meant to be taken literally. And anyone he kills without cause in the name of God is wrong.