Does religion do more harm or good?

Josef, you're getting close to saying Christianity is Catholic.

edited 9th Jan '11 5:35:14 PM by Ultrayellow

Only for my time period, and since a fair amount of modern Christianity is either a reaction to or a continuation OF Catholicism I thought it best to talk about the roots of the "problem" as it were. Its also the area of history I studied and I love talking about it.

All right, as long as you understand that in fact many priests are married.

Why is Orthodox and Oriental Churches (Maronites, Copts. etc) Hufflepuff House in all these debates?

Because the Orthodox Church was killed off in Russia/forced underground and because whilst it is socially conservative it is also not as well known as a lot of others offshoots of Christainity. In my case at least its because I have studied WESTERN christian tradition.

Ethnocentrists...

Pot/Kettle etc, get back on topic before the mods kick our butts.

edited 9th Jan '11 5:49:16 PM by TheyCallMeTomu

I studied it in the middle ages because (as I can't read greek) it was the only area open to me.

Has Shinto done more harm or more good over its existence?

@Tomu I don't know about Shinto to give a firm answer but I don't see it as harmful.

Well, what was the motivation for WW 2 where the Emperor had to eventually say "Naw, I'm not really a god." HMMMMMMMM...

Shinto as a whole? If you don't believe in it, harm. Subtract State Shinto? Good, even if you don't believe in it.

So the final answer to the question "Does religion do more harm or good?" tends to boil down to "Yes, but only because of State Religion, and once you factor out state religion, it's a net positive."

I can live with that.

I also can live with that.

...

I disagree but whatever... I guess I can be tolerant for now...

edited 9th Jan '11 6:16:15 PM by RawPower

Most of the problems I've seen with religion are holdovers of monarchy instead of inherent to the faith. It was the most convenient thing for leaders to use to whip people into gear to do what they wanted simply because it made the claim to be the authority above even state leaders. History has shown that in its absence, such leaders are in no way hampered in committing exactly the same things through other means.

That's fair. I'm no supporter of state religion myself, so I suppose this is a good place to leave it.

Two things:

- Crusades where not the eeevilest thing ever. They were defensive wars and they would have had to happen anyways. Europe had to defend itself or fall. Crusades are painted far darker than they were, especially by those who have irrational hate of the Church.

- The Church did not lead humanity into the dark ages. First of all, The "dark ages" affected mostly only Eurpore, not the whole humanity. Secondly, all of Europe was in the dumps after the fall of Rome. The Church perserved knowledge, it was not anti-science. In fact, most of the scintific discoveries of that era were made by monks.

Not to say that the Church didn't have it's periods of "WTF???", with the indulgences and all...

I would dare say the indulgences were actually a good thing.

rusades are painted far darker than they were, especially by those who have irrational hate of the Church.

According to historical records on both sides, THEY ATE EACH OTHER! Among many, many other atrocities. Of course, it's hard to come out of a war looking good when you have to fight people like Saladin The Awesome.

I believe religion makes us a little bit better and teach us how to avoid some common mistakes.

Explain to me how the sack of Byzantium was "defensive" or how the first crusade (which was requested by the orthodox emperor) was "defensive" considering the Christians in the Levant didn't suffer as much under their new conquerors as they did under the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Or how about the Baltic crusades? Or the Reconquista (which destroyed some of the most advanced states in the Medieval West) or better yet the Albejensian Crusade which annihilated one of the last survivng active Dualist groups in the west by (essentially) setting fire to Provence and on one famous occasion burning a town down filled with Catholics and Cathars with the saying "Burn it all down, God shall recognise his own". Hm? How could those possibly be seen in a bad light?

Deus Caritas Est  ^EN

Explain how God can be dead in a secular society that is still capable of loving. Personally, I wouldn't give a care what creed you are as long as you love. God is dead only in those who have abandoned love.

I believe in kindness and goodness more than love. Love is too easily perverted a concept to be worthy of the kind of respect that it gets. Personally I would prefer a kinder civilization than a more loving one.

Charity means love? Baby don't hurt me...

(New to the topic)

If you ask me, I'm inclined to believe the former. How many wars have been fought over religion during the course of human history? How many needlessly killed in the name of man's false assurances of saviors and justice?