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Question 51

As an atheist, what good or bad do you think religion does to or for people?

• Good? It seems to help some people get guidance and direction in their life. In some cases philanthropy and charity are furthered.

  Bad? For some people, it shuts down their critical thinking processes, makes them judgmental, impedes the pursuit of knowledge, and reduces enjoyment of life for themselves and others.

  Maybe it's like a drug - can heighten or exaggerate tendencies in people. (Chris Hamilton #1186)

• For some, the enshrinement of moral codes in religion seems to be the only basis of prosocial behavior, although hypocrisy abounds. So, as a mechanism of reinforcing prosocial behavior in the emotionally immature, it has utility. Where it fails is by enshrining certain behavioral rules long after they have lost their utility, and by sanctioning persecution of those whose behavior is not, in fact, antisocial.

  This is not to say that the uppper reaches of religion are without merit. The deepest thinkers of religion converge on truly human values. It is the simpletons and charletons that do the most damage. (Jim Sarbeck)

• Religion: Good: By invoking a fear in a supernatural diety, it makes believers as moral as atheists.

  Bad: It is one of the most damnable mind control systems ever devised by man. (Clothaire #1392)

• Religion is like a "good-ol-boys" club. It's fine if you're a member. If you're not a member then according to the members, you're a piece of low-life shit with no rights. For that reason alone, religion should die a painful, albeit quick, death. (Bob Haynes #8)

• GOOD 1. Gives comfort to those unable to stand on their own two feet, and hope to those unable to face reality in its harsher moments. 2. Reins in the criminal rage of those too irresponsible to control themselves without the threat of eternal punishment.

  Huh...even the GOOD things about religion encourage people to have BAD att tributes...

  BAD 1. Discourages curiosity and education. 2. Encourages intolerance and judgemental behavior, even to the point of killing. 3. Discourages responsibility ("god's will", etc.) 4. Encourages militant missionary efforts. 5. Discourages the dissemination of truth wherever it contradicts with some near-and-dear mythology.

  Mickey adds:

  >Religion simply is not needed and >has been far outstripped by human knowledge.

  I only wish more people recognized the truth of her statement. Unfortunately, if love is blind, religion is blind, deaf, dumb, and mentally handicapped. (Magyckme #554)

• The good that religion has given to society can been seen in its earliest manifestations, millenia ago. When the ancient societies were forming, people looked to follow as a leader the person who understood the "mysteries" of the world. Sort of a shaman/sage. It was this forerunner of more modern religions that provided the glue to hold smaller societies together.

  Today, we see the bad side of religion. Its leaders still want to control everything and use their understanding of the "mysteries" of the world (ie, their personal knowledge of their deity) as a leverage point to get unquestioning loyalty from their followers. They're still just as ignorant of the reality around them as their forebears. (Darryl L. Pierce #1142)

• Hell, they have their good points. But their bad points far outweigh them. Used correctly, it could help a lot of people. I mean, just think what a million people all dedicated to ridding the world of huger could really do. Problem is, they demand a price for that service. Namely your money, your worship, and your obediences. Too bad. (Jake #678)

• I think the answer to this varies widely with the religion in question.

  For Christianity, the dominant religion of the western hemisphere, no good is done. Those doing good in the name of their religion would do the same good whether or not their religion existed. Bad people don't do good things because of religion.

  On the flip side, the religion offers an easy excuse for bad people to do bad things.

  Aside from its impotence in guiding the actions of people, it is also very psychologically harmful to those indoctrinated with its beliefs. Humans are presented as worthless pieces of garbage that need to constantly beg forgiveness for doing nothing wrong. Their thoughts are considered just as damaging as actions; and not just bad thoughts - thoughts which are a fundamental part of being human.

  And to this day, I still cannot fathom how any human female can be a part of Christianity. It can scarcely be more clearly a boy's club.

  Any supposed comfort people receive from believing in a supreme parental figure and an afterlife can be acquired from normal human fellowship. The fact that entire cultures which do not have theistic beliefs are not populated by neurotic depressed people is ample enough evidence for this.

  The short answer, apparently in agreement with your thoughts, is that Christianity provides nothing good which cannot be provided through normal, non-deceptive means; and that it offers many tools to justify what might be termed "evil" actions. (Mike Ruskai #1106)

• It's a memetic way of enforcing behaviour and explaining the unknown. As such it is a positive societal survival factor for primitive and uneducated people - up to a certain level.

  Howver beyond another level it is detrimental because it discourages investigation and understanding. Those societies for which the religion meme has died out, or has mutated to take modern understanding into account, are more likely to survive comeptitively.

  It's not the only survival factor though: having a bigger and better army is probably a stronger one.

  Unfortunately memes almost take on a life of their own, and those that are better at propagating overwhelm the others. If the meme mutates to proselytise etc it can spread that way, if it mutates to persuade its carriers to enforce it by force it will do so that way.

  It remains in people because education and investigation takes more effort, it provides comfort when reality is too harsh and above all it gets implanted so early in life that it becomes part of the carrier's basic axioms that most are unable to question and shapes their very way of thinking - we've all seen how they are unable to work backwards establishing premises beyond a certain level.

  Having said all that, it survives because it *does* provide advantages to the carrier: parasites and diseases that kill their host too quickly die out. Those that provide some benefit spread with their hosts. Religion once provided major benefits: societal survival rules were codified as coming from God(s) - those who didn't follow the rules posed a life or death threat to the society (eg with disease, degenerating into anarchy etc) and were eliminated according to its rules. At the same time it provided comfort for its believers as a way of encouraging them to kep the rules and propagate itself. (Christopher A. Lee #105)