Im currently doing a history class at school and were learing about ww2, hitler and all that and it got me to thinking on how evil he was. this lead me to thinking about other evil things that have happened over our history and then to religion.

Now what came to mind was that i have never heard of an event that has happened with religion which didnt end up to the murder or deaths or suffering of people.

I mean there is the fact that a religion can bring happiness to the ones who belive it already but im talking about the people who dont follow the same religion.

For example you have the crusades. First the priests say that its a sin/evil not join the crusaders and then they were sent went off to killed thousands.

So i ask the question. If you look at the human race as a whole, has religion helped it.

[This message has been edited by Fai1safe (edited 02-07-2005).]

obviously it's done a lot of both good and harm... don't be too quick to condemn all religions across the board, or you'll only be imitating their negative aspects, and become subject to dogma yourself.

Im not condemning any religion im just trying to look at how religion, as whole, has effect humans.

I person feel sorry for all who believe in any religion cause thers a huge chance that their gonna be wrong.

i think that the whole idea of "you could be wrong" is the basis of devotion to a certain idea or religion. i guess that by placing all your faith in whatever even though you could be wrong about it gives some people a sense of safety. lucky bastards.

quote:Originally posted by Fai1safe:

If you look at the human race as a whole, has religion helped it.



In some ways yes, in more ways no.

if the world had never developed any type of religion thered be little progress. wed probably still be something close to hairless monkeys(not saying some of us are much different then them) however, looking at it from a totally atheist stand point, religion has provided the tracks for rather large 'civilization'....but with the same stand point, had there been no religion, the same 'civilization' would have occured, just differently. so either way, religious or not, you have to respect religion for what it has created for us today.

Religions, all of them, give man something to live for.

Without that we'd be depressed, useless slobs.

don't forget too that all this speculation depends on each person's idea of what constitutes a religion... as a quick example, taoism..... religion, or philosophy?

and also, seeing as how religion is so inextricably linked to our historical identity, is it really possible to imagine or postulate what benefits we may have experienced without it?

and, btw, hitlerism was a very fucked up and unique example of a religion/idealogy. as for never having heard of a religious event that did not end in murder or death - the allied nations that opposed germany were culturally christian, though their governments may have been secular. they effectively stopped a genocide.

religion does not automatically equal narrow-mindedness, self-righteousness, intolerance, etc. those are traits of the human condition, which religion can equally exacerbate or remedy. hence, the historical need for its existence. only hard-felt experience, memory, and awareness institutionalized into culture can dissolve those root causes.

It's really hard, probably impossible to calulate whether the net of religion is positive or negative. The great Bertrand Russell said that it was slightly positive for all of history, however he went about figuring that one out I'll never know.