Is religion evil?

[Mikey]

My views on it is that it has cuased more chaos on the planet then most other things combined.

A common misstatement on the part of the irreligious. People who claim a religion as their credo may cause such chaos; not the religion itself.

[Graham Kennedy]

My views on it is that it has cuased more chaos on the planet then most other things combined.

A common misstatement on the part of the irreligious. People who claim a religion as their credo may cause such chaos; not the religion itself.

If the religion inspires the people to act as they do, surely the religion is to blame.

[Grundig]

If the religion inspires the people to act as they do, surely the religion is to blame.

I would say that the people who cause the kind of violence we're talking about are partly to blame, because they're generally freaking insane, or at least misguided due to some other outside force like government oppression or famine. Most religions, however, can't get away without taking some of the blame as well. Most religious people don't carry out acts of violence, after all.

Also, we should acknowledge in this discussion that we're speaking in enormous generalizations, and that the deeper we delve into this topic, the more complex it becomes.

For example, nobody's going to blame Jesus Christ for all the deaths Christianity has caused, right? He started the movement, but others turned it into the religion it is today, and still others have wielded it and reforged it as they see fit. So look at the Crusades: who has the blood on their hands? Those who led the Crusades? Those who did the killing? Those who wrote the Holy Bible? JC himself?

Edit: Another example: I blame Osama Bin Laden and his henchmen for what happened in September 2000, not Islam.

[Aaron]

A common misstatement on the part of the irreligious. People who claim a religion as their credo may cause such chaos; not the religion itself.

Seeing as the religion itself (by which I assume you mean the texts) has no power but what it's followers assign it then yes, your correct. But as far as I'm concerned that is simply splitting some very fine hairs.

Lets look at this as an example:

BBC

Pope rejects condoms for Africa
South African President Thabo Mbeki with Pope Benedict XVI in May
The Pope has already met South African President Thabo Mbeki
The spread of HIV and Aids in Africa should be tackled through fidelity and abstinence and not by condoms, Pope Benedict XVI has said.

Speaking to African bishops at the Vatican, the Pope described HIV/Aids in Africa as a "cruel epidemic".

But he told them: "The traditional teaching of the church has proven to be the only failsafe way to prevent the spread of HIV/Aids."

More than 60% of the world's 40m people with HIV live in sub-Saharan Africa.

In South Africa alone, 600-1,000 people are thought to die every day because of Aids.

Pope Benedict, who was elected to succeed John Paul II in April, has already signalled that he will maintain a strictly traditional line on issues including abortion and homosexuality.

Before being elected pope, Benedict served as head of the Vatican's doctrinal office.

These were his first public comments on the issue of Aids/HIV and contraception since taking office.


It is of great concern that the fabric of African life, its very source of hope and stability, is threatened by divorce, abortion, prostitution, human trafficking and a contraception mentality
Pope Benedict

He was addressing bishops from South Africa, Botswana, Swaziland, Namibia and Lesotho, who had travelled to the Vatican for a routine papal audience.

Some Catholic clergymen have argued that the use of condoms to stem the spread of the disease would be a "lesser of two evils".

The Pope warned that contraception was one of a host of trends contributing to a "breakdown in sexual morality", and church teachings should not be ignored.

"It is of great concern that the fabric of African life, its very source of hope and stability, is threatened by divorce, abortion, prostitution, human trafficking and a contraception mentality," he added.

The virus "seriously threatens the economic and social stability of the continent," the Pope said.

The UN estimates that without new initiatives and greater access to drugs, more than 80 million Africans may die from Aids by 2025 and HIV infections could reach 90 million, or 10% of the continent's population.

Now it's very hard to look at this article and not come to the conclusion that the Pope is condemning millions of people to death based on the teachings of Catholicism and it's even harder to argue that he isn't aware of what he is doing or that he is ignorant of them. This fellow has spent his entire life in the church, was responsible for making and evaluating doctrinal decisions, he knows the faith and he knows what he's doing.

The truly wonderful thing about religion (the Jewish spin offs anyway) is that you can find practically any justification for any action.

[Foxfyre]

The truly wonderful thing about religion (the Jewish spin offs anyway) is that you can find practically any justification for any action.

Agreed! One of the reasons I have turned away from it.

[Mikey]

It is true that religion inspires some very peculiar idiocy - but only in those predisposed toward idiocy. I'll give some examples of what I mean:

The Crusades - Catholicism was certainly the excuse; but the original aims were secular, being those of territoriality, and later included sheer bigotry, perhaps religious in nature but they wouldn't have changed a bit if replaced with skin-color or cultural bigotry.

The Inquisition - surely based on religious fundamentalism, in the teachings of the original Dominican order. However, I defy anyone to argue that Torquemada wouldn't have found an excuse to persecute minorities if Catholicism hadn't existed.

Stalin - conducted perhaps the greatest attempted genocide of his own countrymen the world has seen, and did so as the staunchest anti-religion secularist ever.

Pol Pot - shared a common cultural and religious upbringing with the people he slaughtered.

Etc., etc. I never argued that religion hasn't been used as a common excuse for all sorts of horrors; but to say religion is evil has a twofold, perhaps unintended, message: 1) that all people who subscribe to religion are evil, which is personally offensive and ties in to, 2) this is as much of a prejudicial blanket statement as saying "All Romanians are a bunch of dirty, thieving Gypsys."

[Sionnach Glic]

Oh, I'm sure a lot of the people who go out and murder in the name of religion would go out and murder just for the hell of it if religion hadn't been around. Such people are obivously unstable in the first place.
But religion certainly has an effect on it. By encouraging people to act in such ways and promising them eternal paradise, they're certainly increasing the likelyhood of people going out and commiting such acts. And then there's all the stuff that does not have any secular reason, and is based purely on religious reasons, such as Kendall's article on the Pope condemning millions to die of AIDS and HIV. Then there's stuff like the persecution of people of the same race, but of different religion, and the misscelanous bigotry that has its basis in religion.

As far as I'm concerned, if something encourages evil acts then that something is evil itself.

[Mikey]

Most of the "encouraging people to act in such ways and promising them eternal paradise" is done by individuals who pervert the true intention of the religion. Be that as it may, here's where I have issue with your viewpoint:

As far as I'm concerned, if something encourages evil acts then that something is evil itself.

OK, I see the logical deduction you make. By that reasoning, though, you must consider me evil - or, at the very least, a supporter of evil (which, by your logic, does in fact make me evil.) So what exactly have I done to earn the label "evil?"

[Graham Kennedy]

I would say that the people who cause the kind of violence we're talking about are partly to blame, because they're generally freaking insane, or at least misguided due to some other outside force like government oppression or famine. Most religions, however, can't get away without taking some of the blame as well. Most religious people don't carry out acts of violence, after all.

Also, we should acknowledge in this discussion that we're speaking in enormous generalizations, and that the deeper we delve into this topic, the more complex it becomes.

For example, nobody's going to blame Jesus Christ for all the deaths Christianity has caused, right? He started the movement, but others turned it into the religion it is today, and still others have wielded it and reforged it as they see fit. So look at the Crusades: who has the blood on their hands? Those who led the Crusades? Those who did the killing? Those who wrote the Holy Bible? JC himself?

Edit: Another example: I blame Osama Bin Laden and his henchmen for what happened in September 2000, not Islam.

I agree somewhat, but only somewhat. Clearly there are bad people who use religion as an excuse to do bad things, just as there are bad people who use all sorts of things as an excuse to do bad things. BUT, religion certainly can inspire evil directly. As Christopher Hitchens put it, "With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."

Put it this way; if religion is not responsible for evil, then it is also not responsible for good, or indeed for anything at all. So you have to ask what the point of having it at all is, if it accomplishes nothing?

However. There are indisputably those who do bad simply because of religion and religious thinking. And the scary thing about religion is that if you really are a true believer, if you really do think that god exists and says what his holy books say he says, then you SHOULD do evil things in his name. I said as much on the thread about the guy who kidnapped that girl recently.

If Bin Laden truly does believe that the Koran is the word of god, and truly does believe in his interpretation of what it says - and folks, the Koran says a LOT of unpleasant things about infidels - then he is absolutely right to do what he did. How could he not do it? The absolute ruler of the universe is telling him to do so right there in black and white!

And what gets me is that the majority who are good people... to my mind they seem to be so in spite of their religion, not because of it. I know several witches. I don't believe they are witches really, in that I don't believe they can fly on broomsticks or do spells anything, but they believe they are witches. The Bible says "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live". It's right there in black and white. Now nobody is ever going to convince me that the correct way to interpret "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" is to read it as "you should live in harmony with witches". It says to kill these people, let's be honest about that. So the ONLY reason why most christians are not out killing witches is that they have decided, for whatever reason, to ignore what god instructed them to do. They've most likely used their own moral sense, derived from their upbringing and society and what have you, to choose which parts of the bible should be followed and which should not.

But hey, if you're going to do that... then why use the bible for a source of morality at all? Why not just use your own moral sense instead?

[Mikey]

You're right - I'll never interpret "Thou shall not suffer a witch to live" as meaning "Live in harmony with witches." However, it's very apparent to me that this doesn't actually refer to practicing Wiccans. It's also very apparent to me that this was written during a time when human sacrifice, sexual slavery, and other practices which we consider abhorrent were commonplace.

I'll repeat my earlier question - if religion is inherently evil, then I must be as well. I don't think I've done anything too evil in my lifetime, so isn't condemning me as such based simply on my belief just as evil?

[Aaron]

You're right - I'll never interpret "Thou shall not suffer a witch to live" as meaning "Live in harmony with witches." However, it's very apparent to me that this doesn't actually refer to practicing Wiccans. It's also very apparent to me that this was written during a time when human sacrifice, sexual slavery, and other practices which we consider abhorrent were commonplace.

I'll repeat my earlier question - if religion is inherently evil, then I must be as well. I don't think I've done anything too evil in my lifetime, so isn't condemning me as such based simply on my belief just as evil?

Mikey, a religion can be evil but a follower does not have to be. This isn't an either/or, black/white thing here. If all you do is go to church on sunday, follow dietary restrictions and donate to the occasional charity then how are you evil? For that matter, what does it matter if someone you've never met on the internet thinks you are? You live in the most religious first world country, your not exactly in any danger of being lynched by militant atheists.

[Sionnach Glic]

Most of the "encouraging people to act in such ways and promising them eternal paradise" is done by individuals who pervert the true intention of the religion.

Hm? The Bible is filled with all sorts of "kill the infidels!" stuff. It's not too hard to find that sort of stuff, in both Old and New Testament.

OK, I see the logical deduction you make. By that reasoning, though, you must consider me evil - or, at the very least, a supporter of evil (which, by your logic, does in fact make me evil.) So what exactly have I done to earn the label "evil?"

How does it make you evil? Have you ever condoned or encouraged the persecution or death of someone? If not, then you're not evil.

There's a difference between orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Believing that all the stuff it says is true is no harm. Actualy acting on it can cause harm. If you've not harmed anyone because of your religion's teachings (I honestly haven't a clue about Jewish religious texts, so I'll admit now I've no idea what sort of stuff that says) then I don't consider you to have done anything wrong.

[Mikey]

Mikey, a religion can be evil but a follower does not have to be. This isn't an either/or, black/white thing here. If all you do is go to church on sunday, follow dietary restrictions and donate to the occasional charity then how are you evil? For that matter, what does it matter if someone you've never met on the internet thinks you are? You live in the most religious first world country, your not exactly in any danger of being lynched by militant atheists.

#1 - I never claimed, or even indicated, that I felt I was in danger of anything other than being denigrated.

#2 - It matters what people think to the extent of participating in a discussion.

#3 - I don't think I'm evil. I was responding to a point made in response to me, which point said that not only individuals can be evil, but entire religions as separate from their flocks.

Hm? The Bible is filled with all sorts of "kill the infidels!" stuff. It's not too hard to find that sort of stuff, in both Old and New Testament.

True. I said "intention," not "text." Fundamentalism is as abhorrent to me as it is to you.

How does it make you evil? Have you ever condoned or encouraged the persecution or death of someone? If not, then you're not evil.

Thanks. But I was pursuing your logical leap that religions are evil, not just individuals who claim a particular version of a faith. If I'm not, then by this reasoning I am at least a supporter of evil.

There's a difference between orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Believing that all the stuff it says is true is no harm. Actualy acting on it can cause harm. If you've not harmed anyone because of your religion's teachings (I honestly haven't a clue about Jewish religious texts, so I'll admit now I've no idea what sort of stuff that says) then I don't consider you to have done anything wrong.

Thanks again. But there is plenty of awful stuff in our Scripture (and plenty more worse stuff if you read Old Testament Apocrypha.) Because of that, the distinction I would make is between a living, evolving, flexible faith on one hand, and dogmatic fundamentalism on the other. Be that as it may, I would hazard a guess that most Jews/Muslims/Christians/whoever haven't harmed anyone beacuse of their faith. Do you still, then, describe religion as evil?

[Tsukiyumi]

I've said before; people need religion, because they need to have faith in something greater than themselves, and keep hoping that things will get better.

I just think all that effort and money would be better spent trying to actually make things better.

[Aaron]

#1 - I never claimed, or even indicated, that I felt I was in danger of anything other than being denigrated.

My apologies then, I just get that vibe every time we have this discussion.

#2 - It matters what people think to the extent of participating in a discussion.

Fair enough.

#3 - I don't think I'm evil. I was responding to a point made in response to me, which point said that not only individuals can be evil, but entire religions as separate from their flocks.

Well I think we've already established that the religion itself has no intrinsic morality or even value. It only gains what people assign it.

Thanks again. But there is plenty of awful stuff in our Scripture (and plenty more worse stuff if you read Old Testament Apocrypha.) Because of that, the distinction I would make is between a living, evolving, flexible faith on one hand, and dogmatic fundamentalism on the other. Be that as it may, I would hazard a guess that most Jews/Muslims/Christians/whoever haven't harmed anyone beacuse of their faith. Do you still, then, describe religion as evil?

This is an interesting question. Lets go with a guy who was raised by a hardliner Evangelical (just a random choice) family and thoroughly indoctrinated into the faith. He then goes and blows up an abortion clinic. At what point does he become at fault? Or his parents, his preacher, the guy who revised his faiths texts?