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Poll: Is Religion a Good or Bad Thing?
View Poll Results: Good or Bad?
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Good
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33 |
28.95% |
Bad
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59 |
51.75% |
I'm Indifferent
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22 |
19.30% |
Member Since: 9/7/2011
Posts: 8,226
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Quote:
Originally posted by fabbriche
That's a fallacious assumption. Religious wars only account for 7% according to the history of warfare while 93% of wars in the world have no religious entanglement.
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I've always wondered how and where those who claim religion causes most wars get their ridiculously high figures. They come up with numbers from 70% to 99% lmao. So far every war I've read about has started from economical disputes. Not even the Crusades were mostly about religion lol.
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Member Since: 8/1/2012
Posts: 7,895
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I don't think you can label it as either good or bad. It's simply too vast a concept with too much to consider to be that black and white.
There's unlikely to ever have been a time where humans haven't invented a faith system to explain their surroundings and make sense of life. Most will have introduced an order to things - primarily consequence of good and bad behaviour - which aided the human race to become progressively civilised. As time progressed, we developed a widely agreed upon set of morals, that are relatively consistent through different religions, that have helped form society. On that side of things - religion has been a good thing.
On the personal side of things, religion is a good thing because it provides comfort to people. The reason we likely conceptualised deities and beyond is because we needed order to things - reasons for unfortunate situations and hope that good fortune would bless us if we did x, y and z. If someone wants there to be a heaven to cushion the blow of losing loved ones or dying themselves - that's a good thing. It helps them cope. The reason so many poverty stricken nations are so religious is because their lives often suck and they need hope that their current mortal life is only the beginning and their god loves them etc. (although this leads to the bad things, more on this below).
HOWEVER.
On the flip side, religion is the personification of human ignorance, arrogance and manipulation. Deities were born out of naivety (sun brings life, no sun is cold and no crops, therefore sun is powerful, we must pray and make offerings to it etc.) and continue to inspire ignorance as people don't think critically and just lazily regurgitate outdated doctrine. It encourages further ignorance because institutionalised religions thrive on blind following. Humans essentially perpetuate religion today because we're so arrogant to our importance that there MUST be an order to things - we MUST be the centre of the universe, we MUST be rewarded and punished, we MUST have been created by some other worldly deity etc. As for manipulation - institutions have moulded societies at their will for millennia. They've held us back, they've introduced and upheld prejudice, they've massacred, they've abused, they've condemned, they've brainwashed, they've inspired wars, they've interfered in politics etc. The holy texts themselves created and edited by men to best serve themselves, rather than any god they detail.
You take the good with the bad.
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Member Since: 4/6/2011
Posts: 31,849
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my religion has helped me get through some of the hardest times in my life. I say good.
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ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 8/19/2013
Posts: 56,234
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Terrible, it is literally the cause of the majority of the problems in the world. Even when it's not, you see people talking about god helping them through stuff or needing god or god being there for them or like it's god's will that they succeed or not or whatever, blah blah blah. Religious people are the pits, tbh. Take responsibility for yourself and don't be such a dumbass. There's no such thing as a higher power. Praying to a god for superficial things that only benefit yourself is so repugnant.
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Member Since: 8/22/2011
Posts: 5,963
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Quote:
Originally posted by iStanGaga
I've always wondered how and where those who claim religion causes most wars get their ridiculously high figures. They come up with numbers from 70% to 99% lmao. So far every war I've read about has started from economical disputes. Not even the Crusades were mostly about religion lol.
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Honestly this is true. It's a tired, completely uninformed argument.
"Just say what everybody else is saying, must be true I guess, hah?"
BUT let's not pretend the crusades had ever led the armies all the way to Palaestina had they not been told to go there in the name of their faith. Conflicts would have been much more local. That's a given too. (And perhaps we would have a lot less conflict between Christianity and Islam today too.)
PS.:
This just came to me: If this graph doesn't factor in ONLY wars led by Christian countries among themselves and against Islamic countries, but all wars in recorded history, then it's highly distorted though.
Don't know the details on this, that would be interesting.
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Member Since: 9/7/2011
Posts: 8,226
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Quote:
Originally posted by Thaye
Honestly this is true. It's a tired, completely uninformed argument.
"Just say what everybody else is saying, must be true I guess, hah?"
BUT let's not pretend the crusades had ever led the armies all the way to Palaestina had they not been told to go there in the name of their faith. Conflicts would have been much more local. That's a given too. (And perhaps we would have a lot less conflict between Christianity and Islam today too.)
PS.:
This just came to me: If this graph doesn't factor in ONLY wars led by Christian countries among themselves and against countries of a different religion, but all wars in recorded history, then it's highly distorted though.
Don't know the details on this, that would be interesting.
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Yeah, it's only 7% total. I think this people who claim ridiculous numbers like 80% and blah blah blah, don't even bother to research. They hear, read, or see some bigot religious person, they saw what happened on 9/11, they have heard of the Crusades & then completely extrapolate to say DUHHHH... religion is the cause of all wars DUHHHHHHHH!! LMAOOO
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Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 2,697
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It differs from person to person but personally I think it's good.
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Member Since: 8/1/2012
Posts: 8,763
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Religion is definitely a good thing, it gives hope, comfort and peace of mind to so many people.
The Church politics is often questionable tho.
Religious fanaticism is disgusting and extremely dangerous.
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Member Since: 8/19/2013
Posts: 3,852
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There's a reason why there are many people who view me as a second class citizen.
Religion is why.
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Member Since: 5/7/2011
Posts: 7,679
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It was created to oppress and control people, and is still used that way today. I fail to see what can be conserved good about it.
Believe in a god all you want, but if one exists it's certainly beyond all human realms of understanding and none of the man-made religions can truly claim to represent it.
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Member Since: 6/28/2010
Posts: 7,399
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Quote:
Originally posted by BadMonster
Bad, it's the reason for at least 80% of the wars and conflicts in the world
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Maybe, I don't know, but religion has caused wars in the past because it has always been the dominant belief system, and people twist it to justify what they're doing. When you get to the bottom of the holy book (the Bible, Koran etc) you can't dispute that they're overall message is good.
Basically any belief system can be twisted. Look at Stalin, murdering people in the name of atheism.
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Member Since: 6/28/2010
Posts: 7,399
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Quote:
Originally posted by $oldier
Terrible, it is literally the cause of the majority of the problems in the world. Even when it's not, you see people talking about god helping them through stuff or needing god or god being there for them or like it's god's will that they succeed or not or whatever, blah blah blah. Religious people are the pits, tbh. Take responsibility for yourself and don't be such a dumbass. There's no such thing as a higher power. Praying to a god for superficial things that only benefit yourself is so repugnant.
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This is such an ignorant, arrogant comment, particularly the bolded part.
So Gandhi, Mother Teresa etc were all "the pits"?
I think your hateful, mean attitude is the pits, but that's just me.
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Member Since: 8/18/2013
Posts: 2,654
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Quote:
Originally posted by Mariah4life
Religious clash, laws run under religion too so they are controlling us based on 'their" beliefs of what''s right and wrong,
it gives people hope. Have faith. etc
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basically
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Member Since: 9/7/2011
Posts: 8,226
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Quote:
Originally posted by Benjamin
It was created to oppress and control people, and is still used that way today. I fail to see what can be conserved good about it.
Believe in a god all you want, but if one exists it's certainly beyond all human realms of understanding and none of the man-made religions can truly claim to represent it.
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Let's take the gospels for example. These gospels give the account of Jesus and his message during his short life span. I fail to see how their authors wrote them with the intention to oppress and control people. By your claim then Plato also wrote The Apology to oppress and control people. Yet I don't see many accusing him of such a claim despite being a student of Aristotle who's Rethoric has been used by man to convince other men with deceit. So based on these facts I would assume Philosophy was also created to oppress and control people. And hey, since without Philosophy there wouldn't be any science so lets forget about that too. After all, science is responsible for such things as the atomic bomb and heavy additive and destructive drugs.
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Banned
Member Since: 2/17/2012
Posts: 12,017
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Religion is good for some people because it provides hope and peace... some however use it as a way to fight their prejudices.
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Member Since: 8/19/2013
Posts: 16,407
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i study Buddhism and im beyond happy
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Member Since: 8/1/2012
Posts: 8,763
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Quote:
Originally posted by Benjamin
It was created to oppress and control people, and is still used that way today. I fail to see what can be conserved good about it.
Believe in a god all you want, but if one exists it's certainly beyond all human realms of understanding and none of the man-made religions can truly claim to represent it.
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Quote:
Originally posted by toanythingtaboo
I don't think you can label it as either good or bad. It's simply too vast a concept with too much to consider to be that black and white.
There's unlikely to ever have been a time where humans haven't invented a faith system to explain their surroundings and make sense of life. Most will have introduced an order to things - primarily consequence of good and bad behaviour - which aided the human race to become progressively civilised. As time progressed, we developed a widely agreed upon set of morals, that are relatively consistent through different religions, that have helped form society. On that side of things - religion has been a good thing.
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Well said.
In the early days of mankind, when there was no police and organs to effectivelly protect so many people or punish them, the fear of greater power which was already deeply rooted in their everyday life (natural disasters, life-death circle were explained spiritualy long before the institutional religions arose) was used to make people respect at least some basic rules to avoid/reduce the amount of crimes like murder, theft, rape etc. It was common for ancient societies that every code of laws was shielded by religion (Hammurabis code, The Law of the Twelve Tables for example) to make sure that people treat them with respect.
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ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 8/1/2012
Posts: 15,668
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Bad.
War, rape, missionaries, colonialism, etc. all stem from religion.
IN THE PAST it was great because it united people and gave them a moral code, but today religion is awful.
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Member Since: 8/17/2013
Posts: 18,151
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It's Good to me because (I am a Christian) because it gives me hope of a new day that he will bless me!
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Member Since: 9/7/2011
Posts: 8,226
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Quote:
Originally posted by AriNikoBradshaw
Bad.
War, rape, missionaries, colonialism, etc. all stem from religion.
IN THE PAST it was great because it united people and gave them a moral code, but today religion is awful.
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Rape stems from religion.
Now I have heard it all
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