God detrimental to society?

[Neo]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFr...8944-2,00.html

RELIGIOUS belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today.

According to the study, belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems....

[Dylflon]

Religion can cause some mighty big problems.

But I wouldn't say it destroys societies.

In fact, control by religion helped many early societies actually form into something other than crazy anarchy.

[Typhoid]

I would say that Religion stops individual societies from spiraling into a form of anarchy, yet at the same time, Religion causes problems between different societies interacting with one another.

[Dylflon]

Yeah.

That's a good addition to my thesis.

If only I didn't have to write my history term paper on an effing novel.

[Xantar]

What exactly is the definition of religion here? Simple belief in God (or some higher being) isn't all that destructive. It's when religion gets organized that you have problems. The former promotes compassion and good will among people. The latter promotes sheepism.

Besides that, I'm not sure how this study proved causality. What if a high murder rate causes people to turn to religion in order to justify and understand their world? I've known some people from the inner city, and they believe faith and God was what got them out of the ghetto. So maybe if you eliminated poverty, you'd see a decrease in religiosity?

[Professor S]

LOL!! They compared the US to Britain saying that "secular nations" tend to have less violence. Secular or not, the moral values that are held by Westerners are derived from Christian/Jewish belief structure. What a silly, agenda driven study.

It reminds me of the Temple professor who recently wrote a book about how Pedophilia is good for children.

[Bond]

Originally Posted by Professor S

It reminds me of the Temple professor who recently wrote a book about how Pedophilia is good for children.

How exactly did he make that argument?

[Professor S]

He said that "when properly done" pedophilia is a mentoring activity and is not damaging. In fact he went on to say that it was pleasurable in many cases. His basis was ancient Greek and Roman writings.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/27/publish

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ar...TICLE_ID=46447

FYI, the pervert's name is Bruce Rind

[GiMpY-wAnNaBe]

I agree with the article (the first one, not the pedophelia ones).

Once you have a society running on reason rather than faith, less crimes can be gotten away with, and less murders can be justified, and can altogether help a society bloom.

[GameMaster]

God detrimental to society? Perhaps.

But so are so many other things. Why rest all the blame upon the shoulders of the Gods?

[Typhoid]

Originally Posted by GameMaster

Why rest all the blame upon the shoulders of the Gods?

Because God is the answer to "everything" good (according to religious people) so as well, he must be the answer to "everything" bad.


If God created everything, and its because of him we're alive, it is also because of him we kill. Because of him we rape, we pillage, we burn villages, we take other countries, we enslave our own people, and we kill the planet.

[GameMaster]

Originally Posted by Typhoid

If God created everything, and its because of him we're alive, it is also because of him we kill. Because of him we rape, we pillage, we burn villages, we take other countries, we enslave our own people, and we kill the planet.

Although, if a certain someone hadn't disobeyed God and eaten from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, then we probably wouldn't be doing all these bad, corrupt things...

Then again...if God hadn't put the tree there, maybe we wouldn't have fallen to temptation and disobeyed...

It's kind of hard to decide who's to truly blame for all of this.

[Professor S]

Why not blame science? Afterall, science has killed far more people than any God or Religion.

Steel - Blades
Gunpowder - Guns and explosives
Nuclear Fission - The Big One

Instead, this person prefers to blame religion, a ideal that in most cases preaches against the darkest parts of our humanity that cause us to kill and commit violence. So shouldn't science be attacked and blamed for our faults and weaknesses? Hasn't science killed millions upon millions of people and given us the ever increasing ability to kill more and more at a time? Did the researcher even consider scientific advancements in societies and their correlation to increased violence when compared to religion?

Or better yet, why don't we stop BLAMING everything but ourselves for what we are and do, and address the actual PROBLEMS. This guy makes the same mistakes in his argument that anti-gun and anti-media violence people make. They remove responsibility from our society to govern and control itself and constantly points the blame to a neculous and nearly unprovable "evil".

Arguments of this type are typical of what I call the "Reverse Society". People that want to try and build a uptopian nirvana from the top down, instead of the bottom up. Confused? Here is my argument:

Society is meant to be built, for the lack of a better model, like a pyramid, with the most important aspects at the bottom:

The World Community
National Government/Culture
Local Government/Culture
Family/Self

If the base is solid, then it will support the upper levels.

Meanwhile those that want to propose the "Reverse Society" want to try and build the uptopia starting with The World Community.

Family/Self
Local Government/Culture
National Government/Culture
The World Community

This model is not new, it is simply communism by another and more friendly name. Proponents of this are those like Parliament member George Galloway, who I believe is one of the most demented and dangerous people I've ever heard speak.

Make no mistake, the Reverse Society sounds wonderful, and pretends to be a world family to replace the nuclear and extebded families that we know, but it will damage us terribly.

Family is the single most powerful force in human development. Without family, nothing that we have achieved would ever be possible. We cannot care about others without learning empathy in our early years. Without family, there is no caring for others, local or worldwide. Its a psychological fact. If you are not TOUCHED enough as an infant, you will grow to be functionally retarded.

Religion has been a powerful force in creating what we know as the family. I really don't think that people unserstand how powerful Western religion has been in forming even what we consider to be "secular" beliefs. Just compare the ideals of what being a good Roman is, which was a very secular society, when compared to what being a good Christian entails or even just a good, moral person. Jews are an excellent example of how string and important religion is in the family. Jews through the ages have endure more persecution than any other people, and they survived because of their belief in family. They invested their money in themselves, creating banks and businesses to look out for their family first and their fellow Jews second. This is how they survived and any secular group would have disintegrated under such horrors, IMO.

If you want to create the perfect society and reduce man's inhumanity to man, look towards yourself and your loved ones first, then once they are in order look to the next level to create a world community.

"Physician, heal thyself"

[Typhoid]

Professor S, its because of god (not entirely) that we've had to make weapons.


Without weapons, the crusades couldnt have been carried out.

Without weapons we cant defend ourselves when opposing religious areas attack us with their weapons.

[Neo]

Science may give us the means, but religion gives us the reasons.