Name one good thing religion has accomplished

But clearly Jesus isn't, because that sick zombie will see that I (and the majority of PC.com posters, arguably) get tortured worse than Hitler ever dreamed of torturing any Jew for simply not believing that magic is real. Not a friend, for sure.

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So if Nazis today rid the Nazi world of the killing of Jews you'd say that the Nazis were really really great, right?

 

This is not worth my time refuting. Please show the appropriate texts to back up each of your claims.

 

Forest for the trees. You have not presented any proof that Religion ended slavery in the U.S. other than two names and a google reference. Lots of people from many different backgrounds owned slaves including Christians... while lots of people from many different backgrounds were against slavery including Christians. So to say that "Religion ended slavery in the U.S." is a revision of the actual history.

 

Your source defeats your entire argument. "Radical abolitionism was partly fueled by the religious fervor"

Perhaps you should be a bit more objective rather than making factually incorrect blanket statements like "Religion ended slavery in the U.S." I could quote a particular Bible passage and the fact that there were also Christian slave owners as proof that Christianity was also part of the problem. Thomas Paine famously railed against the psudo Christians who owned slaves.

I argue that religion played a part in ending slavery... an opinion that your own source supports.

 

Religion has allowed a great many people of limited understanding to focus their energies onto something relatively benign.

 

The post has 3 such appropriate texts, please try to refute those 3, if you choose to.
Thanks.

If YOU were "Allah" and all-knowing wouldn't you be smart enough to not have included such seriously potentially damaging verses in the one "best" guide book of all time (and known there would be such serious problems with them)? Would you?

 

And Rev Martin Luther King had what to do with ending slavery?

 

Looks like you're out of luck, then.

 

It is a naive position to take to assume indentured servitude/slavery is all wrong.
Slavery, like with the serfs of Europe, was a way of life when no other way existed at the time.

Millions of Indian peasants, today, are serfs/slaves in a world which offers them no alternative.
Would you prefer to see them and their families starve to death?

Slavery, like colonialism, is just another of the 12 Economic Systems which society uses when the conditions make it necessary.
What Jesus and Moses did was set down rules of good conduct when dealing with these powerless peoples, something that had not until then been proscribed at all.

 

Yes, christianity was long working on the task before secular people found reasons to join them.But in those times, most all Americans were Christian, anyway.

The idea of Truth setting people free was a concept that began in 32AD, and the secular folks came to see the fairness just as they did when Rev Martin Luther King, alone, force one more step in the process to change Civil Rights in America.

You can't ignore him, the reverend, and his millions of Christian followers, who used just Truth as the means bring Christian and secular Americans to totally free the Black people.

 

Eternal life. Many people confuse this with the afterlife and miss the true meaning of eternity. Having lived, and continue to witness family, without religion, I see the truth in this daily.

Unfortunately the non-believers like to give religion credit for human misgivings.

 

Remembering our own past lives by tapping inside of the Unconscious mind we were "born again" with makes practical sense and supports what jesus was telling the people in 32AD.

Revelation 21:4-5
And God, (blessing them with Total Phylogenetic Consciousness: [Carl Jung]), shall wipe away, (in their awakened Unconscious Mind: [Freudian Hypothesis]), all tears from their eyes, (for life is a genetically rememberable, a continuum, we shall remember from one generation to the next living generation); and,
(in genetic memories of prior existences held in our Unconscious Mind) there shall be no more death... (For we shall not all "sleep:" [1Co15:51], but total phylogenetic Consciousness will have evolved), neither sorrow... (For we, individually, are part of a living continuum of our own past, flowers upon our genetic vine), nor crying,.. (for we are happy in these revelations of reconstitution from our human gene pool), neither shall there be any more pain, (as men will have neurological control, a self-hypnotic ability to stop the nerve signals to the brain),... for the former things (in Modern Homo sapiens paradigm of the life experience) are passed away.
And he, (the Christ, the ancient, phylogenetic, Collective Unconscious Mind in their own Kingdom within), that sat upon the throne (within the kingdom of the evolving Homoiousian sapiens' brain: [Luke 17:21]) said, Behold, (in this way, through evolution: [Gen 9:11-18]), I make all things (in human experience) new.
And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true, (i.e.; words of Christ himself, who is the experiential presence of Truth in us, rational, the Unconscious mind), and (worthy of) faithful (belief).

 

Then you don't know anything about religion. There are pro and cons with everything. Want a pro about religion? It has filled hearts with one of man's greatest feelings - hope. It has inspired men to have the courage to endure for one more moment. Churches help communities and less fortunate people.

 

Ouch, didn't the question specify good things?

 

Yes atheists and theists both suffer grief. I was speaking of the person facing death, not the ones left behind. But even the ones left behind, if they believe in being together with their loved ones one day, this tempers the grief and gives them something to look forward to. The atheist doesn't have this.

Religion exists because the psychology of man needed it. Atheism exists because of a reaction, a reaction of the ego. Both beliefs, theism, atheism are manifestations of the ego. In fact most atheism is based upon reaction, a reaction to theism. Man reacts to all sorts of things. We don't like being told what to do, some of us, and we will reject that. Atheism in most is based upon emotions, but they try to use science as the reason. But these people don't live rational, logical lives, and the use science only when it meets their own psychological requirements.

For me god is unknowable, as it is for the rest of humanity. I am not arrogant enough to say I know it exists or does not exist. For I would be a liar, like the theists and the atheists. I prefer honesty. I detest liars. I detest the arrogance that causes it.

 

What religion has given to humanity is something most of humanity demands. Meaning. A meaning to life, which for much of our history can be a rather brutal thing. Science scrubs away meaning, and has nothing to offer but sterility. Humanity will always seek meaning, most of it. Religion and philosophy supplies this. Religion didn't arise so much from ignorance, but from a seeking of meaning, of purpose. And science will never provide this. Atheism is inept and cannot provide it.

 

I have meaning in my life and didn't have to have religion tell me what it is nor did I have to make up something(religion).

Science offers nothing but FACTS as it should.......it wasn't meant to produce meaning to life.

The religious suffer the sins of Pride and arrogance when they presume to know what other people find meaningful.

 

Without religion what value do you place on sin?

 

Government can be a good thing....

Slavery helped America become a truly free nation, slavery bad, the results of moving away from slavery good for everyone including the slaves

moving away from religious Governments was good for the religious no matter what religion they believed, religious freedom for all

.

 

So let me get this straight, you have a lack of motivation in your life so you invent a deity to give yourself meaning. Some churches help the community, many more bilk the poor and lead them on a fruitless quest that never ends. I think is is more personal weakness exploited than a positive attribute. I could take a bunch of oxycodine and feel great forever but it won't alleviate the pain, just mask it. Religion IS the opiate of the masses, in that Marx was right. Why can't you find hope in the eyes of your grandchild or a job well done, a beautiful sunset or a fast car? I can wait for science to explain that which is not currently explainable.

 

I didn't invent it, it was here long before I was in the form I represent today. Also, what if it was intended to motivate someone's life? What'd be wrong with that? So long as they're not hurting anyone, why can't they do so without being condemned? 'Fruitless quest' sounds a lot like an absolute declaration, perhaps a good quote will help you in this situation: "Do not feel absolutely certain of anything" - Bertrand Russell

Do not make the assumption that you can be absolutely certain that God, in whatever form, does not exist, or for that matter, exists. Proofs of that nature and complexity are beyond our species' grasp. Perhaps sometime in the next 50 years many great mathematical and scientific minds will unlock more doors that have previously been locked, knowledge wise, of course. One current thought is that because of the relationship between our perceivable reality and math, that we're in a simulation. So, if that is true, then that means that there is someone who created the simulation, which in all practicality, makes them God. The Catholic Church, yes, would be flat wrong about everything they've preached and done in the name of their God. Sweet.

And you're talkin' at me like I'm religious. I just answered a question. Don't go machine-gunnin' on me, man. I'm not religious, and I don't really see the point of spirituality, but I am certainly a humanist. As Socrates would say, "Know thyself." You may wish you argue, downplay or ignore what I'm about to say - that's okay, you would just help prove my point - but human beings are not infallible, we're very fallible. We think we know what's up, but there's always room for surprise, man. And if you really think about it, among our mediums of reality, meaning, the mind and the body, they can be easily manipulated, corrupted and even controlled. Because we're a "smart" species, we're able to learn from things we do, like reading. If you read certain things, things you'd never heard or thought of before, it opens up new analyzations and perspectives, that is, if you actually take the time to reflect on what you've just read. I'm sure you've experienced that on more than one occasion in your (presumably) adult life - something you've learned surprises the hell out of you. Like, the thought of, "I had no idea it was that bad," or, "What they did was crazy." Like, say, after you've learned about MKUltra and the real, tangible implications that one project carried. Or, that scientists have the ability to read minds as thoughts are being formed and to both remove or implant memories. That thing I talked about earlier, Absolute Certainty, that has definitely gone out the window considering that our minds could be manipulated by other people. And if you look at our bodies, our senses, they can deceive us too.

Once you realize that nothing is sacred, that what you think it is to be human, what reality is, what you see, what you touch and what you hear, that it is all fluid, all questionable. Why? Because we're human, we're fallible and we're ignorant. Always account for ignorance, it is in an unknown quantity. And it's okay to not know something. As I said, there are many proofs that we just cannot touch, they're outta our league, man. It's life though, so stay calm and keep thinking.

 

Yes that good old concept of endless suffering in hell has really served to give meaning to life. And of course "original sin " has made everyone feel so good about their Existance.

 

With religion what value do you place on sin? Maybe guilty pleasures are better pleasures.

 

You can deny the psychological need for religion as much as you feel like. That doesn't negate it. Ignoring a fact doesn't make it go away.

But I agree, science is not concerned with giving humanity a meaning for life, for human existence. It cannot and does not answer age old questions that rose from the consciousness of humans.

We, some of the more astute, understand why religion arose. Those that do not, are just not intellectually deep enough to grasp it. Although I would doubt a psychopath could ever understand it, and I think 1 percent of the population or perhaps a little more are born psychopaths. You may very well be one, or you could just be acting like you cannot grasp why religion arose in every culture that ever existed. Even the hunter gatherers that are left today have religious beliefs, but much more primitive in nature.

Where did you get your meaning in life? For you got it from some source. You copied someone else. I would imagine it to be quite superficial in nature.

I don't need meaning, except that which comes from the love of the people that I know and love. But most people seek a deeper meaning. Perhaps you are like me, I dunno. But if so, we are in the minority. Some people get their meaning from the pursuit of pleasure, which is a distraction, as they run away from a lack of meaning. Humans do play these little psychological games in order to try to escape what is a painful reality.

Most people do seek a meaning of life, and its a very ancient thing. Religion provided that. You cannot deny it, and be intellectually honest about it. Science only increases the existential anxiety for these people, and they are vast in numbers.

 

That is a very limited view that you have. Over time there have been innumerable religions, that offered man a meaning for existence. It is natural, given our sort of consciousness, that religion were to arise, and also that science was to arise as well. Man is much more curious than a cat. And most of us seek meaning. It is simply a part of what we are. So, it is natural.