Name one good thing religion has accomplished

I am unable to prove one good thing religion has accomplished in my mind. Perhaps the mindless control it has given certain leaders has allowed them to attain peace for some periods but then how long before the religion itself demands it's followers to march to war. Nope. I got nothing.

 

Religion has done MASSIVE good throughout history.

Perhaps the most important good it has done, is provide humans with emotional and intellectual comfort in a world they do not fully comprehend.

There are countless instances of religious charity having positive effects on fellow humans.

There are even countless examples of religious figures and institutions sheltering people from many of those mindless leaders you are talking about.

As a fellow atheist, I find your post to be not much more than an exercise in baiting the religious to no good purpose.

History is replete with the abuses of religion. As it is with about a gazillion other ideologies. Many as hypocritical as religious dogma can be at times.

 

Without religion there would be no religious test clause, no establishment clause and no free exercise clause.

Enjoy.

 

since all those things were done/felt by humans, and can and do happen without religion, they can't technically be attributed to a religion itself.

it's possible the OP meant that . whatever can be achieved with god, can be achieved without (and is increasingly being done without - to a better and higher degree) so what point is god?

 

Huge amounts of learning, study and education for many centuries across the world. Without the influence of religion and its need to 'spread the word', there would have been a far, far slower development of writing and study, and certainly no early post-Roman institutions dedicated to such things (there would simple have been no need for them). Somewhat ironic, perhaps, that this ultimately lead to the Enlightenment and questioning of scripture and received wisdom and so on, but to deny the huge and positive role that religion has played in learning across the ages would simple be to deny reality.

That's probably the most important contribution to the modern world, obviously, but it would also be churlish to deny the contribution that religion has made to the creation of some of the most beautiful and magnificent architecture of the last thousand years or so, not to mention the medieval development of music that goes beyond the folksy tradition (not that there's anything wrong with such music, but it would be a sad world if the likes of Bach and Mozart had never existed, and without the religious composers who went before them they probably wouldn't have).

Overall, many bad things have been done in the name of religion through the ages, but also a great many good things, particularly in the development of culture, and of knowledge, learning and the human intellect. For all of its various sins, without what religion did in past centuries we simply could not and would not have the modern world.

Nor would we have much of the beauty of the less-modern world. None of this would exist:







[video=youtube;usfiAsWR4qU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usfiAsWR4qU[/video]

[video=youtube;q5Y2B55nKZY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5Y2B55nKZY[/video]

Whatever one's own beliefs (or lack of beliefs), and whatever else it may have done, to deny that religion has driven great beauty is simple to deny reality.

 

I'm not quite willing to believe that if religion did not exist then composers would just spend all day doing nothing. They would have found other sources of inspiration.

Architecture is harder to argue that way. I believe that beautiful architecture would exist even without religion, but chances it would be in reverence to something else which would be no particular improvement on religion.

 

News Flash. ALL theists are humans. We are discussing MOTIVATIONS for actions, and religious motivation is as valid as an atheists moral motivation.

But the point of god for those of faith is pretty clear. It provides emotional and intellectual benefits that the individual cannot realize without that specific faith.

 

Well one good thing that religion has accomplished is that huge amounts of tax revenue have been generated for public works projects from the huge public taxes that churches have paid over the years. These government funds have been put to great use in many many public works projects, all thanks to religion. I'm so glad that religion is around because.....hold on, wait, my 10 year old daughter is desperately trying to tell me something - let me get back to you on this one.

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Ok, um, uh, apparently churches don't pay any frickin' taxes (a good authority just told me), so scratch my previous post. I feel so stupid thinking that churches would pay their fair share (what was I thinking, they have a magic friend in the sky so they are not rational of course.) Drat, that's the last time I assume that religions are moral!

 

Hmm, Albert Schweitzer comes to mind.

 

Just THINK of how much more he could have accomplished if he hadn't wasted time and energy and money doing such wasteful things as praying every single day, and driving to and from church, and wasting time in church every single week, and constantly spending time wondering what some ancient god wanted him to do, etc. Just think about it.

Also, for every Schweitzer, there is a Galileo whose science was shut down for being against ancient dogma.

Here's how one poster put it:

Can you imagine how much money and time is wasted on religion ?
If only these money and time is used in medical research , education or researching new energy source to solve energy crisis in the future.
Imagine these :
1. Money wasted on weapon or explosive in the war or religious terrorism act

2. Money wasted on machine to create all thing related to religious accessories and clothes

3. Money wasted on the total fund to build their religious building

4. Money wasted on donation to religious organization ( although some money is used for helping poor people or people in disaster but some of the money also for paying the organization )

5. Money wasted on renting a field or building to hold a religious event

6. Money wasted on fuel that used by religious people to go to their religious building

7 Money wasted on promoting religion by using several media ( internet , TV ad , etc )

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100816111401AAZDKzg


Just something to think about.

 

Motivated people like Mother Teresa and others like her to care for the poor.

 

Yep, you could spend your time masturbating instead or collecting welfare. Just guess, you could spend your money on iPhones or video games instead. LOL What an advancement of mankind instead of helping the poor through self sacrifice.

 

Thinking that helping the world by spending time engaging in fairy-tales (not the actual work that he did - which is admirable) is not helpful to the world. Talking to an invisible friend in the sky is not as helpful to the world as just about any other work is. Talking to an entity who is so impotent that he can't even prove that he's the one true god, or that he even EXISTS, is one of the biggest wastes of time in all of history.

Some day people will NOT be afraid of death so much that they need to waste their time with fairy tales for adults.

 

religion was one of the predecessors to modern day governments....


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She's not as great as you have been lead to believe: "Mother Teresa's own words on poverty proved that her intention was not to help people, quoting her words at a 1981 press conference in which she was asked: "Do you teach the poor to endure their lot?" She replied: "I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people."
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Mother_Teresa

"Suffering brings one closer to god".....so her goal was not necessarily to end suffering, it can be argued.

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The bible/quran advocate and approve of TOTALITARIAN forms of gov't, while Modern Secular Humanism is about democracy. Clearly one is better than the other.

 

which is why those governments failed or are failing and secular governments took over....


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Well, it served as a springboard for secular humanism, which is like Christianity, except without the god. Much of secular humanism is very much in the flavor of many Christian ethics if you disregard some of the sexual mores.

Other than that, religion has helped to relieve the existential suffering and fear that surrounds that great inescapable finality called death. Now, if one says that religion has not helped man to accept his own death, and to get some comfort from the loss of loved ones to death, this would be sheer nonsense, and totally irrational to even think such a thing.

If religion was useless, man would never have created it. SO it has been good in certain areas. And to deny that is absurd and lacking in intellectual honesty. Only a brain eaten up with emotions would negate that religion has never yielded any good for human beings.

What has atheism offered when it comes to human suffering? What can it really offer? Nothing. Militant atheists are even more dogmatic than the theists.

 

Read the Bible, and you will discover that slavery is a Christian Value.

 

I will grant you that. Though of course the muse comes in many forms ... religion is just one of them.

 

The lines at the grocery store are shorter on Sunday mornings.

 

this 'atheists don't offer a replacement' thing is a bizarre notion. how does not being into something come with this completely tangential responsibility? if you're not into Odin, do you feel you ought to offer Vikings a complete, alternative worldview?

as regards the alleged comforts at death and bereavement ... I've never yet seen a committed theist feel less sad about a death than bereaved atheists. in fact I've seen more desperate and almost cruel clinging to hope done by theists. things like refusing to sign DNR (do not resuscitate) when the person is clearly suffering immensely and is not going to survive without massive intervention .. even then only for weeks or days. I've seen committed Christians plead with their god til their eyes bled (figuratively speaking), and inveigling entire congregations to do round the clock prayer vigils to keep dear old harry alive a bit longer. and the aftermath I've seen in theists always seem terribly intense and painful. the best adjustments I've seen to loss are amongst Buddhists, incidentally.

 

In essence when religion plays a role in evil, crime or war it gets its full credit as a powerful force for harm. When religion plays a role for inspiring art, philanthropy, reform, or sacrifice, each act could have been done without faith, so it gets no credit. We have folks discussing it as a waste of energy and resources we wish had been better concentrated, when good people worship, pray, and and otherwise contemplate God. We do not have the same folks discussing it as a desirable distraction and drain in resources when evil, greedy and cruel people worship, pray and otherwise contemplate their God.

Faith is a great inspiration and magnifier for the good or ill in men. Religion concentrates resources, power and legitimacy behind the causes, schemes and long term dreams, both good and ill, in men.

in the big picture of the history of mankind ,it may well be a wash. In specific instances the impact can be profound and monumental.

Edit. Actually I think faith and religion may have played a vital evolutionary role in organising groups and communities into collective cooperation when people needed to suspend their survival instincts and sacrifice for abstractions larger than their family.

 

Now waitaminit, that might be just the OP's whole point. WHY can't people get those e and I benes without their specific religion, in fact, without any religion at all, and mightn't they be better off?

As an example, Cathedrals are pretty, no doubt, but wouldn't the medieval peasants who spent lifetimes on them have been better of if they'd built themselves beautiful bathhouses and kept clean, like the Romans?

 

Bereavement is mitigated with belief in reincarnation.

Many Christians have to deal with the knowledge that often their loved ones weren't all that good Christians according to the teachings of Jesus and will probably rot in hell for eternity.

 

many people would not be better off without any religion. Those who never had faith can't truly understand those that have it.

When the wealth gap is so enormous, you have to have something to control the unwashed and religion and fear of god was the perfect mechanism.
History is replete with unholy holy people, who nonetheless operated with impunity.