Religion Responsible for the Majority of the Worlds Problems

That's right. One doesn't HAVE to be religious to be decent and moral. But, the standards of decency and morality are established, maintained and perpetuated through religion and when removed from a society standards of decency and morality erode.

Proof?

The systematic removal of religion from American society since the early-mid 1960's has resulted in what we have today. Ugh.

The only way we know what is moral and decent is because of the standards presented and upheld by the leading religious practitioners of our day and the texts they are guided by.

Otherwise, we forget what is our true North star and do things we might not otherwise do if our religious instruction was fresh and seen as pertinent and important.

Non-Islamic religion has changed enough to make your thread assertion false.

The ONLY mainstream religion you can cite to make your statement true is Islam.

 

you have to think from both sides!! WITH religion, it gives people of different beliefs reasons to become annoying to other religions. for example like how some christians try to push others into believing that if you dont believe in THEIR god, you go to hell. and on the other hand, WITHOUT religion, we wouldnt have morals to inspire people to do the right thing(well i mean if you rather not think for yourself.)

 

No but the Catholic leadership did. Jews and those nasty Orthodox Serbians during WWII.

 

The deaths that were caused by the Crusades were largely the result of people trying to deny pilgrims safe passage and access to Jerusalem. Beyond all that the use of religion by people with ulterior motives is not a flaw in religion, but in people. Quite a few people died because of America's "Manifest Destiny"

 

Communist countries such as Romania and many countries of former Yugoslavia were descent and moral.

I think it has very little to do with religion and more to do with lack of the proper moral education. They do not teach kids Civics anymore. Topics such as "why should you obey the law" and "how are rights derived" and even the intent of the Constitution such as the reason for separation of Church and state is not normally taught.

They don't teach kids how to spot an invalid argument (logical fallacies) so that they can make fun of politicians, Fox news, and MSNBC.

Our politicians are a bunch of liars and we kill innocent children with drones.

They don't teach kids basic philosophy - how to make a good argument and be objective.

What our society does teach kids these days is that it ok to force your personal religious beliefs on others and that individual rights do not matter.

If the State does not respect individual rights and freedoms, then how on earth are we to expect kids growing up in this society to respect the rights and freedoms of others ?

 

We had no problem teaching kids rights and freedom even while we (as a nation/society/government) were, to paraphrase your statement, not respecting individual rights and freedoms.

How did the merest idea of individual rights survive in this country if your premise actually was true?

 

Er, you do know, don't you, where protestantism comes from? Now i will enlighten you: as you know, catholic church in those times pretended 1/10th ( the famous " decima " ) of all incomes and properties of all catholics, both rich and poor people. It was a heavy toll to pay and some people grew tired of it at some time.

Martin Luther was a german theologist, pretending to reform the catholic church, because according to him, it was no more following the teachings of Christ, and it was corrupted. Germans nobles were eager at the idea to not pay decime any more and supported Martin Luther in his struggle. And so protestantism was born.

So, as you can see, it was not christianism's fault, but the greed of priests and powerful men of the long corrupted church that lead to this schism.

Is it difficult to understand? Greed men are the fault of war and struggles, not religions.

 

If you stop living in dreamland and open your eyes you might notice the continued erosion of individual rights in this country.

 

The Bible says that people should fork over 10% to the priests. The Germans got cheap and didn't want to follow the Bible.

Genesis 28:22 (CJB) =

and this stone, which I have set up as a standing-stone, will be God’s house; and of everything you give me, I will faithfully return one-tenth to you.”
​

Hebrews 7:5 (CJB) =

"Now the descendants of Levi who became cohanim have a commandment in the Torah to take a tenth of the income of the people, that is, from their own brothers, despite the fact that they too are descended from Avraham."
​

 

Really? Now go a little more back in time and you will find that.... decime were a tribute in ancient rome too! They existed a lot before the bible was made. Now aren't you suspecting anything? about the bible and those who wrought it i mean or to better say, those who wrought it to make people pay 1/10th of what they had.

Of one thing i am sure: Jesus didn't want 1/10th of his followers properties and money. Actually he would have given all his own properties to his poor followers, if only he had something to give.

 

The Old Testament was written before Rome existed. Of course they could have added to it later but the 10% practice was well-established in Jewish culture before then.

Jesus never gave anyone anything. He wanted it all for himself and he lived off of his rich friends. According to him he didn't have a pot.

Peter wasn't satisfied with 10%. He demanded every penny and if he didn't get it he would cast a death spell on people. Luther should have been glad that he never met Peter.

 

Erm, sorry, but to think that the IRA and the Orange Order have deep theological disputes is ridiculous. And if they were of the same religion there’d still be other social markers for them to tell each other apart. For example my British husband could have a good guess where in Britain and even where in London a person is from, by just listening to their accent. (http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~cpercy/courses/eng6365-mcloughlin.htm)
That religion is a possible marker by which to discriminate against people doesn’t make religion the cause of discrimination.

On the other hand people who believe in the forces of good and evil and heavenly rewards may be more likely to do good stuff even though it’s against their immediate interests. For example they’d look after the sick and the poor. Europe’s first ever hospitals were financed and run by Christians.

As far as I know the Bushido-code did not promise Japan’s Kamikaze pilots any heavenly rewards. But I could be wrong.

You bet they would. Greed is one of the strongest motives ever and will always find an excuse.

All major religions teach the Golden Rule. Obviously that doesn't mean all of their followers abide by it. What causes violence is not religion but human vices that religious people aren’t free from. When The Times asked “What’s wrong with the world?” G. K. Chestertons response was “I am.” Darned right he was.

 

In the past, giving 10% of one's goods/money was a common practice, not only for the jews, but for the romans, and for the greeks, and probably a lot of other cultures had a form of obliged tribute to the temples ( they needed some kind of tribute to keep alive the cult, or to better say, to keep the religious class rich and above common people ). It probably existed a lot before the ancient testament was written.

Now, you are talking about the ancient testament, a writing dating to those ancient times, and of course some kind of tribute is mentioned in it, it was common.

But Jesus preached against tributes for what i know. To me, every religion/master/teacher that pretends tributes from everyone is no more a religion but an institution or a greed man.

 

Oh, we agree on the erosion of individual rights. But not on the cause.

 

Jesus said that people should sell their belongings and give the proceeds to the poor. He never said that they should give anything to the temple. However, he did commend an old woman who gave her few cents to the temple.

If you give all of your money to the poor what will you have left to give to the church?

 

Let's just say that Jesus was heavily anti materialist, as all Masters are and that's all we need to know, all the rest is pointless.

 

The Old Testament says that it's foolish to follow a person like Jesus described himself.

 

You figure it is lack of religion ? Sad sack of humans we are if we can not figure out moral codes without fear of eternal hell.

 

Leaders have used religion as a way to inspire their warriors to fight, however most wars themselves are actually battles over land and resources.

Humans, other primates, and our ancestor species, before religion was even conceived, have competed for land and resources, as do many animals. It's territorialism. When we came up with religion, we incorporated it, just like when we came up with language, we incorporated that, and came up with the ability to use tools, we incorporated that and made weapons etc. So religion is an aspect of MANY wars yes, but it's not the cause most of the time I don't think.

I think it is the cause with most of the Sunni v. Shia violence.. It can occasionally be maybe, but wars over mere ideology wouldn't even make any sense. A leader would sacrifice his men and money for some tangible benefit to his empire/country etc.

An often cited example is the Crusades, but that is actually a perfect example of fighting over land. Various competing cultures and empires wanted the same land and fought over it. They just so happened to be different religions. Of course, various empires used religion as a means of inspiration for their forces. Used as a tool for wars. It wasn't the reason for the wars. It was however a consideration in the value of certain land, like holy sites.

We started off as tribes, where we banded together to defend our territory from others of our species. This is before religion. This is for other homonid species before us as well. And even chimps. We are genetically wired to be xenophobic. Hence why virtually everyone hates outsiders, be it left v. right, Muslim v. Christian, black v. white, or whatever.. The "love everybody" genes were killed off by the "kill the outsiders and take their food" genes, as the latter had an evolutionary advantage by gaining terrain and food by being violent. We've always kept that. Religion has little to do with it. I HIGHLY doubt everyone would just get along without religion. Wars would still be fought, just inspired by other differences we force ourselves into, because we are still going to need land and resources and want to compete. Our human nature would remain the same.

PLUS, this argument forgets to factor in or even quantify or consider good that can be done by religion. People who might want to fight or kill, but don't because of their religion. These arguments usually ONLY consider the bad. Of course, it's nearly impossible to point out what atrocities religion would prevent, but that doesn't mean it can't have made the difference.

I could say water is bad because it kills loads of people.. We'd be so much better off without it. Look at all those drownings, flash floods, tsunamis etc. Before you say bad example, that's not an analogy to compare to this argument. I'm not saying we need religion to live. I mean that's an illustration to explain why both sides, good and bad, must always be considered in an argument, which your post does not do.

 

We've been burdened for thousands of years by religion and we're starting to find out what works and what doesn't work as far as religion is concerned.

The last thing we need is someone coming along with some pseudo-intellectual line of b.s. that applauds no religion at all just when the worthwhile aspects of Christianity are needed here now more than ever!

Go peddle your philosophy to the heathen Communist Chinese. They'll make you a Party leader!

 

Where protestantism comes from has nothing to do with Northern Ireland. Martin Luther is dead.

So the question remains, who do you think is motivating all these protestants and catholics to fight each other in Northern Ireland?

And, do you now accept that divide et empera refers to dividing larger powerful states into smaller weaker states, and not dividing people by religion?

 

It has nothing to do with accents. Accents differ by area, not by religion.

So, why don't you list a few of these social markers that you claim would enable the descendants of British settlers to tell themselves apart from the traditional indigenous population?

I'll start the list off:

1) Religion

2) ???

Of course, modern day suicide bombers all just happen to be Muslims. It's coincidence that no Christian in the middle east has ever blown themselves up in a suicide bombing.

I see, so as Jordanian and Egyptian settlers didn't displace Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza from 1948 - 67, you think Jews are more greedy than gentiles?

 

Wrong again. The pope helped thousands of Jews escape to South America with fake identities.

As a matter of fact, it was FDR who sat by and allowed them to suffer.

 

That’s my point. If you got rid of religion, you could still discriminate against people based on the area they’re from. The wish to discriminate against groups that we somehow identify as "the other" is deeply ingrained in us. Must have to do with our tribal nature.

Accent
Economic class
Cultural habits
Ancestry
…

Read Robert Pape: “Dying to Win”: "Pape claims to have compiled the world's first "database of every suicide bombing and attack around the globe from 1980 through 2003 — 315 attacks in all" (3). "The data show that there is little connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, or any one of the world's religions. . . . Rather, what nearly all suicide terrorist attacks have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland" (4). It is important that Americans understand this growing phenomenon (4-7)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_to_Win:_The_Strategic_Logic_of_Suicide_Terrorism

and:

“on a worldwide basis, suicide bombers have ranged from 15 to 70 years old, been very well educated and uneducated, male and female, from all socio-economic classes, Christian, Hindu, Sikh and Muslim, religious and secular, single and married, white and black.”

Read more at: http://phys.org/news204367639.html#jCp

No, I don’t think Jews are any more or less greedy than gentiles. I think greed is a universal human trait: all of us are prone to grab whatever we can if given the opportunity and justification to do so. That justification need not be religious. Quite the contrary: In fact most religions will condemn material greed. But of course people will find ways to get around the basic principles of their religion to satisfy their darker wants.

 

China's violent crime rate is a fraction of ours, as is most of the civilized world. Apparently they do not need my advice

I agree that there are many good things in Christianity, as well as in many other 'heathen' religions.

Children to not absorb religion from the air, it is taught, as are moral codes and civics. The problem is lack of quality teaching IMO.