Religion versus human dignity.

Without cavil, yes, i agree.

I disagree.

Religion is an important part of human culture and history. Religion has played a key role in some of the greatest (as well as some of the worst) parts of the human experience.

I disagree also. I think ebrown stated it very well.

I disagree that statement is too general and its a contradiction



if they were good they wouldn't do bad things.......

Posted elsewhere, but worthy of repeat:

True then. True now:

"To so many evils religion has persuaded men." - Lucretius

"We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another." - Jonathan Swift

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." - Pascal

I agree FOR THE MOST PART. The quotes by Lucretius,Swift and Pascal are sound, but it really depends to a large extent on the religion and the various phases of its history. The Crusades, the Inquisition, the wars of the Reformation are all reflections of religions capacity to generate evil actions--not to mention the Islamist suicide bombers. One might say that the cause of evil actions is the evil already existing in people rather than the religion in whose name they have performed evil. But we have very little historical indication of clerical restraint on its zealots.
What I find most egregious in most religions is their other-worldly emphasis, an emphasis that removes any sense of the divine in this world. I prefer a this-worldly piety, one that builds people, not churches.

JLNobody wrote

in christianity an emphasis is put on afterlife bc we believe that this world is temporal while the next life whether its heaven or hell is eternal........So i have to disagree with your statement......I dont think its outrageous that we put more in stock on what is forever over what is fleeting.......

Can you give some examples of the "greatest parts of human experience" which religion has played a role in.

Thx

Kate, if your eternal-otherworld is a fiction--which I'm convinced it is--you have done the most wasteful thing possible. You've sold short what is for what isn't.
But I know: you can't POSSIBLY be convinced of that.

I'd be interested to see if anyone can come up with a single example of overall benefit to the human condition which may be directly and singularly attributable to religion.

I'm afraid Kate would disagree with Solomon's assertion that the dead ". . . are conscious of nothing at all." (Proverbs 9:5)

I agree with the above, that "the afterlife" is at best a palliative, and at worst pernicious.

The problem remains as to how we might counter those religionists who argue tautologically that religion is the essence of "morality", such that "good" and "evil" are meaningless without it.

Here is one answer, based on childrens' natural empathy for others.
http://home.teleport.com/~packham/morality.htm

Actually, I agree with that statement. Many people who were supposed to be good have done bad things in the name of religion.

Spanish Inquisition, for example. Witch hunts, for example. Islamic fundamentalist suicide bombings. Islamic theocracy. The Church's persecution of Galileo for speaking the truth.

I, however, believe that the opposite is also true. I mean, I've met plenty of fundies and I shudder at the thought of the evil things they'd do if they didn't have religion. (Not all of them mind you, but a sizeable number).

NEO ... sorry i dont agree with jw doctorine that the dead stay dead and then one day 144,000 get heaven and the rest get earth....

also proverbs 9:5 says "Come eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed..." i think you have the wrong verse.......
and im afraid you would disagree with Christ who said he was going to prepare in his fathers house many mansion for us (john 14:2)....or when he promised the thief he would be with him "today in paradise" (luke 23:43)

or where paul said to be absent from the body is to be present with Christ...(2 cor 5:8)
or After KIng davids child died he knew he would one day see him...He can't come to me but i will go to him.....2 samuel 12:20-22...there are many more verses i can give if you need that talk of everlasting life for the follower of Christ and eternal punishment for those that rejecet him.....

actually since you know nothing of my life you can't truly say that...I have a wonderful life and live it to it's fullest...i just know its temporal...

Wolf my point is, that these people who do these bad things in the name of religion only use religion as an excuse...I feel they must already be bad, bc if religion makes good people bad then every person in a religion or atleast the majority, would do wicked stuff...and while i truly believe christianity is the only way, Jesus is the only truth, i know people of other religions and they are good people who don't do evil things......and never would...that was my point but i needed to expound on it better.

Kate,

You are confusing the two parts of morality (that is distinguishing 'right' from 'wrong').

One part of morality is doing what you 'know' to be right. I use the word 'know' here because most everyone, particularly the religious, has a strong sense of what is 'right' and what is 'wrong'. i put it in quotes because sincere people, particularly the religous, have very different at time contradictory beliefs.

If you know that stealing is wrong, but then you steal anyway-- i think we all agree that this is "wrong" or immoral.

But the other part of morality is at least as important...

This is the ability to reason (i.e. think logically and make an intelligent decision) about what is right and what is wrong. Religion often has a problem here.

The problem is that religious people have a rigid structure they call the "truth" that by very definition can not change. For Evangelical Christians this is the Bible-- and more than that, each denomination has a specific interpretation of the Bible that sometimes contradict one another. But the fact is, each evangelical Christian feels strongly they know the "truth" and this will impact all of the decisions they make.

This makes it very hard for religious people to question their morality beyond a certain point. At the moment they feel (according to their understanding of the Bible) that an idea contradicts the Bible, their religious beliefs mandate that they drop this idea.

Many sincere Christians defended the practice of slavery. They weren't immoral by the first part of being immoral. They read in the Bible about slavery and many were convinced that this meant God condoned slavery. Of course some Christians opposed slavery but that just makes my point above.

The fact is that many sincere Christians believed in their hearts that slavery was acceptable or even mandated by Christians. They did what was right according to their beliefs-- they didn't violate any idea they had was wrong.

Does the fact that they didn't understand that (according to modern beliefs) they were wrong mean that they were bad people? I am not sure I would say that. The fact is that their morality was based on their understanding of the Bible and they held to it.

Let's look at a modern issue that I think is relevant. There is a current problem in finding adoptive parents for kids with no families-- especially kids past the age of 1 or 2 are hard to place.

One solution is to use the many homosexual couples who would love to be parents.

There is no rational reason to keep homosexuals from being parents. Studies have shown they are no more likely to abuse kids than heterosexual married couples (that is very unlikely) and the kids who have been raised in homosexual families have decent lives. Not that it matters, but there isn't even an increase in homosexuality among kids raised by homosexual couples.

The problem, of course, is that the Bible is agsint homosexuality (according to the interpretations of most denominations). So Christians oppose these kids being adopted by these willing families.

The problem with this, of course, is that many kids are not adopted and everyone agrees kids spending their childhood in foster care is the worst solution. Kids in foster care have a must higher rate of abuse, crime and problems.

So this is a good case where Christians are choosing their interpretation of the Bible over the clear benefit of the kids... and this is not just a religious thing. Christians are voting and putting political pressure which does real damage to real kids.

I am not anti-religion.. I come from an evangelical Christian background and understand that there are good things with this lifestyle.

But one of the worse things about religion is that it provides a narrow set of beliefs about what is right and wrong-- and then keeps you from growing in your personal understanding outside of this structure.

This is how religion can influence a good person to do bad things-- by keeping her from reasoning about the true nature of her actions and allowing her to have confidence that she is "right" without questioning.

ebrown ....yes i see your point (even though i don't fully agree) but i was talking about things like murder....that was the bad i was discussing
ie...the crusades...the religious leaders used that as an excuse for greed and power.....eventhough nothing in the bible justified the crusades
ie....the pharisees and other religious sects of judiasm wanted Christ killed... they used religion as an excuse to kill Christ but the main reason was that they were losing power with the people....and not all of the religious leaders were involved in Christ's death...like gamiliel...who believed that it was wrong to kill him....
ie...islamic extremists believe its ok to kill innocent people....yet many islamic people would never think to kill another human being because they know its evil....

My point is that religion in itself doesnt make one kill or do evil stuff...each individual person has a choice to make and some will kill and do evil not because of their religion(even if they use it as an excuse) but because they are just evil people..while others in that same religion would never do evil..........I cant and wont blame religion for the evils men and women do........ every person has free will and are ingraned with knowledge of what is right and wrong.........if we start blaming religion for the evils that people within them do then next we will find a way to blame outside entities for what child molestors do..etc...and then no person would be responsible for their own actions......

OOPS! Ecclesiastes 9:5