What is the net effect of religion?

I Posted here rather than in a religious forum because I consider this issue to be more related to psychology, sociology, & politics than religion.

I think the net effect is bad. Historically, it has surely caused a lot of horrors. Examples.

Spanish & other inquisitions.
Salem witch trials.
Wars motivated by religious differences.
The crusades.

Even in modern times, there are wars & prejudices motivated by religion.

The society of Friends (Quakers) is likely to be the only religion driven by behavior rather than by dogma & which seems to have never caused war, dissensions, prejudice, & other bad ethics/actions. I suppose I should include some Hindu & oriental religions as benign.

While I am an atheist goy, I have a lot of respect for the lowest rank of religious leaders: Ministers, priests, rabbis, et cetera. I consider almost all of those one level up in religious hierarchies to be motivated by love of power, prestige, & other perks of their institutions.

BTW: I started to become an atheist when about 8 years old, due to the story of Abraham & Isaac. I was strongly bonded with my father & considered the request to kill a son to be demonic. The more my Sunday school teacher argued with me on the issue, the more suspect I became about religion.

I called myself an agnostic until I was circa 13. The following quip in the Readers Digest made me realize I was an atheist.

An agnostic is a cowardly atheist.​

From Fran Sinatra lyrics:

In the community in which I was raised, admitting to being an atheist resulted in adverse effects: Mostly verbal; Sometimes physical.

 

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You have to be careful in using the word religion and religious organisation . Religion teaches the human to treat The Creator and with respect and treat the fellow man is such a way as you want to be treated. Religion formed in an organization , many time becomes an evil institution to impose the will of "The organisation "upon others . And so that is the answer to your second paragraph .
An organization it supposed do good to a larger masses of needy people. But our problem is our EGO, and the ego expresses itself when we are in higher ranking position . And so in the end what is expressed not religion but the ego of the hierarchy.
An agnostic it supposedly searching for wisdom . An atheist is the individual that found the wisdom and knows all the fact.

 

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From what you are saying, you are part of a group that treats religious people with disrespect . And so Religious people will treat your group with disrespect . Therefore don't complain about human behavior because your are part of our human problem.
Keep in mind not all scientists are atheists , and there are many scientists who are religious.
By the way without looking into were " The rule of Laplace " is stated . I wonder if you know the meaning of it.

 

He didn't say religious people, he said religion.

 

Religion isn't evil in its own anymore than government is. If religion is "it" and that allows us to be imperfect then humans are bad or evil and that kind of "religious behavior" is certainly understandable to a compassionate devil but still untempted.

 

Religion to have meaning , it must be part of human behavior

 

Yes, but its proper to consider religious people as sincere, only deluded by harmful ideology. They didn't invent the evil thing, so I don't hold them personally responsible. They can be saved from the notion that they need saving.

 

Everybody is part of the problem. Religion doesn't make you immune from causing problems, nor is it the only source of problems.

 

What is the net effect of religion? "
you know what; for me, this topic opening is intriguing for me.

 

But they say there is evidence, it's just not reliable. They can be persuaded to accept some rational standards of evidence. Sometimes.

 

How do you demonstrate a causal relationship between 'religion' and your 'horrors'? It looks like a simple assertion of atheist faith to me. (Religion is evil, so...)

What about atheist inquisitions? The 20th century provides many examples of those: Stalin's show trials, labor camps, gulags, the Chinese cultural revolution, the destruction of Buddhism in Tibet and Mongolia, thousands of monks in mass graves, after being shot in the head...

It seems to me that governments and government leaders have been a more proximate cause of wars than religion has. So shouldn't this be a libertarian thread?

Agnosticism is probably the most intellectually justifiable position to take regarding transcendental matters. Whether or not militant atheists approve of agnosticism is of little concern to me.

 

Everybody is agnostic. Some people just don't know they are.

 

No.

 

You are one of those who doesn't know. You might think you know but you don't.

 

Doesn't the idea that the claims of the "religionists" (a peculiarly atheist term) are "preposterous" suggest possession of more knowledge than the common atheist position that 'atheism isn't belief, it's lack of belief' will support? Beliefs about the nature of the evidence are obviously implicit here.

Since when are Laplace and Carl Sagan in any position to announce rules and laws that science is somehow bound to honor? What, apart from their being articles of atheist faith, justifies them?

Sure, if you start from the point of view of metaphysical naturalism, but if you do that, then you are arguing in a circle.

You seem to be agreeing with Timojin's characterization of atheists. For guys who claim to not be defending any beliefs (and hence to have no burden of proof) atheists sure make a lot of assertions.

That's just a caricature Fraggle and if you are half as well educated as you claim to be, you should know it.

There is natural theology and all of the so-called 'theistic proofs' (they aren't apodeictic proofs but they are certainly arguments). The latest of these are the cosmological 'fine-tuning' arguments that seem to have arisen in the UK in the 1980's. Some very prominent physicists take them seriously.

There's a vast body of anecdotal evidence of miracles (none of it totally convincing, but much of it more convincing than your idiot tortillas, which seem to be expressions of Latin American popular religiosity).

And there's what I consider the best species of evidence, namely religious experience. I have considerable respect for the experience of Buddhist meditators and am inclined to consider it empirical evidence that supports less metaphysically speculative and more psychologistic sorts of Buddhist doctrine. (Even if it doesn't, it's still fascinating.) More broadly, I'm quite interested in the experiences of religious contemplatives of all traditions.

If you want my respect, you will need to earn it by doing more than ranting.

 

I'm inclined to agree.