Does religion have a positive or negative influence on society? [ENDS 31/01/2010]

[TaffTalk]

Then again, was the "womens liberation" movement that suddenly forced all women to think that being a Housewife, a mother is wrong and restrictive, rather than Religion.
These rules are set in place to try and protect Women as they are the womb that must give birth to God's most precious gift of all. Life.
Also, there are many mainstream religions that have no sex divides. Buddhism, Scientology, Hinduism, Humanism, Jainism, Sikhism - to name but a few.
It seems a bit cliché and ignorant to target the Catholic Church, it seems that this is the only religion being targeted at the moment.
As a Buddhist, this is not my best area to defend.

[DrLacero]

I've always believed that, it wouldn't phase me in the slightest.

- Count yourself lucky that believing that this world is the "be all and end all", 'doesn't phase you'. If you fell to a terminal illness tomorrow, you wouldn't even contemplate an afterlife?

Nope

Humans are animals. We are of the kingdom Animalia.

- I'm talking metaphorically. Also, who told we are apart of the Animal Kingdom? Scientists. I don't know about you, but I consider myself completely different to an Animal. The Animal Kingdom is just a crude umbrella in which to place us under.

I don't. To qualify as a member of the Kingdom Animalia you must be a (and I quote):

"multicellular, heterotrophic eukaryotes that digest food outside their cells and then absorb the digested nutrients"

Put simply: You have more than one cell, can only survive by digesting organic materials, your cells contain a nucleus surrounded by a membrane and your DNA is bound together by proteins into chromosomes. Your digestive system is not contained within a cell and you have the ability to remove nutrients from food.

A human who wasn't also an animal would have to be rather odd. But enough science, it's time for propoganda!

You really don't give human morality any credit do you?

- No I don't give humanity morale credit. Without religions we are forced into facism, hence Caesar

"Julius Caesar, having claimed to be a direct descendent of Aeneas, the son of Venus, was among the first to deify himself in such a manner."

Tse-Tung

Partial credit, Zedong was a Buddist and an Atheist later in life.

Stalin

Partial credit, Stalin was an Orthodox and an Atheist later in life.

Hitler

Godwins law, ding ding ding!

Hitler was a Roman Catholic. There is astounding amounts of evidence to back this up, however I'll just post the most obvious one. This is a belt buckle worn by the Wehrmacht (German army) in WWII:



Gott mit uns. God with us. Very atheistic, dohoho.

Amine

Time for some intellectual honesty, I have no idea who or what an Amine is outside of science, so I won't comment on him/her/them.

These are the rule of the men who had no faith, no Religious conscriptions or beliefs.

Wanna talk about the rule of people with faith? The Crusades? 9/11? Bush's illegal war on terror? Perhaps even the millions God himself killed in the bible?

[TaffTalk]

I don't. To qualify as a member of the Kingdom Animalia you must be a (and I quote):

"multicellular, heterotrophic eukaryotes that digest food outside their cells and then absorb the digested nutrients"

Put simply: You have more than one cell, can only survive by digesting organic materials, your cells contain a nucleus surrounded by a membrane and your DNA is bound together by proteins into chromosomes. Your digestive system is not contained within a cell and you have the ability to remove nutrients from food.

- Like I said, the 'Animal Kingdom' is a phrase to umbrella us all into certain groups. This is simply an indicator into what group Science wishes for us to be under.

Godwins law, ding ding ding!

Hitler was a Roman Catholic. There is astounding amounts of evidence to back this up, however I'll just post the most obvious one. This is a belt buckle worn by the Wehrmacht (German army) in WWII:

-You would also know how Hitler was one of the most genius minds on the planet, and realised that the German people would always consider God as a higher importance, therefore it was necessary to appear to be a man of God. Hence, propaganda.

Hitler Youth marching song:

"We follow not Christ, but Horst Wessel,
Away with incense and Holy Water,
The Church can go hang for all we care,
The Swastika brings salvation on Earth".

Hitler also denounces Religion in 'Mein Kampf'.

"Religions are mainly for the benefit of the religious leaders, such as Bishops, Cardinals, and the Pope".

The 'Concordant' hits the final nail in the coffin as Hitler creates his own Religion, riddled with Nazism and fakery.

Time for some intellectual honesty, I have no idea who or what an Amine is outside of science, so I won't comment on him/her/them.

-My apologises, I spelt his name wrong, Idi Amin, the Ugandan dictator who used Islam as a way to defend his fascist regimes.

Wanna talk about the rule of people with faith? The Crusades? 9/11? Bush's illegal war on terror? Perhaps even the millions God himself killed in the bible?

- The Crusades, the attack on the twin towers leading to current war in Iraq are dwarfed by The Russian Revolution, Stalins Russian purges, WWI, WWII.

Like I said, I'm a Buddhist, therefore I can not defend who God killed in the Bible, I can say however, No wars have ever been fought in direct relation to Buddhism. One cornerstone in how Religion is a positive impact on society.

[DrLacero]

Like I said, I'm a Buddhist, therefore I can not defend who God killed in the Bible, I can say however, No wars have ever been fought in direct relation to Buddhism.

Nor Atheism.

[Ardemax]

Right umm this is an interesting topic may I say.

Ok to start digging my grave... jokes

But seriously there is no negative or positive to desribe all of the religions. Each religion is different and proclaims to their followers a different message. Buddhism and Christianity and both different therefore their members will be shown a different light on their lives and a different method of converting other people.

However. Muslims lately have decided they need to use extremist methods of violence and terrorism to convert other humans into Muslims and to follow Islam. I for one disagree with terrorist extremeists (and I'm sure most of you do) and would see this as a negative aspect on society.

I got forwarded a link on facebook, and I have to say I was fascinated, take a look at this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCp4r4pep9k
It shows that Islam is the fastest growing religion and that we can already see the affects of it, e.g churches turning into mosques, we have to bring out new laws that include Muslim people etc. and soon some very Christian countries will turn Muslim.

I'm Christian as you may have guessed and I say that depending on the religion and the people that are being taught how to spread the message, either a negative or positive affect will be spread upon society.

[TaffTalk]

Nor Atheism.

Revolutionary War, French/Indian War, Spanish Civil War, Napoleon Conquests, Mexican - American war, Italian invasion of Ethopia. Fought on the basis of decaying religious values or on no religious values at all.
Not to mention to 180 Million people executed by Stalin for being of a religion and the Holocaust.

[GommeInc]

Nor Atheism.

Wasn't the Dutch versus. Spainish war considered unreligious? It was down to the Spainish having a foothold in Holland and/or the whole Netherlands, and they frankly had enough and fought them back, which aided England winning their war against the Spainish within Queen Elizabeth's reign Not that I disagree with the rest of what you said Though it's a bit vague to suggest all wars are purely for religious reasons, when that could be a contributing factor emerging from a religious minority backed by a factor of economic or land factors like the war that resulted in the Republic of Slovenia emerging and thus creating the republic in the 1980s (or 70s, quite recently).

Then again, it depends if all non-religious wars are purely athiestic wars, they could just be wars with a whole range of different contributing factors which all conflicted towards another group or country.

The Afghan and Iraq Wars for example, they're not purely religious wars, one half might say so, while the other half is to "protect the world" or oil, depending what your opinion is on them

[[Jay]]

I think religon is a postive influence.
First of all most of the laws of today did come from religon.

Also while there is people out there that do use religon in a negative way but there is alot more people who use religon in a postive way. Religon helps teach people to behave in a good way, to be kind, helpfull and loving. Without religon the world today would be very diffrent. It would just be a world full of money hungry people with no morals.

Religion wont really put a stop to any problems, if religon didnt exist then something else would take its place which would still cause the same problem.

[DrLacero]

Revolutionary War

No, the American Revolutionary War was over the American colonists not obeying the laws of the British parliament.

French/Indian War

No, that was over land and differences in ideology between Catholics and Church of England

Spanish Civil War

No, that was a corrupt monarchy and the Catalonia and Basque religions wanting independence which pissed off the Catholics.

Napoleon Conquests

No idea why Napoleon wanted an empire, why does anyone?

Mexican - American war

Border conflict over Texas.

Italian invasion of Ethopia

Mussolini wanted an empire, so he took on the poorly-armed Abyssinians, one of very few indipendant African countries.

Fought on the basis of decaying religious values or on no religious values at all. Not to mention to 180 Million people executed by Stalin for being of a religion and the Holocaust.

Holding of a religion was never outlawed and the Soviet Constitutions always guaranteed the right to believe. Most of the people Stalin killed were the Intelligencia and Aristos.

And where the hell did you get 180 million?

20 Million (Stalin) + 6 Million (Holocaust) = 26 Million.

[Black_Apalachi]

Obviously religion has both a positive and negative influence on society, but I believe the positives greatly outweigh the negatives.

Primarily because of what TaffTalk was getting at; religion holds society together. I was having this discussion with a friend the other day and we were trying to imagine what the world would actually be like if the concept of religion had never been conceived. Society as we know it would be infinitely different, that's for sure.

Religion gives people hope (whether it is false or not is irrelevant), they still have some hope for when times get hard and helps people make the right decisions. Without the fear of God, this world would be an insane place to live. This is coming from an atheist, but I know for a fact that believing in God prevented me from doing some stupid stuff in the past and I think it set me on the path to being a better person.

Of course, you can't deny all the war and hatred that comes with religion. But I'm pretty sure we would be experiencing this on a much larger scale had there never been any religion in society. People have mentioned the value of human morality, but surely religion has an influence on that itself? What we call "right" and "wrong" has no doubt been highly influenced by religion whether we like it or not. We have no idea what sort of morals we would hold without it.

While I am disappointed that all the stuff I grew up learning about is not actually real (well, this is what I believe), once I'm dead, it won't make a difference. However, being brought up in a religious family is far better than some of the families I hear about on the news and even if I no longer agree with the fundamental beliefs, I still value what I have learned through religion about how to live my life.