The World Would Be Better Off Without Religion

[Inseriousity.]

France, as a secular state, is also not immune to dictating how someone believes (the removal of crucifixions in public buildings or the anti-burqa ban). Regardless of whether you agree with the rules, it is still a rule telling someone that their belief is inferior to the state's ideal of secularism. In any institution, there are power-hungry morons whether it's a religious instituition or a secular one. Essentially, governments are based around an ideology, voted in or not, that they will try to reproduce within the society they govern (whether that's religious, secularism, fascism, nationalism etc) and any that do not fit into that ideology are persecuted through law, punishment (just and unjust) or marginalization. In short, when you point the finger at religious institutions being corrupt, just remember there are 3 pointing back at you.

[GommeInc]

Hmm, interesting discussion. I would be against removing all religion, when religion is harmless - it's the fault of individuals and groups and the merit of religion should not be weighed upon the actions of a minority, but what it hopes to achieve when up for interpretation. Those who are not religious pose as much trouble as those who are not. Also, donations given to religion (whatever that means, I assume the collection) usually end up going to good causes with a percentage going to maintaining the building and to pay any preachers (assuming they take it, quite often they don't). Removing one aspect of disposable income by chucking it at the church does not necessarily mean the money will go to other causes - it could be selfishly used afterall.

[Chippiewill]

They are, both the Catholic Church and the protestant churches do amazing fundraising and helping the poor especially in Africa and have done so for hundreds of years since the European powers first landed in Africa and the New World. I would trust the Catholic Church/other Christian organisations much more than any political UN-run NGO.

Haha, wow you are hil-ari-ous. I mean, I suppose it's not like the catholic church has some city which they spend loads of money on rather than for charitable causes. And it's not as if they have this one guy they spend loads of money on for no reason, but still far more money gets spent on building churches than they send to africa.

Ultimately religion's greatest achievement is breeding stupidity in the southern american states who are now incapable of proper logical reasoning.

From a subjective point of view I believe religion should be abolished, yes. Objectively religion shouldn't have any special legal cards to play, nor should the government interfere with religious affairs. Church's shouldn't be tax exempt and should just be treated as large groups of people with all the amenities etc. that go with that.

Edit: Bit of an addition to the destroying american logic and reasoning. This guy is running for president:

[jasey]

Alright. I waited for you to finish editing your post before I responded because you kept changing things a lot. I trust you are satisfied with what you have said now and thus I will reply.

I strongly disagree with this because ever since 1957, there are lots of declarations like that. Although there are such declarations, the government still did not issue on covering their body or at least, their hair as a must. Freedom there, you can see.

No - I certainly do not see how becoming an adherent to a certain belief (the Muslim faith, for example) should make you subject to declarations by governing bodies if you want to be considered a 'part' of the belief system. Granted, this is not my choice as people thrive on rules to follow and it is a cultural expectation for religions to be micromanaged. That being said, it is an assumed responsibility of any person, government or other governing body who has influence over a religion to not make statements that infringe on our basic freedoms as human beings.

I believe you said earlier (but have since removed it) that since most Malaysian Muslims 'ignore' the rules (like the yoga one I posted) it is no problem. Yes, this is a problem. The people that make the rules up seek power and when they fail to gather influence over their group of adherents because the believers are 'ignoring' their rules then the natural course of action is to do something more drastic to exert more power. This is exactly what happened in Iran and, as anyone can tell you, history does and will repeat itself. Hitler failed to learn from Napoleon when he invaded what is now Russia. He lost that battle gravely because he made a mistake and did not study similar cases to what he was involved in. Likewise, by ignoring the decline and freefall of human rights in Iran, other 'Muslim states' are headed down a similar path - oblivious or not, I am not sure.

And just fyi, all these declarations are made by the opposition party known as PAS in Malaysia. Well, the government/National Front party must tolerate them or else, there'll be political conflicts just like in Syria now. The reason is obvious and it's either one way or another.

Political conflicts are the basis of positive revolution. 'Tolerating' something just because you don't want to have to fight only allows manipulative and power-hungry entities to gain more influence and henceforth push more turmoil over their conflicting counterparts. You don't let people deal drugs because you are afraid if you don't 'tolerate' the drug dealers there will be conflicts. It is a bad thing so you take it, you deal with it and, most importantly, you never forget it. We must learn from everything.

We even have debates about using Malay as the language in Mathematics and Science but I don't see how badly it'll lead us to. I mean the language used in Mathematics and Science can be native language in certain countries and for example, Japan if I am not mistaken. So, does that mean those countries will be like Iran? Certainly not, I believe. I mean the country's economic growth will not be affected by it and become like Iran.

I am sincerely not trying to be rude but there is a language barrier that stops me from fully understanding what you are saying in this paragraph. To clarify the message that I think you're trying to get across, there are some people in Malaysia who want to use Malay as the official language taught with maths and science in the country. You also, I think, say that Japan uses Japanese as the official language of math and science in their country. Then you mention that this fact doesn't mean that Japan and Malaysia will ever be like Iran. I don't understand this analogy but I am going to give the benefit of the doubt to you and chalk this up to my shortcomings in English. Either way, math and science are topics based on facts and theories created by an international and diverse community of professionals. Religion is very different. You mentioned many shortcomings of organised religion in your original post so I don't feel the need to rehash that as it is clear you already know. No one can just create mathematical rules without proof - not anyone can be a professional mathematician that teaches over the world. Anyone can be a religious leader as long as they convince any group of people that what they say they feel 'in their heart' is true. Because of this, I don't really hold much confidence in a point made by comparing religious and educational policies in different countries. They are too different!

With that, all thanks to Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad who is a good leader and he definitely knew something valuable is in Malaysia which none of the PAS leaders have known. However, interruption of opposition parties is always there and it all goes down to how the government wants to handle it. And I'm sure the government won't be so stupid to implement laws which are not favorited by the large Chinese and Indian population here.

I have a problem understand what you are saying here as well because of lack of clarification. I will focus on your main point in the last sentence in that 'you think the government won't be stupid to implement laws that the large populations don't like'. I don't want to sound preachy but it doesn't take anything more than a basic history book to see various world governments applying laws and regulations that violate the interest and desire of the majority over and over. I advise you to be more skeptical and critical of what the government does. It is the responsibility of our generation to make sure the world does not take steps back in human liberty as it has in the past. Like I have said earlier in this post, we should always learn from past mistakes.

As to the domestic violence and rapes in Malaysia, I do not know where you get that info because Chew Mei Fun is no longer in the department and as for the reason, I have no idea.. She resigned or something, I guess. However, I hear a whole different story about domestic violence and rapes in Malaysia. And if you were to compare, women at Malaysia definitely have more freedom today than back in 1957 when the independence of Malaysia was announced or even surprisingly, before 1957 when Malaysia was under British colonisation.

I understand that government officials are not everlasting and I assume that you do too. This isn't a quote out of some ancient history text, though. It definitely holds some relevance and since it was reported without any obvious opposition in the media then clearly it isn't totally wrong.

That being said, I concede that you are much more in tune with Malaysian issues than I am. You live in the country and I do not. You have a lifetime full of experience and observational research under your belt that I lack. Because of this, I am going to take what you say with full submission. I am glad that women in Malaysia have more freedom than they did fifty years ago. However, that is the case all across the world with only a couple of exceptions. We can't attribute a global movement to a specific national government. I hope that is clear.

And as for England's domestic violence, I'm very sure I heard a BBC news reporter saying that there is an increase in the rate.

The links are very interesting and also from a reputable agency - the BBC. I take this in stride and although it conflicts with my own research that claims otherwise I will suppose that the true answer lies somewhere in the middle.

I am not British and referencing back to my statement that I lack a lifetime of Malaysian experience, I also lack a lifetime of British experience. All I have at my disposal for immediate research on this topic is the internet and, as I am sure you understand, the media and the internet is very twisted and often conflicts itself when different entities report different things. Even two different reputable outlets may say completely different things on a given topic. For the benefit of the debate, I will side with you and take a more cautious outlook on domestic violence in the United Kingdom. I will have to devote more time to researching it until I can give a fully definitive answer On that level, so will you if you want to do the same.

Well, from your point of view, yes maybe. But from my point of view, things are becoming better. We have government clinics which offer health care for only as low as RM1 which according to the currency converter, 0.3USD or 0.25EURO. So, it's cheap but for clear reasons, you shouldn't expect it to be like 5 stars health care.

I grew up and spent the majority of my life in France which is noted for its very comprehensive and high tier healthcare system (leading to people moving to France just to take advantage of that) and I have grown to expect only the best when it comes to my health. I don't expect to have to pay gross amounts of money (outside of established taxes) for basic hospital stays and procedures like they do in America and I also don't believe that because I don't pay like they do in other countries the quality of my healthcare should suffer. In my opinion (and as proven through the systems in various nations) it is possible to balance the tax system to allow for very good healthcare that also doesn't charge the patient for each and every possible expense.

I will stop myself there - this is not really part of the original thread topic and I don't want to derail things. I believe I have made my point about healthcare. I am happy, really, that you think Malaysian healthcare is acceptable. Perhaps a system like they have in a country like France is not feasible in the more developing nation of Malaysia. I am no economist. I personally believe that every human has a right to their life, and consequently, the best healthcare available no matter which economic class they fall in.

But, corruption is always there, I believe and racist thinking is everywhere even at countries like America or UK. So, I don't see how Malaysia is deteriorating.

Yes, corruption is ever present all across the globe. As a closing statement, though, I will lead you to something that may be startling or eye-opening to you. A non-biased NGO called Transparency International publishes a 'Corruption Perceptions Index' yearly to show how corrupt the media and government are in a given country. You mentioned Malaysia, America and the United Kingdom. I will also throw my home country (the one I have a lifetime of experience with) in to the mix. The corruption rankings - a higher number leans less corruption - in these four countries are as follows:

United Kingdom: 7.8 (16th in the world)
United States: 7.1 (24th in the world)
France: 7.0 (25th in the world)
Malaysia: 4.1 (60th in the world)

You can find this table on Transparency International's website if you are interested in seeing the rankings of other countries. As this shows, the United Kingdom is not very corrupt at all, France and America are on the same level and are not very corrupt either (globally speaking) and Malaysia is very far down the list with a score about half as good as the United Kingdom. As I mentioned - yes, corruption is present to some degree everywhere but there is certainly a scale that shows the differences in levels among nations across Earth and based on this it is evident that Malaysia has some big steps to make.

[Aiden]

But GOD?

Thread moved by Chris (Forum Super Moderator): Please do not make pointless posts!

[Deeb]

People need religion, no matter what religion is harmless in most individuals. When stress occurs, or bad things happen people can still rely on their religion and it's the extremists that ruin it for everyone.

[jasey]

People need religion, no matter what religion is harmless in most individuals. When stress occurs, or bad things happen people can still rely on their religion and it's the extremists that ruin it for everyone.

It is dangerous for you to say that religion is harmless in the majority of individuals. I am very skeptical of that statement and believe otherwise. It is, in my opinion, the minority of individuals who handle religion and spirituality with responsibility. To add on to that, I don't need religion. I know many friends who do not need it either. Blanket statements aren't usually appropriate.

[GommeInc]

It is dangerous for you to say that religion is harmless in the majority of individuals. I am very skeptical of that statement and believe otherwise. It is, in my opinion, the minority of individuals who handle religion and spirituality with responsibility. To add on to that, I don't need religion. I know many friends who do not need it either. Blanket statements aren't usually appropriate.

On what grounds do you have proof to believe the majority are not harmless? The term "silent majority" covers quite a lot of groups - religious, elderly, child, bikers etc. etc. I beleive the majority are harmless, because given the proof available, if the majority were dangerous there would be more stories grasping at all aspects of a group of religious people. As you said, blanket statements aren't usually appropriate and we both believe what we want yet there is no sufficient proof for or against either side

From experience I know of more harmless Christians than I do hostile ones - the church I worked for are pretty open to everything, with gay marriage being the only difference, yet the church my nan attends and I volunteer for to help with odd tasks are pro-same-sex marriage on the grounds the church do not own it, and do not feel the need to impose views on others when their individual merits are all that matter. I also read some of the material they are given by the central organisations, and they seem more community driven than hostile towards what a community does. They focus on the good, not the bad

It could be different where you are though

[peteyt]

To me Seth Green really sums up religion:

"God is, to me, pretty much an idea. God is, to me, pretty much a myth created over time to deny the idea that we're all responsible for our own actions"

I feel like people would rather believe in God, than accept that humans are in control of themselves and thus are capable of some of the crimes that happen. However it is not the case, I believe we make our own future, our own destiny.

I believe in some of the beliefs in religion well mainly the ten commandments, I just can't accept that there is a god. I used to always believe in heaven thinking there had to be something after death, nothing would kill people right - but then we can't remember before we where born and after death is the same due to no conciousness.

Jimmy Carr did a joke basically about being young believing in god and so on and then he grew up - he was religious to into his twenties funnily enough but isn't now.

I know we would still have wars if there was no religion but many of the current was wouldn't be like they where. Sadly people need something in their life to make their purpose seem greater, like there is someone else out there and has a purpose for them.