Religion is useless I was going to title this "Religions is optional" but I though this could garner more attention :Angel: Look at morality in respect to belief and non belief. Here are two challenges, as formulated by Christopher Hitchens. The point of this thread is for someone to meet them. 1. Can you name or cite a moral statement made or a moral action taken by a believer that could not have been made or done by a non believer? 2. Can you name an immoral thing said or done that could only have been done by a believer? The first challenge cannot be met. The second challenge is extremely easy to fulfil. What does this tell is? It tells us that religion is entirely optional. When it comes to doing good… yes religious people can be and are moral (by stealing from secular morality), but you find that the good they do is not unique to religion nor does it require religions. Conversely, when it comes to immoral things you find that there some things which can only be said or done by someone who believes they have a divine warrant or command to do so, such as genital mutilation, scarring a child’s mind with threats of hell, etc. So while we can say that religion does a lot of bad… that it allows people to justify and commit immoral actions if they believe they have divine sanction, the argument that religion is okay/good because it does a lot of good doesn’t work, since when it comes to doing good, religions is optional. (Unless of course challenge #1 can be met.) "Jerry Falwell's foul rantings prove you can get away with anything if you have "Reverend" in front of your name." -- Christopher Hitchens
I think the original title would have been better, but ah well. Anyway, if you're really looking for an argument on religion, you'll probably get better responses on an athiest or religious forum. Just in case you were looking for a good argument.
It matters if we include reason/motive in "immoral thing." Stalinist Russia etc. did not commit horrible acts because of their athiesm. Neither did Hitler, Mao, etc. However, one could imagine a time and place where an athiest would kill a believer simply for believing in a diety. And thus Moose's answer is true. Edit: I realize imagining something does not make it true, but it is obviously within the confines of human nature to murder, commit mass murder, etc. due to a hatred for believers.
So, your basic argument is that religion is obsolete because people do bad things in the name of religion. Would that make science, states or ecomomics bad as well?
*Hat's off to Moose* You have said exactly what needs to be said. Only thing i can think to add is that: Religion isn't bad, Religion doesn't tell you to kill people (for the most part), it doesn't start wars or do anything. PEOPLE do that in the name of religion.
Im not a religious person. I dont believe in god and i dont believe in santa. That is my choice and it should stay that way. I hapen to think i get along fine in life and i treat others the way i would want in return i dont need a religion for that. I have no problem with others seeking comfort in Religion though. And lets face it, if it wasnt religion that caused so many wars and differences it would have (and has been) something else. "First it was the blacks, now its the muslims"
I think these questions miss the point. And your thread is horribly named. It violates the most basic premises of logic. Saying that morality exists without religion isn't the same thing as saying that religion doesn't contribute to morality. I'm not religious myself, but I'd think it was patently obvious that many, many perfectly well-adjusted people take their moral framework from religion. It's not the only place they could've gotten it, but it's where they got it all the same. And none of them advocate genital mutilation or terrify anybody else with talk of going to Hell. In truth, I think you're describing a small subset of Christians. The ones who are fueled to act by the threat of damnation. In my experience, more of them are inspired to act by their aspirations toward an ideal. Religion provides that. Obviously, the ideal can get twisted and distorted. But that's man's handiwork. We always do that. At its base, though, religion offers an ideal. One we don't hit. But aspiring to it is still important. And, being divine, it's a model that's harder to taint. Sans human foibles. Seems to me that what you and others who make these arguments are really saying is that religion is useless to you. To which I'd respond "You're probably right. So what?" Stuart
While I agree for many cases, there are obviously instances where religion has been the sole foundation. The Catholic church preaching against the use of condom use in Africa is, of course, the classic example. I really don't believe that the Catholic church wants Africans to die from AIDS. Rather the church believes the use of condoms and other contraceptives is morally reprehensible.
I agree, that is an example of pure doctrinal nonsense! I'm not saying religion never does it - just that religion isn't the only thing that does it.
Providing comfort to a dying person by reassuring them that there is an afterlife where their pain will be relieved and they will be happy. What's moral about that? I don't see a moral element to it. As I see it lying to a desperate person about something you have no direct evidence for is actually immoral if anything. I could say to a dying person that they just need to take a special pill and they will be free from pain and be happy, while actually feeding them cyanide, for the same result. They would be consoled in the same way. They would still die thinking that eveything is gonna work out. As Hitchens points out (I can't remember it directly so I'm paraphrasing) "A friend that offers false consolation is a false friend". I also don't agree when people try to seperate a religion from the people that practice it (especially Ap Oweyn as I've heard him say the complete opposite when talking about martial arts "styles" ). Christians ARE Christianity. A religion manifests itself in the world through the actions of its adherents. There isn't some hidden cave somewhere where all the religions hang out and moan about how the people that represent them are doing it all wrong. The people are the religion. I think that it's utterly clear that people DO NOT take their morals from religion. People that do exactly what it says in the bible or Quran are deemed fundamentalists or madmen and distanced from moderates that don't. People pick and choose. Atheists pick and choose what they want to do or not do (hence Stalin and Mao...but not Hitler because he probably wasn't one) and so do religious people. The problem is that religious people then say they adhere to some "truth" while pretending that the way they live now is what God intended all along and that the murdering fundamentlists have got it all wrong.
Hang about. I always separate people from their martial arts styles. I always say it's about what the person actually does. And not that any person is the living embodiment of a style. So if I am separating Christians from Christianity, that's not inconsistent with my view on styles. Though I'm not really clear how I've done that anyway. I don't really know what "Christians ARE Christianity" really means, to be honest. Christianity isn't some big uniform thing. There are enormous degrees of variance in people's understanding and performance of Christianity. Hell, there are huge degrees of variance even within the various institutions of Christianity (different denominations for instance), even without introducing personal variance (e.g., degrees of adherence) into the mix. But the actions of adherents vary widely. So if the people are the religion, then the religion varies widely too. As I said, I know plenty of Christians who don't preach about me going to Hell. So are THEY Christianity? Or are the fundamentalists who ARE convinced I'm going to Hell Christianity? I'd argue that the Bible does not constitute the sum total of Christianity. And it's patently obvious that the Bible doesn't constitute the sum total of religion. But for the sake of discussion, there's my mother. She's never regularly attended church. She's never read the Bible. But she considers herself a Christian. Because she aspires to the example set by Jesus Christ. *shrug* It's not my belief. But it's clearly not useless either. Not to her. And I'm quite sure that she's not the only exception we could identify to disprove the generalization. I think that's a different issue. The original assertion was whether it was useless. And I don't think it is. Stuart
A non believer can equally do this. There is nothing stopping a non believer from doing this to provide comfort. For example, if a child was terminally ill and shortly going to die, or say there favourite pet has just died, saying they are going to/their pet is in a “better place” doesn’t require a belief. Or, if someone was a devout Christian, on their death bed, and emotional, I probably would remind them of their own belief, and get them to think of the pleasures that await them. Although I wouldn’t to it to someone who didn’t already believe since I think it would be quite patronising, that they were incapable of handling the situation. Anyway the bottom line is it doesn’t take belief in the tooth fairy, or Santa Clause in order to tell the story to your children in order to make them happy. Not this causality error again! Stalin, Mao, etc didn’t do what they did because they are atheists, in the name of atheism, they did it in the name of ideology, adhered to by the same dogmatic blind faith that we see in religion. However, we have had acts committed by religious people, specifically because of their religion. Moving on... are you saying the mutilating the genitals because you think there is a divine command to, or telling children that they will burn in hell if they don’t believe X can be done by people other than believers. If so, please provide an example of this happening. Hitler was a Christian, and his Final Solution was based on Luther’s racism for Jews. You could imagine a time? That’s your argument! Do you have an actual example of this? As far as I am aware there has never been a case of this happening. But the point is whether someone does such a thing precisely because they are an atheist, rather than some dogmatic ideology. No, that is not what I’m saying. What I am saying is that people often try to justify religion by saying it is good or useful because it does good things, but this isn’t true, since there is no ethical thing which a religious person can do or say that a non religions person couldn’t. Religious people often credit their chosen religion, but the religions itself it not required. So this renders religion optional.
No, religion doesn’t contribute to morality. Morality is innate, and morality is secular. Religions often present immoral things as if they are moral (divinely sanctioned), and then there is Christianity, which tell us that we cannot even be moral, at all. No, they don’t. They may claim they do, but they get their morality innately, and via secular means. Christianity, for example, holds that we cannot even be moral agents, it holds we are incapable of being moral. I don’t know what you mean by distorted, since there is no objective factor in determining what is true in a religions, it is all subjective, and EVERY theists uses religions correctly. Religions itself is merely a projection of the individual, it’s used to provide justification (special authority) for peoples own ideologies, politics and desires, etc when they otherwise would not have any justification. As such, everyone uses religions correctly, from the little old lady down the street, to the Pope, to the likes of Bin Laden. It’s very easily get moderate and extremist brands of most theology from the available scriptures, as such, you simply choose and emphasise the parts which support your own views, politics and desires, and then you present them as that of gods. That way, if people don’t agree you can call them a sinner and a heretic… or kill them! This is the history of religion. In fact, most people’s god is merely a projection of themselves… if the most important issue for the individual is homosexuality, then that becomes the most important issue for that individual god. If it is “getting along happily” then that becomes the message of their god and so on. But none are actually incorrect, they are using religion correctly. People are only deemed from wrong from the subjective perspective of someone else, so if you have no problem homosexuality, for example, then you’ll likely think the anti-gay god and theology as wrong/false.
This is a key tenent in Christianity, and serves as a very humbling reminder to believers that NO ONE is perfect, to keep perspective, and to continually aspire to an unattainable level. Does this offend you? Are you bothered that a religion points out human imperfection? Others have made contributions that I don't feel need any more emphasis than what has been stated...but I'm curious as to your motive in creating this thread. Horrible things are done in the name of religion. Horrible things are done for the heck of it. Wonderful things are done in the name of religion. Wonderful things are done for the heck of it. You seem to have a lot of anger towards religion, and it makes me wonder where you developed this anger. In my opinion, some people are simply disturbed and imbalanced. They may use religion as an excuse to validate their distorted views...but if it wasn't religion, they'd call it Patriotism, Ideology, etc...in order to give weight to their beliefs and satisfy whatever misgivings they may have that, in their minds, justifies their absurd actions. Wow...that was a huge sentence. Punctuation are good.
No, what it tells us is that the only way to be saved is by accepting Jesus... the only way to 'remove' our sin is through accepting Jesus. The problem with saying that we cannot be moral is that, clearly, there are moral people, so clearly, we can be moral. According to Christianity we cannot be moral... we a born into sin, we are born corrupt. As such, Christianity is a system which holds that no human can be a moral person, at all! We are sinning, due to original sin, simply by being born. Nothing can be done to eliminate this sin. Nothing. The only way to ‘remove’ the sin is in accepting Jesus as your saviour – to beg Jesus for forgiveness. Access to heaven and hell depends entirely on whether you’ve accepted Jesus as your saviour… ‘works’ and ‘acts’ themselves cannot get to into heaven or hell. You can do the most immoral things in your life but providing you repent and accept Jesus your place in heaven is secure, conversely, you can be one of the most moral and ethical people but if you’ve not accepted Jesus then there’s a pitchfork with your name on it. Furthermore, Christianity also tells us that all sin is equivalent in that all sin receives the same punishment – eternal hell. Yet find me a Christian who thinks that ‘rape’ is equivalent with ‘stealing a pencil.’ Every believing Christian should accept this tenet, but you won’t find any. Why? Because Christians actually take a recourse to secular morality, where actions are placed in a hierarchy, based on human needs. So behaviour like murder and rape are considered to be more serious than stealing or lying, and the punishment is given accordingly. In secular morality we even further distinguish the severity of many crimes, for example, stealing: if you steal a CD from a shop you’ll likely get a caution, maybe a small fine, but if you steal from a bank, you’re going to get prison time. All Christians fail to acknowledge what their Bible actually says on morality and sin. All Christians steal from secular morality, and just project it back onto their religion.
Now who's making a fundemental error of logic? You're asking whether non-believers can commit equivalent acts of immorality to religious believers but the only responses you're willing to accept as valid are those that involve religion. That's like saying "Only dogs give dog bites" and when someone says "cats bite too", you say "Ah, but they're not dog bites".
What I am saying is quite simple: Can you give a ethical act or statement made by a believer that could not have been made by a non-believer? (i.e. something ethical which requires religious belief, and could not be done by a non believer.) Then, can you think of something immoral, wicked, evil, etc, that could only have been done by a believer? (i.e. that no non believer would do.) Please explain what you mean when you say that: the only responses you're willing to accept as valid are those that involve religion.” I do not understand what you mean here. The point of Christopher Hitchens challenge is to demonstrate that religion is optional, and often bad… that (1) religion is not required at all to be moral [the first challenge] and (2) there are immoral things which are performed precisely because of religion [the second challenge]. (Here’s one of the many articles in which Hitchens discussess this challenge: http://richarddawkins.net/article,1412,An-Atheist-Responds,Christopher-Hitchens) P.S. And please explain my logical error?
I did correct myself on the imagine thing. However, it did take me a few seconds to realize why I was wrong on the third point. Thanks. Would a person killing another person solely because he felt there would be no reprucussion from a diety (because their are none) fulfill the condition? Granted this is incredibly unlikely since the word solely is in there, but I'm curious. "The point of Christopher Hitchens challenge is to demonstrate that religion is optional, and often bad… that (1) religion is not required at all to be moral [the first challenge] and (2) there are immoral things which are performed precisely because of religion [the second challenge]." This is obviously true, but I thought the second point also included that there are no immoral acts performed precisely because of athiesm.
