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Without targeting any specific religion, denomination, etc., there are several popular "movements", for lack of a better word, in the US whose ideologies are based primarily in religious doctrines, and which I view as detrimental to our culture, and I will explain why.

(a) The "teach the controversy" movement. This aims to insert counter-scientific truth claims into a settled area of science. In as much as this has succeeded, it places our youth at risk of not understanding an entire branch of science and its actual and possible benefits to society.
(b) The "protect marriage" movement. This actively seeks to deny equal rights to fellow citizens.
(c) The "pro-life" movement. This actively seeks to place medical decisions under state control.
(d) The "climate change denial" movement. This introduces popular confusion into the issue of climate change, which has potentially catastrophic consequence for the habitability of the entire planet.

On the other hand...charity. And in many cases, indispensable charity.

So, my question is, is religion in general a net benefit or a net detriment to western society?

Nope, it is not.

Now, what could you possibly post that would feel more like some big trollbait ?

Not trollbait.

I'm honestly just curious what gamers think about this stuff. It's a touchy subject with a couple good friends, so I don't really get a chance to talk about it.

If it's too touchy a topic for here, don't mind if its deleted or shut down.

Stick with Bacchus. Nothing can go wrong with the God of Wine, Intoxication and Sex

So, do you expect people from both side of the argument to argue peacefully while not getting angry at repeating all the arguments that have already been said in the similar threads that were closed here?
I would take bet on it being closed at about 5 pages. Let us see.

 jasper76 wrote:
On the other hand...charity. And in many cases, indispensable charity.

Charity can be done without religion. In fact it would probably be better without religion, since charity money wouldn't be wasted on things like giving bibles to poor countries instead of food or building a nicer church building. The reputation for religion being amazing at charity is vastly inflated by the fact that money a church spends on itself still somehow counts as "charity".

So, my question is, is religion in general a net benefit or a net detriment to western society?

Net detriment, obviously. Aside from the issues you've mentioned (which are absolutely correct) there's the problem that it's simply not true. It's like asking whether a belief in flat earth theory or 1+1=3 is a net benefit or a net detriment, even if it doesn't have any other consequences it's still bad to believe something that isn't true.

I had written out a response to this but felt that it would just be better to get this in instead.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
So, do you expect people from both side of the argument to argue peacefully while not getting angry at repeating all the arguments that have already been said in the similar threads that were closed here?
I would take bet on it being closed at about 5 pages. Let us see.

If your mission was to make me feel silly and embarrassed by posting thistthread... Mission Accomplished

To get an idea. Read the "Same Sex" thread

 jasper76 wrote:
If your mission was to make me feel silly and embarrassed by posting thistthread... Mission Accomplished

Sorry, I did not meant to be rude or aggressive. But yeah, religion is an obviously quite divisive and touchy subject, and when it is brought in such a way, I cannot imagine it going well.

Religion is neither good nor bad. It depends entirely on how each individual chooses to express their beliefs, much like many traditional institutions in the Western world.

 Peregrine wrote:
Charity can be done without religion. In fact it would probably be better without religion, since charity money wouldn't be wasted on things like giving bibles to poor countries instead of food or building a nicer church building. The reputation for religion being amazing at charity is vastly inflated by the fact that money a church spends on itself still somehow counts as "charity".

I don't disagree that indoctrination is not charity, but in the here and now, in alot of (most?) places, the bulk of actual charity work ( food, clothing, medical, and shelter programs) are run by religious charities...sometimes in partnership with business and government...but spearheaded by religious groups. And there are religious hospitals that are often the best or only game in town.

I'm wondering more about the actual, than the hypothetical.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:
If your mission was to make me feel silly and embarrassed by posting thistthread... Mission Accomplished

Sorry, I did not meant to be rude or aggressive. But yeah, religion is an obviously quite divisive and touchy subject, and when it is brought in such a way, I cannot imagine it going well.

I was really just trying to state my main criticisms against religion, rather than come off as a jerk. So sorry if I came off as a jerk.

I honestly don't think that religion in and of itself is necessarily a bad thing. There are plenty of fairly rational and religious people who see science as a way to gain a better understanding of how their creator works, etc.

I DO have a problem with that overly vocal segment of the religious sector that seems hellbent on forcing my kids to learn ideas that have been proven time and again to be false (or at least happen in a manner other than what religion teaches).

I'm too lazy to look it up now, but I had read an article recently that did a survey of charity, and here's kind of how things broke down:

Government workers (in the US) are fething Scrooge McDuck when it comes to giving money.
Religious people and religious groups give a good amount.
Atheists/atheist groups (or at least groups who are not founded around a religious ideal) give around double what the religious give per year.

Zond wrote:
Religion is neither good nor bad. It depends entirely on how each individual chooses to express their beliefs, much like many traditional institutions in the Western world.

I don't disagree necessarily. But we can have an intelligent conversation about whether as an institution (vs individuals), religion is a net benefit for society, just like we could have a conversation about whether centralized banking is beneficial to society, without talking about individual bankers.

Like most things in life it can be both good and bad and sometimes neither.

Is it good? Well it serves a purpose, it's really up to the individual to decide. For the standard individual, it gives some purpose to life. It gives an answer even if it might or might not be true.

(a) The "teach the controversy" movement. This aims to insert counter-scientific truth claims into a settled area of science. In as much as this has succeeded, it places our youth at risk of not understanding an entire branch of science and its actual and possible benefits to society.
(b) The "protect marriage" movement. This actively seeks to deny equal rights to fellow citizens.
(c) The "pro-life" movement. This actively seeks to place medical decisions under state control.
(d) The "climate change denial" movement. This introduces popular confusion into the issue of climate change, which has potentially catastrophic consequence for the habitability of the entire planet.

These are negative effects. That said, there are good acts such as charity that does very much so occur. And yeah, there will be the wasteful ones like here's some bibles indoctrination fill your spirits but there is also worthwhile charity events.

So overall? It's good as long as it isn't taken to the extreme (a vocal minority that is absolutely bonkers) as well as flaws in keeping some outdated morals that don't fit in whilst being relentlessly held onto. The question becomes, how do we judge pros and cons? What does each of these cost and how much does the charitable events and giving an "answer" help? Does it make a significant change? Does it not?

Religious is neither good nor bad.

Some religions will promote good things, some will promote bad things, some both.

Some people will use religion to motivate themselves to do good things, some people will use religion to motivate themselves to do bad things, some both.

Some people will do good things without religion, some people will do bad things without religion, some both.

Ultimately the value or religion as an institution is the same as a banking institution, or a government institution. It depends. Sure, there are some things that are inexcusable and others that are a great benefit to society, but ultimately, of the myriad of religions prevalent in civilization, each one espouses individual choice. It's the fundamental background of many of the institutions you wish to talk about. I think it misses the point slightly to discuss the overall "worth" of a religion without taking this factor into account.

 StarTrotter wrote:
Is it good? Well it serves a purpose, it's really up to the individual to decide. For the standard individual, it gives some purpose to life. It gives an answer even if it might or might not be true.

(a) The "teach the controversy" movement. This aims to insert counter-scientific truth claims into a settled area of science. In as much as this has succeeded, it places our youth at risk of not understanding an entire branch of science and its actual and possible benefits to society.
(b) The "protect marriage" movement. This actively seeks to deny equal rights to fellow citizens.
(c) The "pro-life" movement. This actively seeks to place medical decisions under state control.
(d) The "climate change denial" movement. This introduces popular confusion into the issue of climate change, which has potentially catastrophic consequence for the habitability of the entire planet.

The question becomes, how do we judge pros and cons? What does each of these cost and how much does the charitable events and giving an "answer" help? Does it make a significant change? Does it not?

These things would be difficult to judge, two of them are issues about civic rights.

The teach the controversy issue could be measured in pure dollars. Like, how much money are we losing because our kids don't know biology. I think our medical/pharmaceutical industry suffers, because there's less of a talent pool, and that could be measured in dollars and lives.

Climate Change can be measured in dollars. The bill is already running.

Charitable work is probably best measured by lives saved, though how you would know you'd saved a life or not would be beyond me. It can be measured in dollars though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Zond wrote:
It's the fundamental background of many of the institutions you wish to talk about.

While that conversation does interest me, I said expressly in the OP that I did not want to talk about that here....to keep things civil

 jasper76 wrote:
I don't disagree that indoctrination is not charity, but in the here and now, in alot of (most?) places, the bulk of actual charity work ( food, clothing, medical, and shelter programs) are run by religious charities...sometimes in partnership with business and government...but spearheaded by religious groups. And there are religious hospitals that are often the best or only game in town.

Yes, but the point is those things would still happen without religion. If you want to know the net value of religion's contribution to the world you have to consider how much, if at all, religion has improved that charitable work over what would exist without religion. And the answer seems to be somewhere between "not much of an improvement" and "a net loss in charitable work". Religion is happy to fill those roles in areas where religion is powerful, but all it really does is put a Jesus label on things that any secular charity could do. And on the negative side there's the huge amount of wasted money thanks to religion treating "give money to the church" as charitable donations, meaning that a person's feeling of obligation to give $X to charity is partially fulfilled by things that aren't actually charity. In a world without religion that wouldn't happen, and the full $X would go to legitimate charity work.

I'm wondering more about the actual, than the hypothetical.

But you can't answer your question without considering the hypothetical. To answer whether something is a net positive or negative you have to know what the reference point is. And that means considering a hypothetical world without religion and looking at the ways in which our actual world is different from the hypothetical one.

 jasper76 wrote:
Without targeting any specific religion

How do we talk about the effects of religion on western civilization without referring to the 800lb. gorilla? Either we are going to talk about it or we aren't, I would think.

 jasper76 wrote:

Charitable work is probably best measured by lives saved

Which secular charities would be by far the most successful at. There isn't really a religious charity that can compare to the scope of MSF or the Red Cross.

@peregrine: I mean, if you wanted to compare efficacy of secular vs. religious charity, that seems eminently doable.

The more interesting question to me is whether, in the here and now, the benefits of religion outweigh the detriments.

Q: do churches (and charity advertising in general) actually increase the amount of money people donate to charity, or do they just change who it's donated to? I'm sure I remember reading the answer somewhere but don't recall what it was. I think it was the latter.

One interesting aspect that isn't religion exactly is the community aspect of religious groups. People can get together and make friends and do things together in the local community. Of course, there are non-religious community groups that can do that too, but I don't know how common those are compared to ones based on a common religion. (Though I guess that brings up the same question as the donations - do religious groups actually increase the participation rate or are they actually taking away participants from non-religious groups?)

 Ahtman wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:
Without targeting any specific religion

How do we talk about the effects of religion on western civilization without referring to the 800lb. gorilla? Either we are going to talk about it or we aren't, I would think.

Right. But the point is, we all know there is a wide rainbow swath of forms of Christianity out there. From literally not believing in any of it, but doing it for the rituals or communal environment, to lock-your-kids in the basement and staple their eyes shut.

Many Christians believe in evolution, climate change science, equal rights, and reproductive freedom. I'm not willing to paint Christians as a whole with the same brush.

Religion is about as good for Western Civilization as nationalism is, or any other ideology that encourages group think. The inevitable result is that someone is going to eventually figure out how to use it to control people and get them to do what they want them to do.

"Religion" like most dogmas is fine; Human beings just aren't mature enough to utilize it properly. We will take any excuse we can and use it to paint others as different and inferior to ourselves.

Not really, they can have it if they want though just keep it the hell away from important decision making stuff that should really be done without some religious beliefs being pelted at it.

Its simple really. Like everything, some good some bad.

The Great Wienie cares not, for at the end of days, Wienerdamerung will come, when Cthulu awakens, when the Great Pasta Being arises, and the dachshund legions will lead the epic war against the Squirrel King and Cat Queen, and free us all for a thousand years of peace.

It has happened before, and will happen again.

I'll just leave this here. NSFW for language.

Religion is a Tool, and just like any tool it depends on who wields it.

In the hands of the right people it can do a lot of good and help a lot of people.

In the hands of wrong people it can cause violence (Which it does while in "their" hands)