List the harmful effects of religion ?

[In This Mind]

A Christian would have a stronger motivation that an atheist to save you because if you died it would mean you would be subject to eternal punishment but if he saved your life there would be a chance that you might become a believer in Jesus and receive eternal life. If the believer were of some other religion this might not be the case and you might be better off depending on the atheist.

That's not what the bible says.

Deuteronomy 13:6 If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers;
13:7 Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth;
13:8 Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him:
13:9 But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.
13:10 And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.

2 Corinthians 6:14 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?
6:15 And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?
6:16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
6:17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.


Also, read this - http://www.snopes.com/glurge/choice.asp

The 'Christian' left the 'Christian' to die, and this is considered 'heartwarming'. Let's ignore that if the 'Christian' had the IQ of a toad, both kids would have had life vests on before they even set foot in the boat. Ah, the glory of being an atheist. One gets to cut through the bullshit and call things like they are.

[Jaysyn]

A Christian would have a stronger motivation that an atheist to save you because if you died it would mean you would be subject to eternal punishment but if he saved your life there would be a chance that you might become a believer in Jesus and receive eternal life. If the believer were of some other religion this might not be the case and you might be better off depending on the atheist.

That's not what the bible says.

Deuteronomy 13:6 If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers;
13:7 Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth;
13:8 Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him:
13:9 But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.
13:10 And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.

2 Corinthians 6:14 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?
6:15 And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?
6:16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
6:17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.

Most Christians ignore the "non-fluffy" parts of the old Testament. The ones that don't are generally the real whack-jobs.

[In This Mind]

Most Christians ignore the "non-fluffy" parts of the old Testament.

That's why I also added words spoken by character of Christ himself in the New Testament.

[Edwardo Piet]

EvF -

Exactly, they cherry pick. They choose to do the good things that the bible says, and they ignore the bad things. Most religious people, for that very reason, are not harmful.

Nor are they rationally consistent about the book they believe in. They could do good things and not do bad things without being inconsistent in Christian beliefs - if they didn't have them.

Some religious people are harmful because they take some bad bits literally. This is one way of believing in the bible - but it's impossible to negatively follow the bad bits of the bible you don't believe in it at all.

EvF

[Godhead]

EvF -

That's right, most don't follow what their book says in full. If they did, they'd be harmful. But clearly they're not because they don't.

[Edwardo Piet]

Cherry-picking in such a biased way in order to favour a placebo over rationality shows emotional and mental immaturity, is unhealthy and could possibly lead to more harm IMO. Delusion itself is more harmful than not all other things being equal IMO. Wishful thinking isn't good. Belief should be based on what you think is true not what you like or dislike because you're unwilling to be consistent in your beliefs if you find it unattractive to do so. IMO. Not all delusion is harmful but I think a lot of it is. And, a question: who would you rather be in the company of - someone who is deluding themselves or someone who has a clear grasp on reality?

And, most may not 'follow their book in full' as you say - but many do. And many cause a lot of harm because of this - and more so has it been the case throughout history when literal interpretation was more common. There are plenty of harmful effects of religion that has come from people actually consistently taking it literally. And consistently taking it literally is actually following the religion fully as opposed to ignoring the bad parts - so the more consistent you follow it - the more harmful it is.

EvF

[Godhead]

EvF -

In answer to your question, it depends on any number of factors other than just the ones you've defined. You're saying that delusion itself is harmful, but are you taking into account that in the world there are billions of harmless people who are deluding themselves over one thing or another and I'm not just talking about religion? It doesn't add up at all. And that's just it, you say that religious people cherry pick, and I agree. It is for that exact reason, meaning the fact that they have a sense of right and wrong, that they aren't harmful. That's the issue here. What you're doing is equating delusion with all manner of sinister things, which in my view is exaggerating, and also clearly untrue because I'm sure we all have religious neighbours and relatives and friends. Mine are all peaceful people, are yours? If they are, does that not show that being religious, indeed even deluded in itself in any way, doesn't equal dangerous? I'm sure reasonable people can come to the honest conclusion that it does, and I'm sure you're pretty reasonable yourself. I know that you're putting a lot of focus on how they cherry pick nd how that means that they're not following their religion to the full, and that's fair enough, but it's a different issue.

[Edwardo Piet]

In answer to your question, it depends on any number of factors other than just the ones you've defined. You're saying that delusion itself is harmful, but are you taking into account that in the world there are billions of harmless people who are deluding themselves over one thing or another and I'm not just talking about religion?

It is my opinion that overall delusion is more harmful than not. But I'm just being pedantic there.

you say that religious people cherry pick, and I agree. It is for that exact reason, meaning the fact that they have a sense of right and wrong, that they aren't harmful. That's the issue here.

The fact they can cherry-pick the good parts means they don't need the Bible to be moral. And those who don't cherry-pick and take the Bible 100% literally including all the nasty parts (or at least a few, or at least one of the nasty parts!) - do harm because of the Bible's existence. And there were more literalists in the past before than now. And despite the fact they are now in the minority - there are still plenty of them.

That is an example of the huge negative effects from religion (in this case, Christianity) throughout history, and less so but still today too.

What you're doing is equating delusion with all manner of sinister things, which in my view is exaggerating, and also clearly untrue because I'm sure we all have religious neighbours and relatives and friends.

No, see above. I was just saying that I think delusion itself is harmful because it isn't healthy and I think on the whole the more healthy you are the less harmful you are to others. That wasn't my main point at all. My main point is that many people DO take holy books literally and a great harm comes from that, and those who don't take it literally don't need to believe in it at all to be moral - atheists can know what's moral for the same reason as believers who cherry-pick can: That reason being that morality doesn't come from the book! But a lot of IMmorality can do - if the immorality in it is literally believed.

Mine are all peaceful people, are yours? If they are, does that not show that being religious, indeed even deluded in itself in any way, doesn't equal dangerous?

I don't believe I ever made such a claim. I just stated that IMO delusion itself is on the whole at least a bit more harmful than non-delusion - but that's just my opinion and not my main point. See above.

I know that you're putting a lot of focus on how they cherry pick nd how that means that they're not following their religion to the full, and that's fair enough, but it's a different issue.

As I said above, the fact they cherry-pick shows that their morals don't come from religion. But a lot of immorality can and at times does come from religion when the bad stuff in it is literally believed. See above. It's a clear negative effect from religion. In fact THE number one negative effect I think. Another negative effect would be that then on top of the literal believers that cause harm - there are some corrupt people who take advantage of them and use them as a weapon (it's certainly happened in history I say) and so that compounds the whole mess. History would be so much more free of bloodshed had the nasty parts of the Bible not been written (and had no other book with nasty bits been written in its place) for example. Because then there would be no popular nasty shit written in a book (or at least one less book like it - and the Bible is THE most popular of them) to be followed by a load of literalists who then could also (on top of that) have some corrupt people take advantage of them and use them as a weapon.

EvF

[superstarr]

In the event that I had to be rescued for fear of death. I would trust a beliver less than an atheist to make every effort to save me because the Atheist knows that this is all there is and death is the end.

A Christian would have a stronger motivation that an atheist to save you because if you died it would mean you would be subject to eternal punishment but if he saved your life there would be a chance that you might become a believer in Jesus and receive eternal life. If the believer were of some other religion this might not be the case and you might be better off depending on the atheist.

Odd, because how would a God who loves everyone equally take most of them to punishment? Besides, the Bible clearly states that if you don't follow this "God", you'll be sent to an eternal punishment. You know why that's funny? Because that mans that 70%+ of the ENTIRE Earth will be sent to hell by God. Do you really think that it's" just"? Or rather, do you think it's "equality" by God's behalf? Since Christians tend to think that God and the Bible are the most real of all religions compared to those who have other religions. Other religions don't exaggerate their beliefs like Christianity does. Christians exaggerate their religion to where they want everyone to follow them, and they tend to want to "save" them because a book tells them that if people don't follow God, they'll go to hell.

[Godhead]

EvF -

I already agree with you that you don't need the bible to be moral. All I'm saying is, and I dare say you are kind of agreeing with me, is that most religious people use their natural sense of morals, which most of us have anyway, to pick the good bits. In fact if you were asked to pick out some good bits I'm sure you'd be able to and you would. Can we not also agree that those who consciously don't omit the bad bits from their behaviour and attitude aren't very moral to begin with? See it all comes down to the individual. The fact that most religious folk don't do bad things any more than most atheists or agnostics or whatever, shows that most perople, whether religious or not, are moral. The bible is just a book, it doesn't force anyone to read it or follow it, people do that of their own choice. What they choose to take from it is determined by themselves, not the book. The book is harmless, so is Mein Kampf, and any other "naughty" book. Books are nothing, it's who reads it and what they do about it that makes any difference. As for delusion being unhealthy, I'm sure we could both make a list of things which the general public are deluded about. For example, most people believe that what the mainstream media says is all true. But in fact, for whatever reason, it isn't. And so on. If delusion in itself is so unhealthy, then why aren't we all nuts, why aren't we all killing each other? Do you see what I mean? I do think you're exaggerating. I'll go this far with you : A lot of delusion, in certain areas, can be a very bad thing. I'll also say this : The only thing, as far as I can think of right now, about religious people, that I (and I hesitate to say it, and actually I don't quite mean it but it's the closest word I can think of) disrespect (again, I don't really disrespect it) is the fact that they don't often question the bible, and at least try to make full sense of it. Other than that, I see them as cheerful, happy clappy, nice enough people. Sometimes a bit pushy but I don't mind.