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Bushman
climber
The state of quantum flux
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May 26, 2017 - 03:22pm PT
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I can't wait to weigh in on this topic, too busy with work right now. Science deniers beware...
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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May 26, 2017 - 03:38pm PT
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Y'all haven't sussed this out yet? LOL
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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May 26, 2017 - 03:48pm PT
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Bushy's got wood!
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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May 26, 2017 - 04:00pm PT
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To the titular question: "Is Religion Doing More Harm Than Good These Days?"
The answer depends on whom you ask and how you define harm and good :)
I posit that every person acts in exactly the way that helps them best avoid pain and obtain pleasure according to their perceptions of present and future circumstances and outcomes. It follows that the large numbers of religious followers in the world are receiving more good than harm from their involvement, according to their perceptions.
Where it gets messy is that defining the immediate and future pleasure and pain depend on people's priorities, and their perceptions of present circumstances and future outcomes.
There are some pretty deep human needs that religion meets:
 affirmation of being worthy of and receiving love
a sense of fellowship, acceptance, belonging in a community
a way to cope with the sense of powerlessness, of realizing our insignificance in the universe
a defined moral/ethical framework
reducing the risk and fear of loss from crime
I'm sure the collective hive can rattle off many more.
But the point is, these are the fundamental problems of humanity, and religion is but one of many possible prescriptions to solve those problems. Like many/most people in the business world I have encountered, when you ask someone what they need, they have a hard time articulating what actual problems they are trying to solve and instead focus on whatever "solution" they are familiar with and parrot the talking points of that solution.
Religion itself is not a problem- it is simply a framework or contract for people to get a variety of needs met, in exchange for something else. One problem is that the leaders of religion represent a broad spectrum of humanity, many of whom will use whatever they have at their disposal to manipulate others for their personal gain. So they use the age-old sales techniques of fear, uncertainty, and doubt to influence their customers, and then leverage their position of power (saving people from eternal damnation or being a gateway to divine pleasures) to obtain more from the customer in their contract negotiations.
I don't like to disparage things unless I can see better alternatives. In this case, finding better alternatives amounts to clearly defining what are the problems of humanity that religions address, and suggesting solutions that are as pragmatically effective to those problems. Yes religions yield many negative side-effects, but what other solutions can endure across a spectrum of humanity and inspire people of all levels of intelligence and socio-economic circumstances and all exposures to crime and loss of physical and emotional safety? It seems that people who are more curious and introspective and intelligent and more cozy in a life where they trust their continued well-being, are more likely to identify and participate in alternate solutions that don't require religion... but it is a tough sell to the masses.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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May 26, 2017 - 04:25pm PT
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per Gabors "normal"
IMO, his idea of society is bent. But he does get that God isn't standing over pullin strings. That the universe,, or atleast the World IS Reap What Thou Sowest. Which from my bench only gives him gratitude for knowing the law.
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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May 26, 2017 - 04:29pm PT
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So Happie, who "designed religion", as you put it in your second paragraph? Some Roman aqueduct engineer?
"Religion was invented when the first con-man met the first fool."
Anyway, I give $40 per month to the United Methodist Church Relief Fund. They do good things with it. The Methodists aren't some corporate super church out to fleece the flock.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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May 26, 2017 - 04:46pm PT
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Religion is part of the makeup of humanity and like so many other aspects of the human condition it can be used for good or evil. But the primary function of religion is to reconcile the human experience to the tragedy of life. When you look at Christ on the cross what you see is the acceptance of mortality and its absolutely inevitable nature and in that is the deflation of death's horror and its associated anxiety. Make your God what you want: some all powerful entity or nature itself, but make it you will.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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May 26, 2017 - 04:55pm PT
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NutAgain!: I posit that every person acts in exactly the way that helps them best avoid pain and obtain pleasure according to their perceptions of present and future circumstances and outcomes. . . . Religion . . . is simply a framework or contract for people to get a variety of needs met. . . .
Ah, a utilitarian. Someone call Kahneman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Kahneman);.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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May 26, 2017 - 04:55pm PT
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from Happies op;
Would you be willing to sacrifice “your” religion, if you believed it might reduce the conflicts which you may deem as unacceptable that are occurring within another religion? If only things were so simple, and of course they are not, but, for a moment pretend that they are. How would you answer that question: Would you be willing to walk away from all affiliation to your religion if you knew it would eventually bring about world peace, and why or why not?
What peace did you bring by walking away from your catholic heritage? Divide to conquer doesnt work gyrrrrl! That's why "religion" is for the birds. Quack Quack
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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May 26, 2017 - 04:56pm PT
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Religion's main role is to offer humankind a way out from mortality.....heaven or hell with a stop in purgatory for some folks. I kind of like the Mormon's take on life after.....if you done good bro you gets yourself your own planet.
Not buying it.....but I'll request a non casket burial so that my corpse can give back with some nutrients for the soil.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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May 26, 2017 - 05:05pm PT
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I should explain myself.
Providing a narrative about how people make decisions that relies upon a sort of cost & benefit view so oversimplifies cognition. It’s immensely more complicated than that. Really interested people might read the reports and theoretical musings from scientific investigators, or even a scholarly book that summarizes where recent thinking has gotten to. There are so very many puzzles that seemingly can’t get resolved to the communities’ satisfaction.
Kahneman’s work strongly suggest that what appears reasonable or rational in decision making is very often not. Instead people use heuristics. Believing in that conclusion opens the door to any so-called reason at all. Any interpretative framework will do. Guess what that includes?
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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May 26, 2017 - 05:07pm PT
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We were all Suns before birth. What might you think the morality on our Sun now to be?
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Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
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May 26, 2017 - 05:08pm PT
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I want a Tibetan Budhhist "burial" - cut my body into pieces and feed it to the buzzards!
Religion is harmful when we make the mistake of assuming that a given religion necessarily has a sustainable ethic.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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May 26, 2017 - 05:17pm PT
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^^^ God is, the only unchanging
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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May 26, 2017 - 05:27pm PT
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I kind of like the Mormon's take on life after.....if you done good bro you gets yourself your own planet.
hey Donini, would you be stoked with that? What if, you where there all by yourself??
So what say you is more important, if there can be an answer? The nutrients you'll provide to worms, or the nutrients you've provided to young minds??
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Don Paul
Big Wall climber
Denver CO
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May 26, 2017 - 06:46pm PT
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They may do charitable works, but how can it be "good" to promote ideas that are not true? Religions hold out the false promise of immortality - death is a fact many people just can't deal with.
I grew up in a church-going family, and as I grew older, came to view the indoctrination I was subjected to as a kind of child abuse. Children are so vulnerable and so trusting of adults. I also feel that my relations with my family are harmed by religions (different parts of my family follow different ones, including Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judiasm) - for example, I don't want to go to Catholic confirmations or Jewish bar mitzvahs because I don't want to contribute to the indoctrination of these helpless children who love me and whom I cannot betray this way.
I do like the Pope, who says even atheists can go to heaven. But, despite his qualities as a peacemaker and advocate for many good things, it's incredibly arrogant and maybe a little insane to pretend to be the spokesperson for a God that exists only in the desperate hopes of these poor, deceived victims.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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May 26, 2017 - 07:27pm PT
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And just what is the alternative to the "deception" of immortality? An existential philosophical notion of absolute aloneness in a cold, uncaring and unresponsive universe that offers only a kind of eternal oblivion and from which we are eternally separated. Which is worse the belief in the deceit of divinity or the truth which is an inevitable eternal nothing. What do you tell the mother of a dying child? Get over it? Know the truth? Be a man?
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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May 26, 2017 - 07:36pm PT
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hey! There was nothing before me cept what I cans imagine..
i am the. walrus?
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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May 26, 2017 - 07:55pm PT
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Which is worse the belief in the deceit of divinity or the truth which is an inevitable eternal nothing.
well your proclaiming divinity to be false. So I'm not playin ur game.
sorry I wanna be giving
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Bushman
climber
The state of quantum flux
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May 26, 2017 - 08:17pm PT
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And just what is the alternative to the "deception" of immortality? An existential philosophical notion of absolute aloneness in a cold, uncaring and unresponsive universe that offers only a kind of eternal oblivion and from which we are eternally separated. Which is worse the belief in the deceit of divinity or the truth which is an inevitable eternal nothing. What do you tell the mother of a dying child? Get over it? Know the truth? Be a man?
Get over it, become a physicist.
Cold and inhospitable as it is, the universe is a beautiful and magnificent thing to explore and attempt to comprehend.
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