I was walking past a church today, one a many in the area, and thought for a second that maybe religion wasn't all that bad.

While I'm sure I'm missing many arguments for the other side (enter you guys), and while religion has contributed or been responsible for many of the bloody, violent struggles of mankind, maybe there are some benefits to having a society bound by religion.

An example of what I'm trying to say would be something like, perhaps without religion, all the people who claim to be Christians would lose their purpose in life. They'd be less successful and wouldn't act the same way. Instead, maybe they'd be violent, chaotic, out of control, etc. Without the force of God hanging over their head, there's no telling how they'd act.

Those of us who live without religion clearly don't need it to keep us on track and contributing to society in a healthy way. But those who rely on religion for this guidance might actually need the guidance, and without it they would be psychopathic maniacs or something.

I'm pretty doped up on cold meds at the moment, so maybe this makes no sense, but I'll try to elaborate as the day goes on and my head clears.

I like to think that this is not the case but I have no way of knowing.

It only takes a second.

stop watching porn so much. if you think some made up bull **** is the only reason many of those people are sane, then stay on those cold meds

wat

I think you're underestimating the amount of people who are motivated to do good because of the bible and the churches teachings. Not all of them will go crazy without religion. But surely some of them would. They need religion in their lives- it's like a crutch. Take it away and it all falls down.

It keeps people pacified and I'm not sure that is a good thing. Is it a positive that slaves had religion to cope with their situation? How about people that have the most monotonous existence but are ok with it because this life is just a trial for things to come?

hard to say. the only evidence we have is how atheists behave in society. i wish a longitudinal study on atheists behavior, both in civil and legal matters, was undertaken. i have little doubt we'd come out on top. but until then its only speculation.

also, i think most anyone, under the right circumstances, could have turned out to be an atheist. i dont think its just a matter of "relying on religion." so imagining that religion keeps them in line is kind of like saying that they are somehow different from us atheists. which i dont really think is the case.

I don't think its hard to think of positives from religion. There are plenty. I think religion inspires many people to do good. I see many religious people, through their churches, develop a strong sense of community. It gives many people hope and comfort in hard times. It leads to fun holidays.

But I don't think the argument has ever been that there is no positives from religion. The questions are (1) is it truth (2) is it necessary (3) is it more harmful then good.... etc.

Do we agree that some % of faithful practicing members of a religion see it as a crutch to get through hard times, stay in line, act a certain way, etc?

Now that that away from them- what happens? Where do those people turn?

Perhaps, if they grow up without the crutch they adapt and find their own ways of focusing and coping. Or perhaps they're never able to stay the course, because they needed the stability (hence their dependence on it later in life)

.

There's a lot of possible answers. For starters, they may not actually need the crutch. Religion is not the only crutch... they can find alternative ways to deal with hard times.

Those people can turn to family, friends, charities, social networks, the boy scouts, join a book club, etc.

Assuming the atheists on this forum are some what representative... it appears most of us were raised in religious households. We all adjusted to no crutch, there's no reason to assume others can't. (and most of us are not criminals, have coping skills/networks, etc.)

Kill the wise one!

manupod - imo you are absolutely right. the functional benefits of religion are the main reason it has been so prominent throughout human civilisation.

i think people often underestimate just how ****ed up other people are.

yay, i'm right for once. if you were being sarcastic, don't tell me, because i want to believe, as much as it defies logic!

im not being sarcastic. ive actually argued very similar points on rgt in the past.

I think atheism is the default setting. Almost every religious person believes in their religion because they have been taught it from a child.

OP I will tell you one good thing that came out of religion in the United States. It was our founding fathers' inclusion of God in the Declaration of Independence and other founding documents.

The Declaration states: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness..."

Something to think about:

Quote:

Our founding fathers separated church from state, but they wisely did not separate God from state; they acknowledged God as the source of our human rights, and, in fact, they were careful to place Biblical morality directly into our founding documents and laws, and into our values and culture precisely to help prevent a future of totalitarian or tyrannical rule in America. The combination of acknowledging God as the source of our rights, keeping Judeo-Christian religious morality in the state, as opposed to the church its self; and, additionally, setting up our laws based on reason and common sense has contributed to the American Character, and to what is known as "American Exceptionalism."

Quote from Ronald R. Cherry's article Judeo-Christian values.

When God not the state is the source of your rights then its pretty hard for the state to deny you your rights. At least they can't do it without a fight and frequently the fight will be a public one.

Not sure why you decided to bring this debate into this thread when there is another one that where it was going on, but whatever. You say "founding fathers' inclusion of God in the Declaration" as if more than one had any significant role in writing it, and he wasn't the most vehemontly anti-Christian of the group. A couple off-hand mentions of God do not a founding basis for governance make.

I won't waste my time explaining to you what Jefferson was trying to do here at length, but essentially, making a massive, book-length case for inherent human rights and dignity being upheld right off the bat was a lot less politically effective, not to mention simple, than just appeasing the masses with a "God gave 'em to us" line. An enormous amount of scholarly work has gone into this subject, and I haven't seen any evidence that you've taken evne a cursory glance at it, you've just perused Christianist websites and latched onto that sweet, sweet confirmation bias.

When he says they "placed Biblical morality" into our founding documents, what he actually means is "some values that could be described as Christian are present." This, as we have been trying to squeeze into the vacuum that is your intellectual capacity for a couple of days, is not even slightly close to implying that the Founders intended to have America be government based upon Biblical authority.

The author says that we "keep Judeo-Christian religious morality in the state," which is just so wrong that I wonder how he is operating a keyboard. I got the impression that many Christians think our state needs these values inserted into it. His last part about setting up our values on reason and common sense is telling - he's right, of course, without realizing that this is exactly why they are not set up on Biblical authority. And he doesn't seem to have a solid understanding of what is being referred to when most people use the term "American Exceptionalism."

Well, not really (and again, this has nothing to do with the "is American government subject to Christian authority" debate). The "rights" provided by Christianity don't really resemble the rights our government provides. Rights, whether you believe they come from God or are simply a pragmatic way to ensure fair treatment of human beings, are still filtered through the state. So I don't see how this holds.

Well that a nation derives its rights from God is extremely important when you compare it with the times. The Colonists of the American Revolution were the rebels in the conflict because they were fighting England who claimed its authority under the divine right of kings.

Its incredibly effective and sublime for them to say that we don't get our rights from any monarch or head of state or government. We get them from God hence they are inalienable.

God is all good in his divine nature and God certainly usurps any king in his power. So the early Americans simply rested on the irreproachable and irrevocable power of God.

When the American Revolutionaries won every crowned head in Europe started to toss in his bed. Because if the divine right of kings is no longer valid then none of them was safe and they were right. The French Revolution and the guillotining of the King and Queen of France was just around the corner.

Common people became important when they had "inalienable rights from God". Suddenly crowned heads have to deal with Parliaments and stop saying haughty derogatory things like Marie Antoinette's "Let them eat cake" when the masses are starving. And straightening out a few petty despots is a really good thing for humanity.

I realize the political significance of this thinking. The next step in this intellectual movement was basically to remove God from the equation, but whatever. None of this has ANYTHING to do with whether American founding documents indicate that Biblical authority should govern America.

Yes, I realize that the government claiming religious authority was yet another egregious utilization of religion, and that the removal of religion from the political system itself was beneficial.

while its true atheism is the default, humans also have a very strong tendency towards superstitious beliefs, even those who werent taught it as a child still find god in some manner at some point in life.

First off I don't want to debate this. I was genuinely answering the OP question.

I'm not doing another debate on the founding fathers' intentions.

That's a crazy shell game of he said, she said. Jefferson was not the only founder.

I know who the American people at the time were. The majority were Christians and as such their values were IMPLICIT in the culture.

On top of that the 13 colonies remind me of the tribe status of Israel before they asked for a king and got Saul.

The early U.S. was like the early Israelite tribes that came out of Egypt. The early colonists came from people that fled religious persecution in Europe to worship God in a free land subject only to God. Its the stupidity of men that made the Israelites ever want to centralize everything under a monarch. They were led by God but looked at the pagan nations and asked for a king.

The U.S. did the exact opposite of the screwed up Israelites. We threw off our king and re-instated God as the head. Hallelujah....Praise the Lord...the U.S. may have topped every nation in the world by doing that in my humble opinion...that's all just my observation and opinion.

That's all I have to say. I don't even want to debate it.

Its amazing the U.S. are like the re-instated Israelites in the world and equally hated around the world. Hallelujah I just want to think about that for the rest of the day...and Praise the Lord btw.

Amazing.

If you don't even know what your own intentions are, how are you ever going to put forth a coherent argument?

wat


the


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No, you were, as usual, going off on a crazy and unrelated tangent. Lucky for you, I don't "debate" with you for the sake of intelligent argument. Like everyone here, I just like reading what you say because it's entertaining.

Good observation. Unfortunately, you were specifically mentioning the Declaration of Independence.

But we're discussing a legal document outlining how the government is to be run, so...