What is it about "religion" that makes it inherentally a "good thing"?

Question

Many people who apologize for Islamist wars everywhere in the world do so with the belief that "its only a few". After all, all religion is inherentally good therefore we cannot look to the religion as the source of the problem...or so the reasoning goes.

Ok then, what is it about religion itself which is inherentally good such that, no matter what horrors people do in its name, no matter how often, certainly it couldnt not be the religious doctrine itself that gives rise to this...because after all, its a religion...and all religions are inherentally good.

The Aztec religion required them to rip-out thosands of pumping "hearts" from the live vicitim to scarifice to the sun God...do you then absolve this practice or are you a Aztec bigot? Oh, dont tell me, it wasnt a monotheistic religion right, thats the key difference...why?

Look, beliefs are beliefs. Nazism was a belief with written doctrines. Ultimately theres always an idealogy behind the horrors of the world...right?

Answer 1

It gives us hope, and hedges our bets. What if there is a God, and I wind up spending eternity in that great big Motel 6 in the sky where you can check out anytime you want, but you can never leave. Without even a mint under the pillow. I will spout the old bromide that religion isn't inherently evil, but only the way we interpret them. Religion creates a form of chauvinism wherein its followers feel that theirs is the only true chosen path. When God is on your side who needs reason?

Answer 2

Well, religion is inherently a good thing because it gives a belief system with rules to be followed. Our own laws are based on old laws coming down from religion. Granted, there are laws that have nothing to do with religion, but the origin of most of the laws that this country was founded on came from religious beliefs.

I can't speak for the Aztecs, but with Muslims, it is a minority that are overly violent. Forget religion and think about drugs for a minute. Some druggies are violent and shoot people for no reason or to get money for more drugs. Others are not. If all drug users were violent, there would be more crime in this country. But it is small amounts of them that are violent. Now come back to religion. If all Muslims were extemists, then there would be total chaos in this world with people killing people like they did back during the Crusades. Oh...and it's not just Muslims that are violent. Christians can be too. Both religions actually speak against violence, but you can find certain passages which can be twisted in such a way to condone it.

Answer 3

I don't think it's good. I think religions - all of them - are a negative influence on civilization, and should be done away with.

However, that doesn't make religion "bad" either. When a person does something bad in the name of a religion, that doesn't mean that the religion is bad - that means that the person is bad. Religion is just an excuse for aberrant behavior; it is not a cause of it.

Religion doesn't cause such behavior any more than guns cause murder. It's just a vector through which such behaviors occur. If not for religion, the religiously violent would find other ways of justifying their behavior, or would find other violent, extremist causes to support.

In some cases, it's just people going with the crowd. I believe that that, too, is a negative behavior - the mob instinct never does anyone any good. However, it is that tendency itself - the tendency to suspend individual cognition in favor of that of the group - that is the problem, not the religions in whose name it is done.

Answer 4

Ultimately probably. But you can't compare Aztecs and Nazi's who failed to maintain their existence because of their beliefs to Islam and Christian beliefs who still have thousands of years ahead of them. Even with differences they are inherently good. The majority of either one or Buddhists, or Hindus, Shinto, whatever in these modern times do not approve of violence and the horrors that happen because of a few in the world. No matter what some people do the religions still give them a chance for peace because that is what (modern) religion is all about. Not Nazism or ancient Aztecs (who actually had one of the largest civilizations in history wiped out by their beliefs)

Answer 5

Idk, who ever said religion had to be a good thing?

True, it does bring a lot of people together and it supposedly gives us great moral laws to follow and all, but look at everything else it causes. It brings some people together while seperating you from far more people who don't follow yoru same beliefs. It gives us laws to follow, but then each religion's laws are different and say all the others are wrong. To me it seems like it works in more negative ways than positive ways.

The worst part about religion is that it all too often causes people to disreguard their own personal beliefs and their intuitive skills. People end up following a religion's laws and teachings and often never really think why they are important and just follow them because they have been around for so long (so they must obviously be right).

People should learn to think for themselves instead of relying on thousand year old teachings that might be outdated. After all how are we supposed to move forward and improve as a society if we can't move on from the traps of the past?

Answer 6

You make the mistake of associating the religion with the horrors committed in its names. Religion serves basic human needs, and while it isn't right to kill someone in the name of religion, the fact that it happens is understandable, and bound to happen.

You mentioned the Aztec religion. This and many of the older religions often tried to ritualize death as a method of controlling it. Religion to them was more of a technology than an actual set of moral guidelines that dictated how you would live. Religion as a moral teacher is an idea that is relatively new as far as religious use goes. While it was used to organize social behavior, the religions of old very rarely to almost never had anything to do with dictating behavior other than pacifying deities and performing things that needed to be done in order for something to work. This is why it is often defined as a technology. It was also used then to lend prestige to those in power, whether through divine right of rulership, by fear of those who were in control of theocratic power, or both.

It's unfair, however, to categorize what types of religion have manifested themselves from the need as a fault in the need itself. Science can't answer everything, and maybe never will. But human beings can't be satisfied with just leaving that as is. We feel the need to know everything, and this is actually one of the best of our traits. We're knowledge seekers, problem solvers, and thinkers. We also can visualize a world in which we don't exist, which is unique to our species. This is a terrifying realization, and naturally seeks consolation of what seems like a horrid idea of being gone. Is that how it actually happens, and we're just gone after we die? I don't know. And thus, in comes religion.

When it comes down to it, religion seems to generally streamline itself toward the idea of becoming a moral teacher in some way, telling us how to behave to one another. While it's easy to look at the atrocities, the role of religion as a moral teacher is often overlooked. Each cultures have different ideas of what is right to do ultimately, but blaming those singularly on the faith that developed in the society is a gross oversimplification. Religion also has the capability to evolve, adapt, and grow as the ideas of a society change. When the society is chaotic, the religion may be used to justify what is occuring within the society. What few tend to realize though is that religions of the book are inherently disadventageous as far as adaptation to a culture is concerned. With the rigid ossification of the written word, they are harder to adapt, and hold some of the morals of a society whose ideas may no longer be relevant, but the hype around them as the ultimate word is unable to be dispersed without seeming hypocritical, or even worse, wrong. Thus it will be a much longer, harder battle to shed the ideas that belonged to a different time because of the religion, but it was the times again that created those sets of behaviors, and not necessarily the underlying theme of the religion.

So you can't take the actions that some perform in the name of religion as a bad reflection on religion itself. It is as necessary to humans as air, and losing it would ultimately be a surrendering of part of our own innate desires. Like anything else it can be misused, abused, and horrifying. But classifying religion as a whole as being responsible due to the type of religion that manifests as a society is not only unfair, but will ultimately leave any view of religion as biased.

... This is just bubbling off the top of my head. Sorry if it doesn't make sense.

Answer 7

Las Vegas Steve,
"What is it about "religion" that makes it inherentally a "good thing"?"
I don't think that 'religion is inherently good.

The Islamic extremists are an example. The early days of the Roman Catholic church is another. That is; in the violent sense of not being good.

They are both not good because they teach falsehoods about God and how to achieve salvation, and be in communion with God.

The Bible shows clearly that both are wrong.

Answer 8

Religion is what you make of it. It can be good, it can be bad. Its much like a gun. Do you blame the gun for killing someone? or do you blame the person for pulling the trigger of the gun? Its all in perspective really.

Most people work off of stereotypes and media for information on other religions. Most resources are incorrect and wrong.

Its all about perspective and views, are you really wanting to see what is really there or do you just want a pretty picture.

Answer 9

Ah organized religion, the father of bigotry and ignorance what would we do without it? Religion has been responsible for more death and destruction that anything else in history yet thanks to many centuries of indoctrination, it continues. A race of more rational beings would have abandoned it centuries ago.




***Religion is like a gun...I like that post. Something made for no other purpose than killing, yet doesn't get the blame for it. Good Comparison.

Answer 10

You have a way of coping with that which you don't understand and can feel comfortable that LOVE is a cure-imagined even offers compassion just like you might lie to someone so as not to hurt them and sometimes even help them!