Religion or Money ?

Question

Which is the greater evil,so many people in the world die every day because of both but which do you think is the greater evil and why ?
Living in Northern Ireland all my life I have seen how people kill or are killed because of a particular religion,however it seems to have changed to a power/money struggle,so now I cannot decide which is the more evil influence of the two !

Answer 1

Individually: if I was approached in anger by someone motivated by religion or money. I hope it was money, coz then I could pay them off. Religion would get my *** kicked.
As a whole the most evil concept I have ever heard of is the myth of paradise when you die!
Why bother creating peace on earth etc when you can go straight to paradise! Now thats pure evil...

Answer 2

Take a closer look at your Northern Ireland situation. The religious thing is just a facade. The real problems are economic.

This however, does not meant that money and religion are both evil. Both can be useful and good. People do the good or the evil.

People always say "O look at all the war and death because of religion." But what about all the death caused by philosphy? The Nazis and commies killed scores of MILLIONS in the 20th century, and the commies are STILL trying to...

Love, Jack.

Answer 3

Neither Religion nor Money is evil, they are sometimes just catalysts that wake up or grow the evil in us.

We should take a step back and see what allows this evil to fester and manifest itself: "An idle mind is the 'devil's' workshop".

Many of us are not busy or are deeply unhappy; ills of society such as unemployment, poverty, even neo-colonialism, oppression... all of these are fertile grounds for the evil in us grow.

Of course not everyone who is under unfavourable conditions will allow this evil to grow; these conditions are not an excuse for the behaviour, but they can be, to a degree, mitigating circumstances.

I am not saying that if everyone was gainfully employed and lived in a 'free country' we would not have people killed because of religion or money; I am just saying that in such a case, people would basically have less incentive to do the evil.

So, to me, the greater evil is neither money nor religion, but the ills of society which make people more receptive to the bad influences; on the contrary, in some cases, money or religion could help overcome these bad influences.

Answer 4

Let me give you some food for thought. My church does not take up an offering. Instead we have a simple box in the auditorium of the school we rent and a note in the program explaining where the offering can be placed. Our church is in the Black financially and we support 5 full time workers and our church programs are not cheap. Now as to why religion needs money to survive. Have you ever priced the cost of utilities in a large building? What about the cost for the materials in the church services? What about the cost of the facility itself. Even a simple church building is very expensive (take a look at the codes). Also, most churches have outreach ministries. Most also tithe out a percentage of the offerings to mission projects around the world. They also use this money for outreach projects. Most churches have benevolence funds, and they do get regular calls (often from people who never attend the services) which use up a lot of that money. But honesty, love, affection, sex, those do survive but they are done on a person by person basis. Where a good church is about a community of believers. Not only do I go to church for music and listening to a sermon, but it's also a time to share with others. Find out about their needs and build relationships. That community of believers is what is the difference between a good church and a bad one.

Answer 5

i'd say they're both as evil as each other. people will do anything for money just as other people will do anything fo religion. but i also think that money is a more widespread evil because everybody needs it to get by and so they tend to give it more importance and all the while give it more power. i don't know. good question though. i think you'd have to look it up in history to see which one caused more death and suffering. it's too important a question to guess on.

Answer 6

Both religion and money can be excuses to commit the most atrocious, immoral actions. It all depends upon the moral limits or boundaries the individual places upon his or her actions. Unfortunately when people get involved in groups, fighting for group aims, the first initial noble intentions can quickly become corrupted. The same applies for what we are willing to do/or do not do, in the name of money. It is easy to lose one's morality.

Answer 7

Religion.

Answer 8

I think when one is abused for the other, that's when we run into trouble. In and of themselves, neither money nor religion is bad. It is how people manipulate them that determines the outcome.
In the end, it's all about the choices that are made and the motivation behind them.

Answer 9

Those two things of themselves are not evil. Its what people do with them that can be called evil. Its the people, and in both cases they can abuse equally.

Answer 10

All real questions of survival and protection for the family is materialistic, religion a preferred form of expression for it, but the unrealistic nature of supernatual belief block the way to superior forms of peaceful expression for it. History and its progression starts from the beggining and moves developmentally forward. That's the way it went, this is the way it's going, which way from here. One is not more or less evil than the other and the human will is supplied individually in individualistic times and places. What we know of it shall dramatically change the way we use it.

http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/w/i.htm#will

"Hegel's Philosophy of Right is an elaboration of the dialectic of the Will: “The territory of right is in general the spiritual, and its more definite place and origin is the will, which is free”. In Hegel's system, Will originates in Subjective Spirit, which develops from Theoretical Spirit to Practrical Spirit, and thereby becomes Objective Spirit. For Hegel, rather than the State being a restraint on the Will of individuals, it is the highest expression of that will, but can become so only by the mediation of conflicting wills and their sublation into a higher determination. Hegel's social and political views and his concept of history, involve understanding how the various institutions and social formations develop, in terms of the dialectics of the Will. However, Will and Concept (knowledge), are inseparable from one another, and mediate one another."


http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/sp/osintrod.htm

"§ 483

The objective Mind is the absolute Idea, but only existing in posse: and as it is thus on the territory of finitude, its actual rationality retains the aspect of external apparency. The free will finds itself immediately confronted by differences which arise from the circumstance that freedom is its inward function and aim, and is in relation to an external and already subsisting objectivity, which splits up into different heads: viz. anthropological data (i.e. private and personal needs), external things of nature which exist for consciousness, and the ties of relation between individual wills which are conscious of their own diversity and particularity. These aspects constitute the external material for the embodiment of the will. "

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/sp/sspirit.htm#SS388

"(b.) Practical Spirit
§ 388

The spirit as intelligence is primarily, however, abstract for itself; as free will it is fulfilled, because it exists as concept, as self-determining. This fulfilled being for itself or individuality constitutes the side of existence or reality, the idea of the spirit, whose concept is reason.

§ 389

This existence of the self-determination of spirit is in the first place immediate, where spirit finds itself and as inward in itself or through nature it is self-determining individuality. It is therefore: (1) practical feeling.

§ 390

Free will is the individuality or the pure negativity of the self-determining being for itself which is simply identical with reason and therefore general subjectivity itself, the will as intelligence. The immediate individuality of the will in practical feelings thus has this content, but as immediately individual, hence contingent and subjective."