What positve role can religion play in the world in the coming century?

Question

I hold up my hands and say I generally focus on the negatives of religion; due to previous bad experiences.

However, why has society turned it's back on religion and it's follwers? Should we more focus on the positives of religion? Just becuase science has led people to be more sceptical, should we not focus on the positive work relgions do, for example, christian aid even though we may not believe the religion's core messages?

Answer 1

No, just keep focusing on the negatives. You are doing great with that.

Answer 2

No doubt religions do some good work both in a charitable way and supplying some spiritually need for people who need that. The problem with them as I see it is that there are people involved who are simply after having power over other people and decisions are made based on myths invented over the last couple of thousand years for various reasons unconnected with modern living. You quote Christian Aid as an example of good done by a religion but there are many secular organisations doing equally good work. So why bother with religions just support some organisation that is set up to help people not to preach to them

Answer 3

Religion is a great way to educate our young. So the positive role would be for the education and well upbringing of our progeny. However, Just like Santa Clause and the Tooth fairy, we must at some point teach them that there is no way that any God would EVER have to kill his own creations. Therefore God does not exist.

Answer 4

The problem with religion is that it segregates people into different "types", rather than focussing on the beauty that is shared human consciousness, and recognising the fact that we are all part of one thing, the human race. Pure, unadulterated intelligence can do this.

Society has turned its back on religion because we are evolving, and religion offers only stagnation of ideas, as opposed to intelligent thought.

If someone offers me a better, more convincing argument, I will retract these thoughts. Until they do, I will continue to evolve.

Answer 5

Thats a very generous thought, obviously not shared by many of your fellow skeptics. Too many of the core beliefs are what drives thinking people away. That those cores should be constantly challenged by the believers themselves, could clear up a lot of misconceptions, but for many, questioning authority doesn't give them a warm fuzzy, even if would give them greater strengths. So we have those who will bury their heads in the sand on both sides of the fence.

Answer 6

Christianity can build a community where people have genuine respect and love for one another. Where the poorest amd most vulnerable are cared for. However, society rejects this because it demands that we put other peoples needs before our own. It means not pursuing the luxuries of life and using our finances for the common good rather than personal materialism. It means serving one another, submitting to one another and being answerable to one another. It means not demanding our own way, or even our own rights, if to do so deprives someone else.

Answer 7

Religion can continue to give hope to the hopeless and meaning to the desperate. It can build housing and sanitation systems in third world towns instead of obscenely lavish churches. It can acknowledge that a person of any color, gender, inclination, or religion can be truly good and worthy of love and friendship.

The idea of God once brought people together, rather than dividing them into intolerant little sects. I'm agnostic, but I truly love what religion can do for people if it isn't twisted by the agendas of others.

Answer 8

The most positive role all religions can play is to disappear. They are the cause of more problems than they are worth. People just need to be good human beings.

Answer 9

I think that religion will play a significant role in the coming century. I think we are finding out that the state can do only so much for what religion has been able to lay claim to throughout the centuries, i.e. love for one's fellow man. Government programs are not love, they are negotiation, and whether or not science tries to "replace" religion, science will never have love either as a basic premise.

Answer 10

There is no role for religion as you see it.

Christian aid is usually set up to put certain un-Christian people in posh jobs while less then 10% gets to those for whom the "aid" was meant.

Men and women must try together to get at the bottom of the farce and this calls for reason and reason is not used today by the religious.

Answer 11

Jackie de Shannon said it best when she sang the song: "What The World Needs Now, Is Love sweet Love".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8qVxTL7RlE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs8JzhpkGUY&mode=related&search=

I Cr 13;8a, Love never fails!!!!!
11-16-6