Question for fellow Atheists:?

Question

Why do you believe that religion is detrimental to society?

Answer 1

Faith is detrimental. Faith is intrinsic to virtually all religion. It encourages dogmatic certainty in the absence of proof, evidence, reason, logic, and rationality.

Answer 2

I am not an atheist. Religion helps to form society. Whether you choose to believe it or not, the first laws of the US were based on choices made by people with mostly Christian religious convictions. With that in mind, you must realize that separation of Church and State is the safest way to go...because we don't want one particular religion calling the shots for everyone else. The biggest mistake people make is trying to confuse the message that Christ taught, with the actions of the Roman Catholic and successive Protestant churches. They were preaching pomp and power, whereas Christ taught to love one another, and to be humble. The Islamic faith came about after some Arabs were exposed to the heretics of Roman Catholicism...they didn't believe that only certain races would be saved. The Mormons have done something similar...finding a problem with the warring factions of the different protestant organizations, they decided to abandon the Bible and write something that imitated it, to use as their foundation of faith. Then they took a huge leap of imagination and decided to describe the life and times of the ancient Hebrews who made it to Mezzo-America a few years after the Great Deluge of Noah's time. They arrived in square wooden barges.... The history in the Holy Bible has been proven, but the stories in that other storybook have no basis in reality. What can I say? Religion forms society, it is not detrimental to it. People who decide to believe they were evolved into existance after a great big explosion are taking an even greater leap of faith.

Answer 3

Mostly because in it's nature it serves to divide the human race. The might be an under lying message of unity, but then followed by consequences if you don't believe. It has the "my way or the highway" mentality, and that only will seperate us.
How would you like it if I said: "I can make your life better" You: "Really? How?"
Me: "Love everyone equally, be good to yourself, and don't fall for temporary fixes, and temptation."
You: "Not easy, but I'll try if it gives a better life"
Me: "Also you have to believe in our God, and praise him every chance you get"
You: "Well what about when bad stuff happens?"
Me: "Oh well, that's another being's fault, or our fault, never my God's fault, he's perfect, you should worship him"
You: "uhhhh I'm not sure anymore"
Me: "Well you're going to hell for eternity if you don't, says so right here in this book"
You: "Well maybe I'll keep looking for the answers"
Me: "The answers are all right here! Why can't you see this"

You see how this divides people. We can debate the things we don't know.........and believe me we don't know, that's fine. But at the end of day we have to be able to agree on one thing we are all apart of the human race, mo man, woman, or child is any better or worse than ourselves.

Now religion isn't the only thing holding us back, money, greed sure are, but that wasn't your question.

One.

Answer 4

I don't know if I consider myself athesist or not, but I don't think that because someone grows up going to a certain kind of church and is never exposed to any other religion can really question anyones rationalization. It is like marrying the first girl you have met. You don't know if it is right or wrong you just have to jump on the bandwagon because your mom or dad is Catholic, or Baptist, etc. With all of the knowledge in the world you can figure religion out on your own, not by your dad dragging you to sunday school every week. THis is one thing we "Americans" aren't really good at. Opening our mind and thoughts to things we do not know about. I bet you think that your God wears a sparkly white robe too?

Answer 5

Tough question. Probably on the whole it's detrimental, though not so much today as in the past.

Religion pros:
- keeps some naturally bad people in line
- leads some people to do good things for others
- makes some people happy

Cons:
- Retards scientific progress
- Retards critical thinking
- Aggression in the name of god

Answer 6

I think that it's detrimental when religions start acting as lobbies to get their dogma turned into law. Religion may well be good for some people, just not for me.

Answer 7

History always repeats itself... and historically religion has been the cause of countless deaths, persecution, genocide etc. It is detrimental because it creates a social hierarchy in which religious followers condemn those who do not share their beliefs and consider themselves the "enlightened ones" with everyone else at the bottom of the totem pole...

Answer 8

Religion itself isn't, but people make religion detrimental to society.

I think mainly the newer religions teachings of 'believe in my religion or suffer eternally' spurs this on a bit....

Answer 9

No. Religions serve to enhance the internal lives of many people. Truth is always subjective. But when some of their followers think that there's an objective truth that everyone must follow.... well then that's when trouble starts.

Answer 10

That's at its worst. For many people it's fairly harmless (except to themselves.)

One example - a company advertises itself as christian. Customers assume that means "oh, they're honest." It doesn't. Customer gets royally rooked.