Has religion benefited this planet in anyway?

[QUOTE="Aljosa23"]

Religious art is some of the greatest artistic creations ever made, so there's that.

Blood-Scribe

That's true, but it doesn't invalidate the good that religious charities have also done.JML897

[QUOTE="TehFuneral"]

[QUOTE="Jolt_counter119"]

Cancer while not cured has been has been fought hard and could be close to being cured. And it is not religion that is curing it, in fact many researchers believe stem cells are the future to cure cancer which is something that doesn't get funding because of mostly...well you can guess why.

Jolt_counter119

Im not denying any of this.

Im also not a psychologist, but you're also forgetting spiritual health.

Anyways, if religion was created it was because man needed it, there is no denying that religion had no benefits whatsoever on humans at some point in history.

It's a placeholder. Humans will worship whatever they don't understand. As we come to understand more and more religion becomes more and more irrelevant. So is it a positive to give things order and people a false understanding of what they are meant to do, or is it a negative, a barrier to finding true understanding?

The main force behind why humans worship something is not because they don't understand it, but because they know they are helpless beings. This act of worship gives them peace of mind, and some people perfer this rewarding feeling not to go away even if it meant we will advance forward in terms of knowledge. As they feel more in control and understanding, the feeling of needing God diminshes and that is what is occuring.

I don't believe all religions are barriers to understanding, some people simply perfer that they do.

Most historians believe that religion played a major role in the foundings of human civilization by bringing large groups of people together due to shared spiritual beliefs, established moral codes of society due to fear of the divine, and laid foundation for basic laws as moral codes evolved into concrete structure that could be physically enforced.

In other words, religion may be the reason we're still not cavemen.

The main force behind why humans worship something is not because they don't understand it, but because they know they are helpless beings. This act of worship gives them peace of mind, and some people perfer this rewarding feeling not to go away even if it meant we will advance forward in terms of knowledge. As they feel more in control and understanding, the feeling of needing God diminshes and that is what is occuring.

I don't believe all religions are barriers to understanding, some people simply perfer that they do.

TehFuneral

I don't know where you get that idea from, I get the impression that things happen that they can't begin to understand so they attribute it to a god. Everyone has that feeling, religious people like to call it faith, they just feel that it has to be a god. I think this is probably what the bible is, a book of stories written at times where an unlikely event ocurred by devine intervention and gave hints as to what god really wants. Kings feel they have devine rights and were chosen by god, when someone survives something they surely shouldn't have, it must been because of god.

[QUOTE="JigglyWiggly_"]bill gates does not identify as an atheistZeviander

[QUOTE="Zeviander"][QUOTE="JigglyWiggly_"]bill gates does not identify as an atheistNiKva

Such as Buddhism.

And in all reality, Bill Gates admires the positive effects of religion and states he doesn't know if there is a God or not, which would make him agnostic, and agnostics are not atheists.

Religion gave us the Kama Sutra.

Religion gave us God God gave us mouths God gave us animals to be made into bacon God gave us the knowledge to make bacon God gave us the tools and necessities to both create and eat bacon. Yes, religion has benefited this planet.Razor-Lazor

Assuming God exists, then it would mean GOD gave us that.

NOT religion. You dont need to beeive in religion to believe in God

Religion gave us the Kama Sutra.jimkabrhel

Music. Bach himself has said that music is to praise God and I believe alongside Bach, Beethoven and Mozart had their beginnings in church. Not too familiar with classical eastern music, but I do know that Sufi music also is written to praise God and damn do they have some good stuff. It's not religion that corrupts human beings; we're just a malevolent species. Stalin nor Hitler had any religious ties (Stalin was in fact an atheist), yet they massacred a good 60+ million people.

Stalin nor Hitler had any religious ties (Stalin was in fact an atheist), yet they massacred a good 60+ million people.NoSpeakyEnglish

Most historians believe that religion played a major role in the foundings of human civilization by bringing large groups of people together due to shared spiritual beliefs, established moral codes of society due to fear of the divine, and laid foundation for basic laws as moral codes evolved into concrete structure that could be physically enforced.

In other words, religion may be the reason we're still not cavemen.

WiiCubeM1

Confusing human nature with religion again, I see.harashawn

We already have a 28 page thread on religion. Can we make a "1 religion thread per month" rule or something?

Remember when Dr. Manhattan was showing Silk Spectre Mars? And he asked if that beautiful valley would have been improved by an oil pipeline. He's right. The planet earth would be in much better shape without life.

But to answer the question: Yes. It's a yes or no question, and all the charities and paintings and soul-finding and comforting and who knows what else make me say Yes to the question.

[QUOTE="brucewayne69"]

We already have a 28 page thread on religion. Can we make a "1 religion thread per month" rule or something?

InEMplease

Nope.

But feel free to make a thread about it.

[QUOTE="brucewayne69"][QUOTE="InEMplease"]

Nope.

But feel free to make a thread about it.

InEMplease

Luckily we've space to spare.

[QUOTE="brucewayne69"][QUOTE="InEMplease"]

Luckily we've space to spare.

InEMplease

I assure you there was no passive-aggressive in that response. I have no problem being straight aggressive.

.

Obligatory religious post in off topic for the day, nothing to see here but cloud acting like a dumbass. Why is it that you made this thread, if you want a religious thread to read, you know there are millions of others you can read from like yesterday. Since off topic does compose mostly off religious threads these days.Monkey_N1nga

Other than art, nothing.

Although if there was no religion maybe art would have been dominated by surrealist stuff, that would have been great.

I have realized that people will continue to inflict pointless violence regardless of their belief or non-belief.MrMr-x2

[QUOTE="MrMr-x2"]I have realized that people will continue to inflict pointless violence regardless of their belief or non-belief.cloud3601

People who say no are in denial. Even if you believe all religion is completely false, you can't negate the effect it can do on history and the everyday people who treat their religion humbly. The millinos of people who aren't beheading, killing, doing mass suicide and being pheophiles etc. This argument is completely one-sided. Yes, people can be ignorant about their own religion but those people are humble of their religion and aren't guided by the extremist and the propoganda the some religious groups produce. The Catholic church I used to go to donates over 200 turkeys every Thanksgiving. Those people they helped aren't suddenly canceled out because flawed history of religion.

To say the flaws of religion outweighs the good is debatable. To say that religion has done any good to the is world is ridiculous.

Another religion is bad post...shocking!

ExtremeGamer93

Religion has not benefited this planet at all. Really, saying that religion has benefited Earth is akin to saying that putting Curiosity on Mars served to benefit the planet Mars... and akin to saying that planting the American flag upon the moon was somehow beneficial to the moon.

Religion has, however, benefited humanity in one tangible way: Art.

Has religion benefited this planet in anyway? And if it has, are the Pro's greater than the cons ?

I mean religion has given us:

Beheadings

Stonings

Child Abuse

Mass suicide

Beating your wife, and making women 3rd class citizens, with similiar rights to a donkey

Eating cow manure for Good luck (hinduism) and drinking cow urine to cure ilnesses (Islam)

Some religious people do consider all these stuff as good things, but I sure dont

cloud3601

As for the positives, we have, as others have mentioned: religious art, religious music, religious charities, religious hospitals. We also have the university/education system, the preservation of much classcial works by monks, various contributions to science that have been made by clergy and other religious believers (Newton, Mendelian genetics, Lemaitre with the Big Bang, Lejeune discovering the cause of Down Syndrome), certain brews of beer that were invented by monks.

Also many of the abolitionists in the U.S. saw abolition as a religious-mission.

[QUOTE="MrMr-x2"]I have realized that people will continue to inflict pointless violence regardless of their belief or non-belief.cloud3601

Religion has not benefited this planet at all. Really, saying that religion has benefited Earth is akin to saying that putting Curiosity on Mars served to benefit the planet Mars... and akin to saying that planting the American flag upon the moon was somehow beneficial to the moon.

Religion has, however, benefited humanity in one tangible way: Art.

The__Kraken

Charity.

Kinda.

[QUOTE="cloud3601"]

[QUOTE="MrMr-x2"]I have realized that people will continue to inflict pointless violence regardless of their belief or non-belief.whipassmt