Is the belief in God ultimately harmful to society?

[WMS]

Just a few points to the anti-theistic...

First, a quote from one of my favorite books, Mother of Demons, Chapter 12, by Eric Flint:

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I bolded the core section. I note that while Flint - who is a Trotskyite! - does point out how religion can be used for harm, it was also a major step forward in culture and ethics. Not that the anti-theistic will ever admit it.

Now on to the fear of judgment issue. I've got an example of how that can lead to an act of much good, and it's a doozy. You have heard of Elwin Wilson, haven't you?

I'll provide the money quote here, as well:

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I bolded the core bit again. Interesting, eh? Now while the fear of judgment wasn't the sole reason for Elwin's change of heart, it's clear it played a role. Elwin clearly believed that how he had acted was contrary to the ethics of his Christian faith - why else would he think he was going to hell? And in this case, it allowed for something important to happen: the possibility of redemption, a major theme in many religions, definitely in Christian theology - what was Jesus' sacrifice on the cross but a redemption for all mankind? Note: you don't have to believe that part yourself - that's not what I'm asking - but it is how Christians view it, which is the point.

Here are two more points where the Belief in God/Religion (the thread has gotten a bit tangled as to which of these is being targeted in the OP's question) was definitely on the positive end:

Abolitionism (of slavery). Christianity was prominent in spurring opposition to slavery, amongst Protestant and Catholic alike. Yes, there was secular opposition to it as well but to ignore the religious contribution is to ignore reality.

The Congo Reform Association. Christianity again played a prominent role in opposing the horrors of what King Leopold and Company got up to in the Congo Free State:

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There is also more on this in the great book King Leopold's Ghost, by Adam Hothschild. Again, there was also secular opposition to the Congo Free State as well but ignoring the religious contributions is intellectual dishonesty.

All in all, I'd say that the belief in God - heck, religion itself - can not be considered 'ultimately harmful to society'. And before I hear it, I'm not saying that it is necessarily beneficial to society, either - that is a whole other debate that I hope the likes of my namesake in this thread will handle - just that the simplistic position that faith and/or religion is ultimately a bad thing is invalid.

[WMS]

Err...the 'mixed bag' element is mentioned twice in the bolded section of the quote - the second half of the third sentence, and the fourth sentence. I don't see how I'm not mentioning it's a mixed bag - actually, I'm making it more of a mixed bag than you and your fellow anti-theists are in this thread, given your hostility towards it.

Perhaps another quote from the same source might clear something up:

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This part came just before the quoted section in my first post. Note the universal aspect - the idea that there are things that don't just apply to the 'in-group', but to outsiders as well. All those rhetorical questions you posed would be answered by one or more universal belief systems. You might not like their answers either, but they *are* answering those questions from more than an 'in-group' perspective. And I find it hilarious that you're viewing Christianity as an 'in-group' religion when it most definitely was not formed and developed from that perspective - we managed to be 'out-group' from the perspective of pagan and Jew alike!

Universal belief system principles are still principles, even - and, again, this was in the original quote - the principles are violated in practice. The Golden Rule is not invalidated as a principle if people who claim to follow it fail in doing so - the blame for that is on the followers, not the Golden Rule itself. In a more general sense, altruism is very much an element of religious faith:

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That quote is from the Wikipedia page on Altruism I linked above.

You seem to confuse 'culture' with 'arts', and a somewhat narrow view of the arts at that. The initial quote from Flint seems to be implying that the development of universal codes of ethics were improvements to the cultures affected by them, and in that regard religion was having a positive effect. The same quote also pointed out how the same religions could be used as tools of oppression. So, once again, I note that the 'mixed bag' conception has been part of my argument from the beginning. I'm arguing against the anti-theistic hostility exhibited by you and others in this thread by pointing out that religion has done plenty of good as well. The exact balance on the scale of positive and negative will vary by one's opinion on both individual faiths and the overall existence of faith as well.

Prominent? I'd say the invisible hand had a bigger role in supporting slavery, O Libertarian, and on a worldwide, multi-millennial scale at that! But since my initial example was of the American abolitionist movement, we'll stick to that. The Old Testament doth reflect the time in which it was formulated, when slavery was practiced by everyone. However, judging by the Wikipedia page here (I will note that this is one of those disputed pages subject to edit wars and claims of bias all around, but it's late Friday and I'm not about to spend hours hunting down more information ) the Old Testament includes more protections for slaves than amongst other societies (although this isn't saying much and certainly isn't a justification for it). As for the New Testament, from what I could make out from the above linked page and several others involved in the subject, there is a lot of debate about those passages (and about everything else - 'this page's neutrality is disputed' pops up a lot). Now, moving forward in time, it is true that some Southerners used Christianity as one of their justifications for slavery, although they did so after the abolitionist movement popped up and began growing. However, the major role in supporting slavery went, yes, to the market:

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All in all, I believe that Christianity played a bigger role in spurring the abolitionist movement than the pro-slavery movement. You, of course, are free to disagree.

OK, first of all, I never claimed that abolitionism was a movement of

purely Christian origin

. I said it was prominent in spurring opposition to it AND mentioned that there was secular opposition to it as well. Don't put words in my mouth. Second of all, you are rather strongly implying that secular morality was necessary for Christians to challenge slavery. In addition to the highly offensive nature of such a preposition, it's also flat out incorrect. Opposition to slavery amongst Christianity goes back a LONG way, long before your cited 'introduction of freedom of religion'. Bartolomé de las Casas ring a bell? There have been Christian figures arguing against slavery going back to the days of the Roman Empire (before you say it, yes, there were others accepting it as well, but that doesn't change my point, now does it?). Now as for secular morality, the very rational societies of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome had a LOT of slavery and it was accepted in their culture to a large extent, and justified by such figures as Plato and Aristotle.

And just to show that I'm not a hypocrite about this, I will also point out that some Stoics seem to hold the record for first condemning slavery, followed shortly by early Christians and even the odd Chinese emperor (to an extent). Both secular and religious ethics can lead to either benevolent or oppressive actions, depending on how the followers of such ethics act.

Dude, I think your anti-theistic bias is blinding you here. I've been the one making the case for the mixed bag, by taking your negative views and examples on religion and faith and adding my positive views and examples to counterbalance them. I'm not claiming religion and faith is perfect, and I haven't been arguing that!

Oh, and The Mikado is quite accurate.

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If religion wasn't part of the picture, people would just find something else to mark out groups.

[WMS]

And I said that is was more of a mixed bag than you are making it out to be. I think you're giving more credit than is due.

You are making some strong assumptions about what I'm making it out to be. Although it is accurate that I'm giving it more credit that you are - *ahem*

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You aren't giving it any credit at all - and you even admit it in your answer to Ernest! Anyone who doesn't share your belief system about religion would be giving it more credit than you are, since you can only go one direction from an extreme.

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You are presupposing rather a large degree of conformity in culture/law/custom/etc between pre-religious societies. Leaving aside the questionable idea that societies were ever pre-religious - that depends on one's definition of 'religion', but there are clearly elements of faith going back at least as far as cave paintings and the like - there is quite a large amount of diversity between societies in what is viewed as right and wrong. If all of these universal ethics systems - ranging from basic to complex - already were established in societies, then why did this happen:

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{yes, Flint's book again} Tribal religions don't have to follow any set of ethical rules at all - many of them fall into the first of three categories of (remembering a LONG way back to college texts on the subject) types of salvation: salvation by ritual. You perform the rituals and that's it. The other two categories, for the record, are salvation by faith and salvation by good works. Ethics usually play a larger role in them.

Many cultures treat outsiders differently. Singling out religion seems an odd thing to focus on. The oh-so-rational Greeks of Antiquity considered anyone who wasn't Greek to be a barbarian. Period. It made no difference what they believed or how they acted. Whereas for a universal religion, you can be from a different culture but still be treated warmly if you share the same faith - I certainly consider the masses of African Christians (and Asian Christians, and Latin American Christians, etc.) to be my spiritual kin regardless of how much different the culture they come from is from mine. I've been around long enough to see how the more devout Christians were some of the staunchest supporters of the South Sudanese in their struggle against the North Sudanese, for example. And I consider Muslims, Jews, Zoroastrians, Ba'hai (and maybe others; there is some uncertainty in my understandings of the vast, vast, diversity of faiths out there) to worship the same deity I do, just in different ways. I remember, from long ago, a post on the NationStates forum (utterly dominated by your type, Dibble) from a Muslim in support of Christians against all the Christian-bashing that goes on there. And moving up a rung on the ladder, I consider my Buddhist brother and his Wiccan wife to be fellow spiritual travelers, and we three ended up aligning in an argument (over the movie Religious, for the record) against three anti-theistic members of her family, and we respect each other's beliefs. An 'outsider' is what you make of it. After all, all of you anti-theists treat people who don't believe like you do differently, as outsiders. You are an example of the very thing you decry!

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But the Pharaoh brings Ma'at down from the gods for everyone to enjoy! How could you question that! Unless you're an outsider barbarian in which case they'd hate you for non-religious reasons (the ancient Egyptians were very xenophobic - everyone who wasn't an Egyptian got a distinct color in hieroglyphics distinct from 'Egyptian male' and 'Egyptian female', for example). As for the rest of your statement, I already challenged your statement about

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above - where is the proof that there was any such thing before the universal religions sprung up? If everything in all religions were universal, there would be just one religion without distinguishing factors. The universal religions are claiming that they encompass all of what a religion should be, but since people disagree, you have multiple religions (and cross-variants, splinters, etc.). And again, cultures aren't universal at all. They differentiate from other cultures in many ways. The 'problem' isn't religion, but culture.

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You didn't describe the concept in those terms, so get off your pedestal and don't be an ass about it.

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This, especially when combined with the example you gave from Ancient Egypt, absolutely implies an established group with some level of authority. Given that Christianity was something new, it was neither established nor the codification of some set of values that already existed (and I've argued that point above). It certainly became an in-group, but the idea that - based on the reading of your initial comments - it was already an in-group from the second Jesus gained one follower is not at all obvious. Now, using your refined definition, everyone who belongs to more than just themselves is in an in-group, and varying numbers of people would be in an out-group. In that case, every possible type of in-group in existence spreads division and is part of the 'problem'. So what's the point in mentioning any one type of in-group?

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Actually, having read the entire thing, the New Testament summed it all down to two overarching points. I believe htmldon once said it best: Love God. Love others. The Old Testament, while quite a read (if you're going to use it as a weapon, go to the end of Judges and just use that, since it's the worst damn thing in the whole book) is ultimately not something that has to be followed - the Law of the Old Testament is explicitly violated by Jesus and his Disciples at least once. I will now wait for Fisty to arrive and derail the thread. And consider this: at least Christianity is honest enough not to remove those parts of the Bible - we kept the warts of the past. Would you be happier if we pretended they had never been written? And that's just Christianity - you can make any faith system you like, including none at all (there's a story about that amongst Hinduism I read in The Cartoon History of the World), and in a millennium it won't be the same as what was intended by the founder.

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Ernest answered you on this one, and I'm in agreement with him, However...

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this rather puts the lie to your claims of finding things a mixed bag, doesn't it? That's not what you're arguing at all! You seem to think that finding anything positive in religion/faith is not viewing religion as a mixed bag. You can't have it both ways: are you arguing that religion/faith is a mixed bag, or are you arguing that religion/faith is a bad thing?