Is the belief in God ultimately harmful to society?

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Clarence, what you're saying is entirely correct but we do also need to bit the bullet and recognize that for many people faith in God can serve as a psychological blank check for cruelty or carnage. What has to be done is to distinguish between different ways religious faith works psychologically and argue that on balance more good is done than harm. And I, at least, definitely do think that's an argument that can be made.

[John Dibble]

I'd agree if the fear was from govt cameras or big brother or camps...but this is a personal belief that we will be judged by our actions here.

Are you saying that the government isn't judging your actions with those things? What's the difference between that and a being that is watching you all the time in order to determine whether or not to punish you?

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You keep trying to point this out, but as I said it's a double edged sword. What about someone who might want to back out of a suicide bombing, but carries on because he's afraid if he backs out Allah will judge him as a coward?

[CLARENCE 2015!]

To that I have no response- good point
I still believe that belief in God does far more harm then good, but you got me on that one

[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.

[John Dibble]

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.

I think it's much more of a mixed bag than you make it out to be.

While religions often codified ethics, this wasn't necessarily the introduction of ethics - rather I would surmise that it usually would be codifying the in-group's general sense of values that already existed. By officially codifying morals, you might help with group unity, but on the other hand you establish a dogma that may inhibit further ethical advancement. Questioning whether or not the holy doctrines of your group's religion could land you into significant trouble - after all, who are you to question the divine will of the gods? Who are you to question Pharaoh's right to rule over us? Who are you to question our right to sacrifice this child to the gods? Social pressure or even violent force was, and in many places still is to varying degrees, used to coerce people to conform to religious morality.

Furthermore, I'd say that the "Golden Rule" is not really the basis for many major religions in history, at least not when it comes to out-groups. The religion might encourage fair treatment of the members of your in-group, but outsiders could be treated quite badly - hardly the Golden Rule.

In terms of culture, again I think there's a mixed bag. On the plus side religious institutions helped spur engineering feats, as they wished to build bigger and more impressive temples and monuments. On the other hand, it could be argued that art might have been restricted. Not necessarily in terms of actual restrictions, but in that the bulk of the artists were encouraged to make religious art rather than allowing open creativity. In some cases though religions have actually restricted some types of art such as dance or music, arguably a blow to culture.

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Christianity was also prominent in support of keeping slavery. The Old Testament quite clearly allows and regulates slavery - it tells you who you can enslave, how long you can enslave them, how much you are allowed to beat them, etc. - and the New Testament does not offer an outright condemnation of it. You can interpret some passages as anti-slavery, but there isn't any outright command to not own slaves. This allowed for the pro-slavery side to justify their enslavement of others using the same book that the abolitionists used to condemn it.

Personally I think secular morality influenced how many of the abolitionist Christians interpreted those New Testament passages, rather than it being a movement of purely Christian origin, due to the introduction of freedom of religion which allowed for greater questioning and personal flexibility within religion.

[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.

[John Dibble]

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.

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.

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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.[/quote]

There are common things that societies need to run that religions typically incorporate, but again these notions would have had to have been in force already. It's not like religion introduced the concept that murdering your neighbor is not acceptable behavior in a group. No tribe would have even gotten to the point of developing a coherent religion if they didn't have that.

But it is a simple matter of fact that many religions treat outsiders differently, and that's usually because the outsiders don't hold the same 'universal' truths or morality.

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If you lived under the religion of ancient Egypt, questioning the Pharaoh's right to rule wouldn't likely earn you any friends and likely would have been lethal. In other religions of course they'd just likely have the answer that the religion in question is just wrong. The problems aren't in the "universal" basic things that would have largely come before religion that pretty much everyone has always agreed upon, the problem are a lot of the things that aren't universal that many religions bring along with them.

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Do you not understand what an in-group is? In-groups aren't about who is popular or who is the underdog. To an individual, their in-group is just the group they consider their self to be a part of, nothing more. If someone is a Christian then they are part of the Christian in-group, and members of another religion are in an out-group. (how "out" they are to an individual might vary of course, depending on factors like nationality, ethnicity, culture, past interactions, etc.) So of course pagans and Jews regarded Christians as an out-group, because Christians weren't part of their religious group, but the Christians would have viewed them as out-groups as well.

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I didn't say the Golden Rule is invalid. I'm saying that many religious principles don't follow the Golden Rule to begin with. The Old Testament is full of rules and stories where people are treated quite horribly for poor reasons, for instance. I'm not talking about adherents not adhering correctly, I'm talking about adherents doing exactly what their religion tells them to when what is being done is bad.

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

I don't claimed all social divides and conflicts arose from religion. My position is that it creates extra divides which leads to more conflicts. I think the whole Israel/Jerusalem situation is a good example of this - without the religious component a good deal of the reason for fighting and hostility would be lost.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

It might depend on how you define "belief" and "God."   If you say belief in God is ultimately harmful to society, what are you comparing it to?  Belief in something else that cannot be made into a "God"?  Or the absence of belief?

[Napoleon]

Absence of belief.

It is funny that my thread to vent is dismissed as psuedointellectualism.

[LastVoter]

So why am I the only one voting not sure still? I didn't expect this to be so polarizing.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I don't claimed all social divides and conflicts arose from religion. My position is that it creates extra divides which leads to more conflicts. I think the whole Israel/Jerusalem situation is a good example of this - without the religious component a good deal of the reason for fighting and hostility would be lost.

Bunk.  You have an ethnic group which wanted reestablish an ethnic homeland after close to two millennia of it not being in existence and another ethnic group which feels that they were already there.  There is no reason to believe that the two groups would be any more amicable if there was no such thing as religion.

[John Dibble]

I don't claimed all social divides and conflicts arose from religion. My position is that it creates extra divides which leads to more conflicts. I think the whole Israel/Jerusalem situation is a good example of this - without the religious component a good deal of the reason for fighting and hostility would be lost.

Bunk.  You have an ethnic group which wanted reestablish an ethnic homeland after close to two millennia of it not being in existence and another ethnic group which feels that they were already there.  There is no reason to believe that the two groups would be any more amicable if there was no such thing as religion.

Would the first ethnic group have even wanted to reestablish their ethnic homeland in that specific place without their religious belief? Would the Nazis have even been able to prompt the hatred for them that enabled the Holocaust to happen if not for centuries of Christian anti-semitism, giving them additional reason to seek a homeland of their own? Would they even have continued to exist as a separate ethnic group in the first place without their religious beliefs, or would they have been more likely to interbreed and integrate with the native cultures after migrating?

For the other side, certainly the Palestinians would have reason to be pissed when a bunch of outsiders come in and claim their land. But what about the ethnic groups in the surrounding region? Do they really care about the Palestinians, or is it that they can't stand that the Jews have taken the Holy Land?

Religion isn't the only problem in the conflict, but the religious difference don't exactly help.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

You can point to examples of ethnic groups remaining distinctive because of the influence of religion and you can point to examples of such groups amalgamating under said influence.  So without religion, maybe it would have been a different ethnic group trying to reclaim a different their homeland after suffering from genocide in the Second Pan-Terran War.

You're harping on the bad that religion does without crediting it for the good it does.

[John Dibble]

You can point to examples of ethnic groups remaining distinctive because of the influence of religion and you can point to examples of such groups amalgamating under said influence.  So without religion, maybe it would have been a different ethnic group trying to reclaim a different their homeland after suffering from genocide in the Second Pan-Terran War.

And again I stated that not all divides are caused by religion. I simply used that one specific example to point out where it makes the divides worse.

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Seeing as my goal is to point out the bad that religion does, I don't see why I'm obligated to point out the supposed good it does, especially in consideration of the fact that the audience is already largely aware of it. It's not my job to make the other side's case for them.

Furthermore I don't particularly see much point in doing that because I don't think there's any real good religion does that can't be accomplished by secular means for secular reasons.

[fezzyfestoon]

Short answer; Absolutely. Long answer...ugh, I don't want to have to go back and read this whole thing to get involved

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

You're harping on the bad that religion does without crediting it for the good it does.

Seeing as my goal is to point out the bad that religion does, I don't see why I'm obligated to point out the supposed good it does, especially in consideration of the fact that the audience is already largely aware of it. It's not my job to make the other side's case for them.

Furthermore I don't particularly see much point in doing that because I don't think there's any real good religion does that can't be accomplished by secular means for secular reasons.

The question that was posed in the OP was not whether secularism can achieve the same good as religion.  It was whether religion is harmful, and that question cannot be honestly answered without giving full consideration to both the beneficial and harmful effects of religion as it is practiced in human societies.

[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?

[greenforest32]

An invisible, unaccountable, all-powerful authority that no one else can see or interact with "telling" you what to think and do?

I say yes it is ultimately harmful.

[John Dibble]

The question that was posed in the OP was not whether secularism can achieve the same good as religion.  It was whether religion is harmful, and that question cannot be honestly answered without giving full consideration to both the beneficial and harmful effects of religion as it is practiced in human societies.

Said consideration can and has been made by the other side. Such is the format of debate - I don't expect the theists to make arguments for my side.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

An invisible, unaccountable, all-powerful authority that no one else can see or interact with "telling" you what to think and do?

I say yes it is ultimately harmful.

One Who can, in fact, be interacted with, but of course you wouldn't see it that way.

Related, I'm not sure what's with our cultural fetishization of the fantasy of autonomous action.

[fezzyfestoon]

An invisible, unaccountable, all-powerful authority that no one else can see or interact with "telling" you what to think and do?

I say yes it is ultimately harmful.

One Who can, in fact, be interacted with, but of course you wouldn't see it that way.

Related, I'm not sure what's with our cultural fetishization of the fantasy of autonomous action.

That just makes it that much more dangerous. An imaginary authority that a large portion of the population believes they can "interact" with? That's pure madness. A society based on something that ambiguous and manipulable is in a perilous position.

[Joe Republic]

That just makes it that much more dangerous. An imaginary authority that a large portion of the population believes they can "interact" with? That's pure madness. A society based on something that ambiguous and manipulable is in a perilous position.

Careful, the religious get very sensitive when you point that out to them.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

It's important to remember here that religion and belief in God are not the same thing.

[fezzyfestoon]

It's important to remember here that religion and belief in God are not the same thing.

Why? And how so? Especially in an American context.

That just makes it that much more dangerous. An imaginary authority that a large portion of the population believes they can "interact" with? That's pure madness. A society based on something that ambiguous and manipulable is in a perilous position.

Careful, the religious get very sensitive when you point that out to them.

Yeah, I usually encounter a reaction similar to that of a rabid raccoon when I foolishly venture into these dark parts of the forum. I am rarely a welcome guest.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

It's important to remember here that religion and belief in God are not the same thing.

Why? And how so? Especially in an American context.

Because there are all sorts of aspects of religion that can't be summed up by "belief in God," (not to mention that religion is possible without belief in God).
Belief in God is something abstract, unless its qualified or contextualized.  By itself, it doesn't make much of a difference in anything.
There are plenty of people who believe in God in some abstract sense but aren't religious. I think that's especially true in America.