Is the belief in God ultimately harmful to society?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

No more so than any other beliefs based in things unconnected to philosophically rigorous logical argumentation, which is the vast majority of things that people believe in and interact with. The concept of God isn't unique in that sense. What is unique is the sheer relentlessness of asshattery in this particular created species, which is arguably concomitant with sentience.

It can certainly be argued that the needs of the current era aren't ideally served by religious faith, or by such religious faiths as we have, but it's still an open question in my mind whether that's a problem with religious faith or with the current era. (The specific gay issue is...complicated, historically, including within the history of the Christian religion, much more so than the terms of the current debate would let on.)

I'm familiar with this concept that 'moderate' beliefs (I don't actually consider my own religious beliefs at all moderate, they just resolve into moderation given the terms of the arguments that are currently going on) can serve as cover for 'extreme' ones, and it's actually something that I worry about a lot, but that's hardly unique to theistic religious beliefs. That's the case whenever anybody believes anything sufficiently strongly.

Simfan, I'd be interested, purely in a devil's-advocate sort of way, in seeing you come up with a secular argument against gay marriage. The only such that I've ever seen that made any sense whatsoever were creepy social-Darwinist/eugenic type stuff.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

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.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

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.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

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.

It's not so much that this is sane, it's that the idea that there's any analogous basis for constructing a view of the world that is sane is immensely problematic, unless you're selectively defining sanity to mean agreement with your own position, or using it as a shorthand for the most common types of mental processes in a population.

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

They are two sides of the same nickel to somebody who has no time for such small change.

Yes, yes, we get it. You're better than us. Congratulations.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

It's not so much that this is sane, it's that the idea that there's any analogous basis for constructing a view of the world that is sane is immensely problematic, unless you're selectively defining sanity to mean agreement with your own position, or using it as a shorthand for the most common types of mental processes in a population.

Ah yes, very good point. The problem is that I fully embrace the insanity in my trying to understand things I don't or can't. The point of religion is that it provides people with infinite understanding if they can communicate with a being that created and fully understands all. It puts people in a mentally destructive state of believing in their own belief. I have complete doubt in my reality, but religion depends on the absence of doubt.

It purports to, but there are ways of doing religiosity that can leave room for doubt or even introduce more doubt. Interacting with God (through prayer and mystical experiences) doesn't render me positive of God so much as it does less positive of the rest of my interactions. I do believe in my own belief, but that's because there isn't much else to stand on, and I recognize that that's the reason.

Of course, if the question were 'Is belief in God as most commonly processed in the minds of less-than-mystically-inclined believers harmful to society?', I'd have a different answer. It's just that I don't agree that secularization ameliorates the part of this that's the biggest problem.