Religion Causes No Harm

[chrisgel]

In discussions on R&S both here and elsewhere one often hears questions like
Why are you bothered?
Why don't you just let people believe what they want?
What harm does religion do?

This is one example of the harm religion can do.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23729684

and it's one of the reasons atheists never shut up about religion.

[Old_Geezer]

Ah but if they are right then they'll meet their maker all the sooner, which is what they would have wanted.

[cupid04]

I'm a Christian and I don't believe everything that goes on in the name of religion. There are good and bad. I agree with you it is totally wrong to make someone give up their medicine and dangerous. But you can't tar
everyone with the same brush just because you don't have a belief.

[pixie373]

It bothers me that it involves children, who have no choice. Otherwise, I'd call it natural selection.

[neodarwinian]

Exactly.

That is why atheists are now pushing back at religion.

[birdie1971]

As you say Chrisgel, it's why many atheists are quite vocal about the insidious blight on society that calls itself religion.

[ummmm]

I've just watched that on the news. Pretty disgusting behaviour by human beings!!

[woofgang]

I think that any group mentality memeplex has the potential to be harmful. You might cite the BNP or the National Front and say that therefore political parties are harmful and the woman who recently fled with her child to avoid his being given treatment for his cancer was not, to my knowledge, motivated by religion.
Fashion magazines are said to damage the self image of teenagers, McDonalds is said to be ruining the nation's health, shall we therefore say that all magazines and fast food restaurants are harmful?

[woofgang]

Pressed submit too soon. I don't think that anyone on here has ever said that no organised religion is harmful.

[wildwood]

It seem to me that you not only need to belong to the right religion... you also need to belong to the right clan of that religion. Egypt, middle East....

[Baldric]

Religion,
Panacea to the Faithful!

[chrisgel]

Woofgang - //I don't think that anyone on here has ever said that no organised religion is harmful.//

That's probably true but it's also a Strawman argument because I haven't said that.

[LazyGun]

Its the sheer number if instances you can find which are associated with the harms due to faith that make it so dangerous and noteworthy, Woofgang.

Leaving aside the more egregious examples of harms done through the divisiveness of religious belief - from muslims vs christians in Nigeria through to Sunni versus Shia across the middle east and protestant vs catholic in Ireland, you then have preachers/pastors/imams or whatever exhorting the faithful to commit heinous acts on others because of blasphemy, or because they have a different sexual orientation or whatever.

And then you get examples like the one chris offers, or this one from the US involving parents whose religion means they believe in faith healing - they have now had 2 sons die through preventable illness through not seeking medical help, and have been charged and found guilty of murder for the most recent death of their second son.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/pa-faith-healing-dad-loses-bid-end-murder-19894604

Its that cumulative effect of all the zealousness and evangelism and fundamentalism that causes humanity harm, day after day after day.

[woofgang]

I suspect that religion is the excuse rather than the cause. If all the organised religions of the world vanished tomorrow, I bet that those who are inclined that way would find other reasons for their stupidity, control freakery and divisifness

[LazyGun]

@woofgang You might be right - but what is particular to the excesses and harms caused by the (misguided?) faithful is their certainty that they have been granted authority to do those harms from their God.

In the absence of religion, there could be no such excuse.

[woofgang]

believe me LG, they would find another one

[vulcan42]

would this other excuse be sanctioned and approved by governments as religion is?

[steg]

i'm quite sure that atheists can be as bad as any religious person can and i'm sure that atheists can do as much good as a religious person can, so i wouldn't let it bother you to much

[emmie]

sure we could find dozens and dozens of reasons religion is bad, the likes of the Sunni v Shia to Protestant v Catholic, to people being blown to pieces by a religious fanatic, to the anti abortion stance of the Catholic church, hopelessly outdated and hopelessly against all common sense.

[vulcan42]

If both atheists and theists be good and bad, then we don't need religion.

[steg]

religion is not the problem and shouldn't foot the blame, humans are