Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

Is religion mankind's greatest strength or weakness?

Discuss. Debate. Dispute. Dance?

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I'm inclined to say "both".

There are a lot of positively HORRIBLE things done in the name of religion. Holy wars, persecutions, and inquisitions come to mind.

On the other side of the coin, there are a lot of WONDERFUL things to come of religion. Things like charity and love for one's neighbors comes to mind.

Granted, the "good" things aren't only because of religion, as there are people who would do these things without religion, but things like wars and persecutions would happen without religion, too.

So, yeah, I guess that's my take, it's a strength and weakness at the same time.

Now, about this dancing: *Busts out his MC Hammer Dance (circa 1989)*

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

Yeah, there are many times in history in which people exploit religion for personal gain or to rationalize crime. Obviously, this isn't what God intended religion to be. Otherwise, it helps unite nations and races. So, yeah, its both, but I lean more toward to goodness.

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GENGHIS KHAN!!!!!

I agree it has been both in history, but at present time, I think that is a weakness to mankind. In this country, at least, it is courrupting politics; in others, causing arguements, wars, and genecides.

I'm going to go with both, also. Through the years, it has kept mankind civil enough to survive. However, I beleive that it's time to let religion go. We can obviously survive without religion, and sciene is disproving religion as we speak, and soon religion will be nothing more than a hoax. However, I don't think that people will stop being religious, which is fine, as long as they don't try to disprove science without evidence, as some groups are now.

i'm going to say that "Religion" doesn't do anything on its own. people who believe in various religions do things. i have a problem with lumping Religion into one big pile and then attributing things to it. Christianity in, say, the Middle Ages had little in common with Buddhism in the same era, yet they're both religions. it's an artificial conflation, i think.

Buddhism is a rather odd creature in the religion world. In many ways, it's really more like a philosophy than a religion, which is why Furrykef can say he is both an atheist and a Buddhist.

Cobalt has a valid point, though. People have indeed done atrocious things in the name of religion, like the Inquisition, the Crusades, the Counter-Reformation, and modern-day suicide bombings. But people have also done great things in the name of religion as well. People like Mother Theresa come to mind, as well as people like Vivian Collins and Mike Smith (these were two of my parishioners who were instrumental in helping an elderly Katrina victim be reunited with her family. Vivian works with the Red Cross, and Mike used his own private airplane to fly her home).

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The desire for a religion seems to be universal. I'm not saying that the desire to worship or to believe in a god is universal, but the desire to have a personal guiding philosophy is universal. Some people follow a religion involving belief in a higher power, others' religion perhaps place the individual and its creativity and intelligence as the most important aspect.

The desire for a religion is not a strength or a weakness, especially not our greatest strength or greatest weakness. In my opinion, our greatest strength is love and selflessness, while our greatest weakness is selfishness and pride. Religion in a person's life is a strength or a weakness only as it is used to encourage those attributes in our character.

We talk about the wars and such fought over religion, and state that men would be better off without religion. But the weakness was not religion, but rather the desire of the proud and power-hungry to enforce their will and fulfill their desires with the sword.

But who has the control to stop such a thing? Your point is exactly the truth, but with the way great masses of people think, controlling outbreaks of violence based on a cause is nearly impossible.

I just feel that sometimes religion leads to a sort of mob rule, where people don't take a step back and realize what they're doing. Religion is great on a small community basis, but on a scale like Catholocism and Islam, problems arise because there are just too many people to control.

Plus, it's much easier to reason killing by placing it on the shoulders of the unseen.

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Well, on a global scale, I think religion is a weakness. The Crusades, the witch trials in Europe and Salem, the numerous Middle Eastern conflicts caused... the list of attrocities commited in the name of some religion or another is extensive. Think of how much more advanced we could be if the fledgling scientists of earlier times didn't have to fear the then-powerful church. Condemning people for believing in heliocentricity is quite a weakness in my book.

The good that comes from it is giving people a reason to be moral. Personally, I don't think that makes up for the bad, but some people may see it that way.

That was mostly in the past, though. Granted, there are still some repressive theocracies (Iran comes to mind) but they aren't so bad as to be holding the world back.

There are some nutjobs who want to eradicate science from schools because it disagrees with the Bible, but here in the real world, scientists don't have to worry about being persecuted for going against the official teachings of an all-powerful church.

Personally, I see religion as a strength moreso now than long ago, because we, as a society, know how to deal with it better. There are some weaknesses religion can contribute to, though. Pat Robertson, for one.

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beep beep I'm a Jeep

I've been thinking some more, and re-reading what I wrote earlier. I'm not sure that what I wrote is entirely coherent or applicible to the subject matter. Also, I'm not sure if I agree totally with what I wrote, though I think I'm heading the right direction. Who knows though. With that said, here's my 2nd draft at the idea.

Religion is not a weakness or a strength. It is a tool. Just as a hammer can be used to build buildings or hit people in the head, religion can be used in different ways. Love and selflessness is our greatest strength, and our pride and selfishness is our greatest weakness. Many people use religion to become more and more loving and humble and selfless, and thus religion becomes a valuable tool in strengthening mankind. Other people use religion as a tool to gain power over others, to satisfy their greed, or to loft themselves up in their own eyes. In these cases, religion becomes a tool that could undermine all of human society.

So religion is not a strength or a weakness, but rather a tool. Not only is it a tool, but it is the very most powerful tool to bring out the best and the worst in human nature. The cases where people have used religion to harm or gain power are very newsworthy and often well-known. However, I believe that the number of cases where people have used religion to improve themselves and their families is far greater than those more newsworthy cases.

I believe that the positive impact of religion is far greater than the negative impact of religion. The only difference is that homes filled with love, and acts of compassion and kindness rarely make the history books or the news.

i would have to say that it is our greatest weakness. just mention something about another religion about it being bad, then everyone will get against you. thats also a way to get out of a topic, so that makes it a strength...... it is a balance of power in the world. you know what im thinking? Atheism doesnt seem like a bad idea.......... but what if i am wrong?

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In my eyes, for the most part, it divides them.

I think religion is more of a weakness than it is a strength. Sure, there have been many great things to come of it, but there have been so many deaths because of it. Even today there is still much hatred towards people because of religion(Homosexuals, rock music people, etc. are some of the things to come of it).

But that is my opinion alone. Feel free to prove me wrong.

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By some of your reasoning, money and land are also man's greatest weaknesses; in Sierra Leone diamonds were the greatest weakness. Do you seriously believe that a world without religion wouldn't see conflict and genocide. How about science? Hitler used genetics to justify to the German people his attempt to wipe out the Jews, homosexuals, gypsies and the disabled. Stalin and Pol Pot didn't care too much for religion either. As we move into a less religious society evil just finds different mehods of drawing people in.

Man's greatest weakness is the desire for power and for acceptance by others. Bad people cannot commit truly evil acts on a large scale without weak minded people willing to follow them.

As for religion being a strength - if truly adhered to I think that most religions can be a useful guiding light in a person's life. The problem is that as far as I'm aware, a maximum of one religion isn't in some way flawed, simply by definition. However, thinking that there is something above you that you will eventually be accountable to is rarely a bad thing [note that hearing voices telling you to kill people is schizophrenia and is a seperate issue ]. I could write for a while about the little good and tremendoulsly important things that religious belief can do for you, but in the end everyone has freewill and can use religion, in racerx's words, as a tool.

Oh by the way JB, I'm pretty sure that most religions say that you should hate the actions, not the person.

I think the negative effects we see of religion are just the negative effects of humanity using religion as the current face of the "Excuse". The excuse can be anything from "Trrrism", various politics, false anecdotes, plenty of reasons. It doesn't really matter what it is.

So I'd say it's good because it gives people hope.

I completly agree with you. I believe that today that religeon is getting into politics a little too much. Although, if the majority of people are of a certain religeon, and the country in question is a democracy, then the best thing personally for politicians to do is appease the majority of people, even if it isn't "fair".

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But the biggest problem with Hitler would have never happened, the Jews. There would be no hatred towards someone of a different religion if religion did not exist.

Obviously I never said that, and you're putting words into my mouth. I never said the world would be perfect without religion.

Where did I ever hate the person? Show me, and I may give you an e-cookie.

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OK JB, you said:



Implying that religions in some way condone hatred towards different people, so I pointed out that:



I'm sorry if that was not clear before.



Unlike the last comment, specifically directed at you, this was to people in general who may think this way - a sort of rhetorical comment. Again sorry if this was not clear.

Lastly, you just said:



So when people shout abuse at me, is it in some way my fault for being Jewish, bringing it upon myself? Obviously not, and that is not your point (hopefully). My point was that it was a person of no religious backing that started the conflict - also as I certaintly made clear, this sort of person can pick any sort of scapegoat e.g. homosexuals, gypsies, or the disabled, get the idea? Without religion a person like Hitler can still pick on minorities.

[quote=Jello]
But the biggest problem with Hitler would have never happened, the Jews. There would be no hatred towards someone of a different religion if religion did not exist. [/quote]

That wasn't about religion, it was about race.

yeah, hitler would have still atempted Genocide on a certain group of people. remember, he did kill Gypsies,Mentaly Retarded,Dissabled, People who Follow Occultism/Wiccan/Any kind of magick, and poor people. there still would have been an attempt at Genocide.

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Come up with some "disproven fundamental concepts of religion" and we'll see. Scientific research has challenged some concepts (typically fundamentalist, sometimes traditionally conervative) held by various religions, but it has NOT disproved religion or its worth as a whole.

When Charles Darwin developed the theory of evolution, many Christians embraced it--that includes the Vatican. Two popes have published statements saying the theory of evolution does not in any way contradict the Bible. As far as I know, it's been cleared for teaching in private Catholic schools.

The Vatican has also opposed, to various degrees, the intelligent design movement as far as pushing it into science classes. And on the other side of the coin, a majority of scientists do believe there is a deity. Their actual position and beliefs are varied, however. (I can provide the article I discovered this from if you'd like)

I've done a lot of exploring on the subject and I've got to conclude that "God/religion is a hoax thanks to the findings of science" is atheistic wishful thinking, because no findings exist. In fact, I've seen a few debates where atheists were dumbstruck when theists used science to support arguments of the existence of a divine or creator being.

In another field, one of the greatest logicians of human history ranked among greats like Aristotle, Kurt Godel, worked on an ontological "mathematical proof" (that's what they're called) to define the existence of God. As far as I've read into it, Kurt Godel's Ontological Proof has not been demolished, the only criticisms I've seen of it are "maybes" and "possibilities."

Religion itself is a combination of many things vital to humanity's development and refinement--cuture, philosophy, and in many ways logic and morals. Cutting off religion "because it's needless" is like cutting off the collective left arm of humanity.

Hmm. Perhaps you would better understand the kind of chill I get from your words if I were to do this:



Religion in its various forms is a facet of a society's culture (Firaxis' designers recognized this--in Civilization 4, for instance, anything religious ties into culture and culture is an important facet of that game). To make a cold statement that "science has buried God's corpse and it's time to let religion go" is the equivalent of saying art should be put to rest because we can survive without it, that music has been scientifically proven not to mean anything, and that we can live on science alone.

That said,

I would also say both--but I need to express that religious intolerance, not the mere concept of religion, is responsible for many (but not all) of the wrongs in history attributed to religion (holy wars, terrorist acts, etc.). Atheists are quite capable of religious intolerance and their hands are thickly matted with blood shed out of intolerance for religion.

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Weakness.

Religion is BS and lies that have caused more bloodshed than anything else. Man created religion to propagate fear and his own ideals- much like modern-day media does.

What you're confusing it with is spirituality and morals. That's what is great. That's where the "good" in this world comes from.

No, it wasn't my point, like you said. Just to clarify, my point was that religion creates separations, and those separations could not be predjudicable(which is not a word, but hey, it'll work for now.). About a person like Hitler still picking on minorities anyway, I agree, he would. But there are so many lives that would not have been taken prematurely if religion did not exist, because many people have killed purely for religious purposes, not because they're psycho jerks.

Sorry for the late reply.
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The following comments were opinion only and were not directed to anybody in particular, except for, perhaps, Hitler.

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I think the biggest problem, And im sure many will agree. Is that people almost downright refuse to " Live and let live". Everyone thinks their "saving" Or "opening the minds/hearts" of everyone else. And while they may be, in a generalistic way, have the best intentions. They tend to do more harm then good. Honestly thats a major reason why I chose my current "religion". Id much rather spend time trying to better myself, mentally and physically, and enjoying my carnal life then waste time trying to convert/demand people to my beleifs.

Anyway. Im getting off topic. Honestly. I personaly have no problem with anyone, anykind of beleifs. Whatever makes you happy is grand, go for it. Just dont pressure me, outside the context of a educated debate, to join your religion/cult/etc. I'd think if everyone kept that mentality, of live and let live, Religion wouldnt be such a....problem, for lack of a better word.

( Unless of course your speaking of the teenyboppers who defile a belief that has nothing to do with "evil christian deitys")

P.S. You might be wondering why my first post is in a religious topic. Well. Who knows. .

HM
HS

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"What Darwin was to polite to say, Is that we came to rule the earth not because we were the smartest, or even the meanest, but because we have allways been the craziest, most murderous ************'s in the jungle"

Interesting thoughts that I agree are probably shared by many here. Would you be offended if I found this mindset self-centered?

I spent (or wasted, in your view) two years of my own time and money preaching what I believe to be the truth in another country. It was hard, and some days I just wanted to go home. But you know what I remember most when I look back on that time? The change that came into peoples' lives.

There was George, for example. I didn't see George sober for the first two months I knew him. He was always either drunk or sleeping off a hangover. His wife was miserable, he was going to lose his job, and his kids didn't know their own father.

Six weeks later, George was an entirely different person. He had quit drinking, been promoted at his job, and was one of the best fathers I've ever known. The light in his eyes and the happiness I saw in him outweighed every hard thing I'd had to go through.

All because of religion and the efforts of total strangers.

I don't take credit for this miraculous change, as it was the Lord and His Spirit that did that... but I was one of the many tools He used to impact George's life.

Oh, and I never forced my beliefs on anyone. I approached people and asked if they were interested in talking to me, but if they said no, that was that. There's no point in arguing... if someone doesn't want to receiving what is offered, they won't.

Actualy I would be happy if you found that mindset self-centered. Because thats exactly what it is, and what its ment to be. Of course, for anyone who's read some of Anton's works ( I dont follow his works word per word, but im more of a person to make my own "religion" that suits me best). Anyway, I strongly agree with his attitude of " Do unto others as they do unto you". Im going to worry about myself and those I care for much more then joe schmoe walking down the street, or mary jane flying in poland. Some, well most would find that self centered, And I agree. But it works for me.

Oh and. Concerning your post. Wouldnt an admitance to a self-help group come with the same effect? Not that im trying to take away what you or what you believe your deity has done to help him. But it seems the same effects could come from not only a self help center, but just a caring person. Just a differnt means to the same end?

Its nice that you went out of your way to help someone who needed it. But theres a differnce between consoling a person with a drug problem, and using your religion of choice as "inspirational backing" For you and the recipiant, and preaching to someone on the street, at their home, on tv, on radio, where-ever, about the joys of your "religion inserted here" and the damnnation that would follow should you not chose to accept " Insert diety here" into your heart.

Using your example. Id much rather help my good friend bob overcome something he see's as a problem, and needs support to get through. Then walking down the street to my local quick-e mart and wasting time preaching religious banter at people who dont want to hear it.

\\Also, Honestly. Using that example. If "Bob" wasnt my good friend. And he did nothing more but tax me emotionaly because of his down-comings. Then nuts to him. That may be self-centered, but it works for me. \\



Theres a differnce there, Isnt there? If you said yes, score 1 for you. I will be keeping score.

p.s. And before anyone says it. " Oh im sure you would be singing a differnt tune if you where in trouble and needed help..." If I'am that much of a screw-up that I cant handle my own life, I dont want nor need someone to handle it for me. Ive been doing just fine on my own for the last five years, And hopefully after my time at delta, I'll be doing better.

-Cheers

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"What Darwin was to polite to say, Is that we came to rule the earth not because we were the smartest, or even the meanest, but because we have allways been the craziest, most murderous ************'s in the jungle"

I disagree. I have full faith that, in time (meaning it could--and probably will--be a number of centuries), science will prove that a spiritual plane of some sort or another does in fact exist. Of course, this is simply my belief, based on my own personal spiritual experiences.

I have to agree muchly with what racerx said about religion being a tool, and our greatest flaw as mankind being our own selfishness and pride.

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The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

Religion is both the greatest strength and weakness, depending on the person and which religion.

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"They've taken Mr Rimmer! Sir, they've taken Mr Rimmer!"
"Quick, let's get outta here before they bring him back!"

Religion, in and of itself, is a wonderful thing. However, far too many people in history have used religious beliefs to justify otherwise horrible and immoral actions. It's a double-edged sword.

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The Mu is NOT dead!