[JussiUt]

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People use religion to justify just about anything. Religion is a force for good and bad. So is every other ideology on the face of the planet.

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This is exactly right. What most "crusading atheists" are claiming is that in the end this ideology is useless, pointless. Just like we would be attacking a political ideology which is based on little or no evidence whatsoever we surely can and must attack a religious ideology.

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How can anyone claim that religion is useless? First of all, it's pretty much impossible to prove. Second, it's pretty arrogant.

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Why can one not argue that religion is useless? Let's imagine an ideology which states that all money should be burned and that we have to pay "in nature" only. Most people would say that the idea is stupid and that the ideology supporting that is useless in a sense that it doesn't do any good to society or to our world. It might have good side effects but wouldn't it be better to just try to take the good side effects to practice and discard the useless ideology?

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I agree that religion isn't a root of all evil and even Dawkins has said that himself. He found that title unfortunate (though his one aim is to be provocative to raise discussion IMO). I also agree that if religion vanished from the face of the Earth on this moment a huge number of religious people would go into personal chaos. That isn't of course possible since religion by its very nature is something that nothing can simply and suddenly destroy but hypothetically that would be devastating to the world.

However, what Dawkins is arguing and with which I agree is that if children were brought up in a non-religious way, encouraged to be critical and rational, if they would be taught many religions and not just one of them as a truth I'm sure that a large number of these children wouldn't need religion when adults.

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This is probably true, and I agree with it. I would slightly disagree when you say these children wouldn't need religion. Again, there is no way to know. They might want the community aspect, or they might enjoy the mystery. It would clearly be much better if they were taught to be critical and rational about their faith though.

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Well, probably some would "fall" into superstitions like the serious hardcore astrologists today but it would be quite minor, I'm sure. There are people living today who don't need religion and they live in a world full of religion. What if the world wasn't full of religion? Children simply wouldn't have the need to build their world views around a Creator if they are taught the things I mentioned.

This is of course a huge task. What I'm stating here is that the world should become more sophisticated and intelligent. It's not a coincidence that most top scientists don't believe in a Creator. Do you have to be very intelligent in order to be non-religious? I think in some way you have to be more enlightened simply because non-religiousness requires analytical, critical thinking and not all people today are capable of that. That should be our goal, though. Just as we try to make the whole world able to read we should try to make the whole world able to be non-religious. Some sorts of superstitions will always be around, I'm sure, but anything we can do to help the situation is good.

People can enjoy the mystery without religion. Again, Einsteinian sense of God etc. The community aspect is strong, sure. People have a need to belong. Hopefully the world doesn't become so individualistic that the only place to do that is a place to worship a Creator.

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Religion can be used for good and evil. Why only attribute good things to religion and say that "these are products of religion" and when bad things happen in the name of religion why say that "these things would happen anyway"? Both good and bad things would happen anyway. Then why not get rid of this ideology?

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I never claimed that only good came from religious belief. I see religion as more of a language that people use to describe and justify their experiences.

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I was responding generally, I know you didn't claim that. The analogy of religion as a language is not good though. Language is just a mean to communicate. It is by its nature trying to be neutral. Religion isn't neutral, it has substance which it is trying to spread. I agree that religion has probably been born from a need to discuss this aspect of our emotions but I don't think it is as harmless as you make it sound to be. I think it would be better if we talked about that stuff "in another language", in a language of analytical thinking for example.

Generally I'm not saying that feelings or sense of a mystery is useless or stupid or whatever. Far from it. I'm saying that we should be able to discuss about that stuff without superstitions/dogmas. We should not be uber-rational robots uncapable of emotion or appreciation of love and beauty. We should strive to discuss and view those things in another way than a religious dogmatic way.

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People who haven't brought up in it can live without it. Tolerance, rationality, critical thinking, ultimately the truth - these are the things Dawkins is after and an ideology called religion really doesn't have a positive effect on any of them. One could argue about tolerance but I'm sure people can be tolerant/compassionate without religion. I have "faith" that humans can evolve and rise above superstitions. We are not moral because of religion - we can live without it. So let's get rid of one useless ideology which divides the world in a dangerous and unnecessary way.

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Again, you have a long, long way to go before you prove that religion is useless. Or that you can even do away with religion altogether without negative consequences.

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Well, why don't you tell me why we would need religion? Religion isn't the only way to talk about the mystical experiences we have like I stated in the last paragraph. If we continue to compare religion to an ideology, what inherently good stuff can an ideology contain that isn't otherwise reachable? Ideologies are human made. They are packages that we have created. They contain stuff that we put there.

Can we be good and moral and nice and compassionate and tolerant without religion? Yes. If someone claims otherwise he's saying that all atheists are bad or some other nonsense and he must not be taken seriously. Religion isn't a source of our morals. Religion didn't build our moral codes, I'd say it's the other way around and that our moral codes help built religion.

Like I previously said, if religion would vanish now at this very second many people would go into personal chaos and as a result the world would go into chaos. But as you agreed with me before, children should be taught differently. They should not be encouraged to build their world views and personal images around a Creator. If we take away this belief in a Creator, why it would have negative consequences?

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And what comes to religious people being happier than other people, well, I don't buy it. I'm not sure if there are studies somewhere but like I said in other thread, religion can cause both misery and comfort. The point is that we can be comfortable without religion and get rid of the ideology of religion and its bad side effects.

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I don't think I ever claimed that religious people are happier than atheists/agnostics. Some are, some aren't. Why don't we just try to get rid of the bad side effects instead of throwing the baby out with the bath water? It would be much easier to accomplish than trying to do away with religion altogether.

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You're right, it's much easier to try to modify religion to be better than to get rid of it. The difficulty of the task is still not an argument against the idea that religious ideology is useless. Useless in a sense that even though some people find it useful it isn't necessary. So maybe the better word would be unnecessary.

In any case, what I'm championing here and what most "crusading atheists" that I've heard of are promoting is that we should be able to criticize religion and that we should get rid of religion's special status which does not belong to it. A dogmatic religious belief system is bad because people can live without it. If it didn't have any negative side effects I'm sure nobody would mind religion but it has side effects and it's a huge force in our world. Therefore the goal should be to get rid of this unnecessary ideology.

How to prove that religion is "useless"? Why not try to make the world non-religious, non-dogmatic and let's see what happens? We are fighting against racism, intolerace, ignorance etc. You agree that religion has bad side effects. If we try to modify religion to be better ultimately we're trying to modify it to be not a religion anymore.

If this comes off as arrogant that's not my purpose but I guess it cannot be completely avoided either. I just don't see any inherently positive effects that only dogmatic religion can provide us.