Is religion harmful?

[Peter666]

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If Dawkins were preaching an atheistic religion, then there would be:

"A religion is a set of beliefs and practices generally held by a community, involving adherence to codified beliefs and rituals and study of ancestral or cultural traditions, writings, history, and mythology, as well as personal faith and mystic experience. The term "religion" refers to both the personal practices related to communal faith and to group rituals and communication stemming from shared conviction."

In line with the opening paragraph on religion in Wikipedia. There isn't a codified set of beliefs however so he isn't preaching a religion. It's very simple.

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Of course science has a codified set of beliefs, it's called the scientific method.

[Ben K]

No, it has a method. Like everything else in science it can, and will, be changed if it is found to be inadequate. Since you are unable to propose or demontrate a better way of working out what is true, it will stand for the time being.

[Peter666]

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No, it has a method. Like everything else in science it can, and will, be changed if it is found to be inadequate. Since you are unable to propose or demontrate a better way of working out what is true, it will stand for the time being.

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How is it possible to determine what is "inadequate" if it is merely a method? Science must obviously hold some set of beliefs in order to make such conclusions.

[Ben K]

It would be inadequate if it was shown to not produce (and re-produce) results consistent with reality as perceived by everyone (normally minded) doing the experiments.

Good science tries to cover all bases and state all assumptions including method so if, in future, something was found to be wrong (method included) then the conclusion could be re-visited.

Religion has nothing reproducible and in many ways has nothing at all except "we have a book that says this happened x years ago". If it were true that this happened then (assuming reality hasn't changed materially) it would be reproducible.

This is why I like science. Everything ever worked out can be re-worked out tomorrow. Religion can't do that. I don't need the argument from authority, though like most lay people I accept it. If I really distrusted someone saying sound travels at x m.p.h then I could test it for myself.

You know all this, I'm wondering where you're trying to lead me.....

[Taraz]

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Even if I grant you all those points about religion being harmful (and I think I do for the most part), you haven't shown that this harm has outweighed the good of religion in human history.

I could easily make the argument that the use of reason has been harmful in human history. But I would never claim that it has done more harm than good, and I'm not even sure it's a provable claim one way or the other.

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I'm not interested in whether or not religion is net a "good" or a net "bad" because I think the question is silly. Religion is far too big a concept to neatly pigeonhole as "good" or "bad".

However, certain common characteristics of religion are clearly harmful and so I choose to target my attacks there.

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I think I might have misunderstood the intentions of your post. I was mostly still trying to argue against the fact that religion was a harmful institution throughout human history and was detrimental to the well-being of civilization. I agree that it today's world it is often misguided and harmful and that we should try to eliminate these elements from religion.

[Peter666]

I'm leading you to the conclusion that even science is subject to philosophy. And philosophy is subject to theology.

What you perceive as reality, may not be what other people perceive as reality. And true, they may be absolutely nuts and not "normal" for thinking the world is flat, but what are you going to do about it? How are you going to impose your "scientific beliefs" on them? And what will you do when they claim YOU are not normal?

Dostoevsky dealt with these issues very thoroughly. "The Underground Man" is a case of a person deliberately acting against reason out of sheer spite. And so long as human beings have free will and an intellect, science alone will not satisfy them. Dawkins' total FAITH in science shows utter contempt and ignorance about human nature, and the ways to satisfy it.

[Zeno]

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I'm leading you to the conclusion that even science is subject to philosophy. And philosophy is subject to theology.


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You invoke a hierarchy which is interesting - is theology subject to anything or is it the ultimate holder of all truth? No separate realms of knowledge or schools of thought that work in parallel with no overlap, or even the converse, schools of thought that continually battle each other?

It is also very interesting that you already know what conclusion you will reach.

You appear to wish to subjugate all knowledge and truth under the Vatican Roof or perhaps a cadre of Jesuit Professors to which all of humanity is subject. I think this rot of course. But fanatical religion goons, high priests or shaman, along with their megalomaniac henchmen, are a perennial force in any cultural and civilization. The credulous are always ready to take up whatever scheme or chimera that comes down the pike, sometimes hatched by well-meaning dupes, sometimes by scoundrels and charlatans; which almost always evolves into some orthodoxy that wishes to sustain itself, for which an organizational hierocracy is build up to maintain influence, power, and self glory. The wretchedness of a beuearacray is thus easily fostered and perpetuated in a framework of religious orthodoxy sustained by morons, mountebanks, parasites, or the likes of a Thomas Aquinas, a John Calvin or better still: Torquemada or Girolamo Savonarola. [added in edit: or Cardinal Gibbons]


Soli Deo gloria!

What is your opinion on Stephen Jay Gould’s separate magisterial concept (in regards to religion and science), which Dawkins disagreed with by the way?

-Zeno, The Antipope

[Ben K]

I agree that we differ in perceptions of reality but what of it? I'm not going to do anything about people who insist the World is flat except, perhaps, explain and show them satellite pictures of a round Earth. If it had to be settled one way or the other then we could find someone to do a test we could both witness and agree to accept the results.

Science is a way of settling arguments over facts that does not involve "my personal intuition tells me it's true". It's outside of any one individual and is cumulative across the thousands of scientists around the World. How do religious people settle their differences? Well, you can see that around the World easily enough.

Dawkins total faith is science extends as far as identifying the truth. There is nothing wrong with science working to understand human nature, it's just the work in that area is fairly new - for instance, altruism has always been though uniquely human but it's now been experimentally demonstrated in chimps too. The tests are being re-done to check it's genuine of course. The point is that science is about understanding. The first scientists were clergymen trying to understand God's universe. If there's something not understood then get scientific about it. Standing around making stuff up doesn't help.

As for science being subject to philosophy being subject to theology. I don't know enough about philosophy to say abut the first part but the theology link is just out of date by a few hundred years.

[Ben K]

So religion is harmful because it limits understanding.

How many agricultural improvements has the bible given us in the last 200 years? Ever?
How many vaccines? How many pain reduction compounds?

Religion merely consists of the wisdom of its time. It has been superceeded.

[GoodCallYouWin]

"
Religion merely consists of the wisdom of its time. It has been superceeded. "

Like how 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you' has been superceeded by 'we can invade whoever we want for whatever reason we want'? Some truths are universal.