Religion gets an awful lot of flack on these boards - whether it’s deserved or not you can decide for yourself. In this thread, I’d like to talk about the good in religion - personally, culturally, historically, politically, or any other way you like. Any religion is fair game. If you have a personal story of religion’s positive influence, you can share that, too.
Please keep this thread positive. If you believe religion is 95% evil, just mention the 5% you like and post about the rest in another thread, if you so desire. Let’s try to avoid snark, too, okay?
First example: churches were an organizational and motivating force in the early African-American civil rights movement. I don’t think I need to go through the list of all the reverends and other religious who were instrumental in that movement.
Some good in my life is religion is a state recognized authority which limits state’s influence against personal freedom in some aspects.
Now in this I’m not saying religion is a freeing ‘force’ in this world, but it is a freedom limiting force that is sometimes in conflict with another freedom limiting force (the state), in that conflict greater freedom sometimes arises as one holds back the other.
The above is also the main reason I believe God allows religion, to give us greater freedoms by having one force in conflict with another limiting total domination of the people.
I know I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m taking a philosophy class that has really helped me to become happier and more content. The content draws from thousands of years of ideas culled mostly from Buddhism and Hinduism, but also from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and dozens of other sources.
Our original meeting place was a beautiful old church where Ralph Waldo Emerson was once the pastor. (He was eventually kicked out for being too radical.)
plainchant and polyphony
a trodden path toward enlightenment, with trained help
a cultural practice of charity and lovingkindness
pilgrimage
incense
atonement
rituals for major life transitions that don’t have to be invented anew
group singing
organized opportunities to be of humble service to others
deep mysterious ancient stories
stability
I can think of lots and lots of other things but that’s a start. I went completely without organized religion for the first half of my life (never set foot in a church), so I may have a different view of what it is good for than most people.
One unexpected but great gift I received when I joined the Catholic Church was a sense that I am part of Western history, in all its horror and glory, in a way I had never felt before. I’m the heir of the Inquisition and of St. John of the Cross and St.Thomas Aquinas and Erasmus and the Crusades and the Renaissance and forced conversions and the burning of heretics. I was doing the “I don’t belong with those stupid cruel people, I’m smarter/better than that” thing that intellectuals do. Well, I’m not.
Free, legal opiate?
I’m actually halfway serious. The good half is: hey! free, mind-numbing, happy causing entity! The not so good half is–do we really want anybody who wishes it to be going around drugged all day?
The Mormon church is putting out a massive amount of effort to index the 1940 US census data. Their reason for doing so is religious, but they’ll make the results publicly available, which will be of use to lots of genealogists, historical researchers, and other people.
Along with hypocrisy, intolerance, and oppression :p;), missionaries often paved the way for modern medical and sanitation practices. (I’m thinking more of the 1800s, not the genocidal early New World church stuff)