# Religion- Is It Useful to Society and the Individual? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 29, 2006, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-is-it-useful-to-society-and-the-individual/350331 "2006-03-29T01:04:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![kelly5078](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/6f9a4e/32.png) [@kelly5078](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kelly5078)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-is-it-useful-to-society-and-the-individual/350331/41 "2006-03-30T16:12:32Z")
> [@ButAnEgg](#): > > I think religion is more of a social affectation No, that’s about the last thing I’d say about religion. > [@ButAnEgg](#): > > a common ground through which a social group can safely feel connected without really knowing anything about one another. I can certainly buy that for some groups, such as the more liberal Christian churches, or some of the feel-good-about-yourself mega-churches. But it’s not true across the board. > [@ButAnEgg](#): > > A meme that glues a group of people together with an implied trust that lubricates more cooperative and involved social relationships. Don’t get this group started on the subject of memes. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-is-it-useful-to-society-and-the-individual/350331/42 "2006-03-30T16:24:47Z")
[QUOTE=Malthus] Are all “dogmatic, cosmically all-explaining, ideological belief-system[s]” religions, and are all “religions” “dogmatic, cosmically all-explaining, ideological belief-system[s]”? [/QUOTE] (1) Yes, and (2) probably. (The latter does not describe, for instance, Unitarian Universalism – but that church’s status as a “religion” is debated. Likewise with Confucianism, on both counts.) ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-is-it-useful-to-society-and-the-individual/350331/43 "2006-03-30T20:26:01Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] No, **Shodan.** My argument applies only to Communism. And to any dogmatic, cosmically all-explaining, ideological belief-system, regardless of how many adherents it has. [/quote] Special pleading, then. Since atheism is dogmatic, cosmically all-explaining, and ideological. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2006, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-is-it-useful-to-society-and-the-individual/350331/44 "2006-03-31T12:17:25Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] No, **Shodan.** My argument applies only to Communism. And to any dogmatic, cosmically all-explaining, ideological belief-system, regardless of how many adherents it has. I claim nothing of the kind; see post #21. [/QUOTE] The first Christians were communist in it’s purest form. They all shared in everything. One couple was supposed to have been struck dead because they held back some of their monies. It would seem that Communism can’t work for long because of the nature of man to put him or herself first. Monavis ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2006, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-is-it-useful-to-society-and-the-individual/350331/45 "2006-03-31T12:48:06Z")
[QUOTE=Shodan] Special pleading, then. Since atheism is dogmatic, cosmically all-explaining, and ideological. Regards, Shodan [/QUOTE] It what way? It _certainly_ isn’t “cosmically all-explaining”, and the only ideology it professes to have is “You have no hard evidence that your god exists, so I’m not going to waste my limited time and resources on this planet “worshipping” your god.” ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2006, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-is-it-useful-to-society-and-the-individual/350331/46 "2006-03-31T13:10:47Z")
[QUOTE=monavis] The first Christians were communist in it’s purest form. They all shared in everything. [/QUOTE] Though supposedly, in the early days of Christianity, they expected the return of Christ and the end of the world as we know it (and they felt fine) to happen soon. That sort of belief can have an effect on one’s economic theories. > [@](#): > > One couple was supposed to have been struck dead because they held back some of their monies. The account of the incident in Acts 5:1-11 makes it pretty clear that it wasn’t holding back money, but lying about it, that was the real offense. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2006, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-is-it-useful-to-society-and-the-individual/350331/47 "2006-03-31T13:30:29Z")
[QUOTE=Shodan] Special pleading, then. Since atheism is dogmatic, cosmically all-explaining, and ideological. [/QUOTE] Atheism **explains** nothing. Scientific materialism does, but is emphatically non-dogmatic; everything is open to revision in the light of new evidence. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2006, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-is-it-useful-to-society-and-the-individual/350331/48 "2006-03-31T13:32:21Z")
[QUOTE=monavis] The first Christians were communist in it’s purest form. They all shared in everything. [/QUOTE] I recall a story, somewhere in Acts or one of the epistles, about a guy who wanted to share his wife with the congregation. The general consensus was that this was taking it too far. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2006, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-is-it-useful-to-society-and-the-individual/350331/49 "2006-03-31T23:14:39Z")
[QUOTE=Czarcasm] It what way? It _certainly_ isn’t “cosmically all-explaining”, and the only ideology it professes to have is “You have no hard evidence that your god exists, so I’m not going to waste my limited time and resources on this planet “worshipping” your god.” [/QUOTE] I thought that atheism was the unproven belief that “There is no God, period.” Statements based merely on the lack of hard evidence are agnostic in nature, aren’t they? ---
**Author:** ![Bertie\_Wooster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/58f4c7/32.png) [@Bertie\_Wooster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bertie_Wooster)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2006, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-is-it-useful-to-society-and-the-individual/350331/50 "2006-04-01T17:06:14Z")
Religion is based on faith. Faith encourages belief without adequate proof. What happens when people believe without adequate proof? In extreme cases, they do not believe things even with proof, if the proof suggests their faith may be ill-placed. [For example](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7255384&postcount=69). ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2006, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-is-it-useful-to-society-and-the-individual/350331/51 "2006-04-01T17:17:44Z")
[QUOTE=Clothahump] Religion, in all its myriad guises, has done more damage to humanity than plagues and wars combined. [/QUOTE] **Clothahump** , are you still trotting out this old chestnut? Time and again, you have made this claim. Time and again, I have asked you to substantiate it. Not once have you complied. In fact, your claim has been repeatedly debunked here on the SDMB. It is the societies that attempt to eliminate religion that experience the greatest degree of persecution and mass murder. In this very thread, **Shodan** has cited an article by the Master to that very effect. If you have any evidence to the contrary, you sure haven’t been willing to share it. Somehow though, I suspect that won’t stop you from repeating your assertion whenever it’s convenient to do so. After all, why let the truth get in the way of a cheap shot, right? ---
**Author:** ![Sunrazor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sunrazor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunrazor)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-is-it-useful-to-society-and-the-individual/350331/52 "2006-04-03T22:11:15Z")
[QUOTE=Crotalus] I was raised Roman Catholic, spent over twenty years of my adult life as an atheist, and became a born-again Christian seven years ago. I believe that my faith has made me a better, more useful member of society. [/QUOTE] Mmmmm, actually, it’s probably the other way around – your inate goodness has made you a good, useful member of society. A friend of mine is a Baptist minister, and we argue over whether he’s a good person because he’s a Christian (his view) or he’s a Christian because he’s a good person (my view.) We good people are drawn into various ways of helping society. I chose Kiwanis, you chose your church. Ignore the rantings of folks like Der Trihs. Most atheists I know aren’t really all that angry about the horrors visited on humanity by popes and preachers of all stripe. We recognize that religion doesn’t make people bad, but bad people use religion to excuse their badness. More to the point: Is religion useful for all the reasons Happy Clam enumerated? Of course. Religion may not be the best, most productive or most enlightened way to keep folks from randomly raping and pillaging each other’s homes, but it’s the easiest way to explain things to peasants who simply don’t understand the dynamics of organized society. I subscribe to the theory that Man created God in his own image to keep other men in line, but I recognize the irony of that. If early tribal leaders evolved God (or gods) to promote peace and prosperity, then they were the most forward-thinking people of their time, thus the earliest form of intellectuals. Yet when religion (and/or nationalism) runs amok, it is the intellectuals who suffer first and most. My neighbors here in rural Colorado leave each other alone for two reasons: First, they are good people who respect the law and respect each other’s dignity; second, almost all of them are devout Christians who believe God would deal severely with them if they ever harmed another person for personal gain. At the risk of sounding cynical, I’d just say that I find their religion very useful to my peace and privacy. ---
**Author:** ![Sunrazor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sunrazor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunrazor)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-is-it-useful-to-society-and-the-individual/350331/53 "2006-04-03T22:54:04Z")
[QUOTE=glee] You mention the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition. But Judaism denies that Jesus was the son of God. There are other differences between them! [/QUOTE] Yes, dear, there are differences among Judaism, Christianity and Islam. But scholars refer to the Judeo-Christian Tradition (and sometimes, they include Islam) because all grew from the root of ancient Judaism. Have you never read James Michner’s “The Source”? The so-called Judeo-Christian-Islam tradition is a cultural phenomenon arising from an ancient religion. ---
**Author:** ![Sunrazor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sunrazor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunrazor)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-is-it-useful-to-society-and-the-individual/350331/54 "2006-04-03T23:07:29Z")
[QUOTE=begbert2] I thought that atheism was the unproven belief that “There is no God, period.” Statements based merely on the lack of hard evidence are agnostic in nature, aren’t they? [/QUOTE] Nope, a-theism is simply the absence of theism. I believe in a lot of things (gosh, I wish I could remember Kevin Costner’s speech from “Bull Durham” by rote, because there’s lots of good stuff in it to believe in) but I don’t believe God exists, nor anything that comes from the belief in God (angels, Heaven, Hell, afterlife, Jesus, salvation – none of it.) I know, this will give rise to the tiresome quibble over the difference between NOT believing in God and believing there is no God. In my mind, they’re slightly different spins on a single concept. Neither of them is provable, nor is there any way to prove God’s existence. I’m not out to prove one way or another, or even convince anyone one way or another. As my other posts on this thread indicate, I’m pretty much a live-and-let-live kind of guy. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2006, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-is-it-useful-to-society-and-the-individual/350331/55 "2006-04-04T04:08:36Z")
[QUOTE=jeffrice] Nope, a-theism is simply the absence of theism. [/QUOTE] That’s an incorrect parsing of its etymology. Atheism is not “a-theism.” Rather, it is “(a-theos)-ism” – belief in the non-existence of God. As the _Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy_ says, [“‘Atheism’ means the negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God.”](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/) It has admittedly become popular for people to define atheism as the mere non-belief in God. This is more properly known as non-theism though, and does not fit the classical use of the term. ---
**Author:** ![Sunrazor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sunrazor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunrazor)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2006, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-is-it-useful-to-society-and-the-individual/350331/56 "2006-04-04T17:07:13Z")
[QUOTE=JThunder] That’s an incorrect parsing of its etymology. Atheism is not “a-theism.” Rather, it is “(a-theos)-ism” – belief in the non-existence of God. As the _Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy_ says, [“‘Atheism’ means the negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God.”](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/) It has admittedly become popular for people to define atheism as the mere non-belief in God. This is more properly known as non-theism though, and does not fit the classical use of the term. [/QUOTE] What’s the difference!? I don’t believe in God. Any god. Why would I NOT believe in something that actually exists? God doesn’t exist – that’s why I don’t believe. Split enymological hairs all you want, the bottom line is the same. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2006, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-is-it-useful-to-society-and-the-individual/350331/57 "2006-04-04T17:25:56Z")
[QUOTE=JThunder] That’s an incorrect parsing of its etymology. Atheism is not “a-theism.” Rather, it is “(a-theos)-ism” – belief in the non-existence of God. As the _Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy_ says, [“‘Atheism’ means the negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God.”](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/) It has admittedly become popular for people to define atheism as the mere non-belief in God. This is more properly known as non-theism though, and does not fit the classical use of the term. [/QUOTE] Since people don’t use it that way, it’s an obsolete usage. Dictionaries reflect language, not the other way around. Besides, it seems to mainly serve as a way of diverting arguements over religion into arguments over word definitions. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2006, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-is-it-useful-to-society-and-the-individual/350331/58 "2006-04-04T18:55:40Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] Since people don’t use it that way, it’s an obsolete usage. Dictionaries reflect language, not the other way around. [/QUOTE] People do use it that way, and that is exactly how dictionaries define the term. Consider what [Merriam-Webster](http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/atheism) has to say, for example: [ul] [li]a disbelief in the existence of deity[/li][li]the doctrine that there is no deity[/li][/ul] Certain people _misuse_ the term, but that does not make them correct. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2006, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-is-it-useful-to-society-and-the-individual/350331/59 "2006-04-04T19:01:51Z")
[QUOTE=jeffrice] What’s the difference!? I don’t believe in God. Any god. Why would I NOT believe in something that actually exists? God doesn’t exist – that’s why I don’t believe. Split enymological hairs all you want, the bottom line is the same. [/QUOTE] Do you honestly not see any difference between the following statements? “I don’t believe in god.” and “I believe that no god exists” The two statements are not identical. Someone who has no particular opinion on the matter, for example, would not believe in a god… but at the same token, would not actively assert that no deity exists. The same could be said for someone who is undecided or simply refuses to take a stand on this matter. Again, if you don’t believe in a god, that is _non-theism_. If you specifically believe that there is no god, then that’s _atheism_. There is simply no need to redefine “atheism” to mean “non-belief” when this is more than adequately captured by the term “non-theism.” ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2006, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-is-it-useful-to-society-and-the-individual/350331/60 "2006-04-04T19:28:34Z")
[QUOTE=JThunder] Certain people _misuse_ the term, but that does not make them correct. [/QUOTE] If enough people do, it does. The purpose of language is to communicate, not follow obscure rules and usages. If the dictionary disagrees with the vast majority of people, then it’s in error, not the people. [QUOTE=JThunder] There is simply no need to redefine “atheism” to mean “non-belief” when this is more than adequately captured by the term “non-theism.” [/QUOTE] You are the one trying to impose a custom definition, one that looks suspiciously designed to split atheists even further than they already are. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-is-it-useful-to-society-and-the-individual/350331.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion-is-it-useful-to-society-and-the-individual/350331.md?page=4)