Religion- Is It Useful to Society and the Individual?

Great Debates
61

Faith is the leading cause of blindness.

[QUOTE=Happy Clam]
I was flicking through my December issue of the Economist
when I came across an article titled “Wealth from Worship”. Essentially, a gentleman named Gruber, from M.I.T., has done some research suggesting that church-going types save more, make (arguably) wiser investments, and are just generally better off (including higher incomes than other of their class, race, region etc.). The rest of the article is mostly about seperating cause from effect (e.g. maybe the wealthier have more time to devote to religion), but it got me thinking:

Is belonging to a religion “useful” to any given individual (when I say “religion” here, let’s assume I’m talking about Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition, which is, I think, most easily discussed and easiest to get info on), and if so, is it “useful” to the society that individual works in?

For example, it could be argued that a religous upbringing tends to inculcate values that are socially desirable (hard-working, obedient, literate) and therefore help to ease the passage of the worshipper through life. Equally, religion can give both a support system and a group with which to identity, which it is difficult to argue the value of, both for me and my community- it is in no-one’s interest, after all, to have a lot of alienated and disenfranchised loose cannons running around.

Going further than such factors, however (which could arguably be gained from a similar secular system), does “faith” in general- i.e. the ability to believe in something without conclusive evidence in favour of it (which, like it or not, rests at the heart of most religous belief systems) help me as an individual? I suppose you could argue that it makes me happier, since I have less worries about the future of whatever, and that it may also make me willing to trust others- something that is essential for human interaction. In fact, I seem to recall (no cite, alas) something suggesting that human evolution has favoured those who can believe in things “blindly”, incidentally giving rise to almost universal religion (no matter what form it take).

What do you think? Does being religous help you through life? And does a having a majority of its inhabitants be religious make a society stronger or wiser?
[/QUOTE]

62

Religion is regarded by the common man as true, by the wise man as false, and by rulers as useful. – Seneca the young.

GEN 11:6 And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

Religion isn’t just moral guidelines and all this other crap “smart” people seem to think it is. It’s been used by rulers to control people before, and it will be used to do the same again. When somebody gets a little too smart and figures out how it all works conflict is created. Religion prevents these critical thought processes which lead to these discoveries by offering explanations for it all and demanding unwavering loyalty.

63

[QUOTE=JThunder]
Do you honestly not see any difference between the following statements?
“I don’t believe in god.”
and
“I believe that no god exists”
[/QUOTE]

Yes, the first statement contains five words, the second contains six words. The first statement could be construed by narrow-minded college English majors to allow for the possibility that god exists, but I just don’t believe it (kind of like trickle-down economics.) This is sophomoric. This error is made by people, like myu wife, who say things like, “I don’t believe in ordering things over the Internet.” Well, while she’s busy not believing in it, I’m ordering stuff like crazy. So the sentence is gramatically incorrect – it should be, “I don’t order things over the Internet.” I didn’t swat my children when they were small, either, because I didn’t think it was a good thing to do. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t believe in it. It existed. Still does. And for some people, it brought great results. So how could I “not believe in it”?!

Again, I point to the bottom line: You can perform all kinds of mental self-gratification you want to, but at the end of the day, you and I have a common frame of reference concerning God/gods. That’s because, while you were grumpily insisting that I’m wearing the wrong sign around my neck, you still understood where my world-view begins. And isn’t that really all that matters, that we communicated?

Now, c’mere and gimme a big hug! :slight_smile: