Religion

Great Debates
21

Hi scotth

No. This is the first of five definitions given by the American Heritage Dictionary, according to dictionary.com. I find it an inadequate definition, if only because it excludes some major world religions, such as Buddhism.

No, you don’t. You live in a world in which you don’t have any religion, which is not the same thing at all. And even that statement is true only if, for “religion”, we understand “belief in a god”, which (as I think I’ve made clear) is an artificially narrow meaning of the word.

We come down (as so often) to boring questions of definition. As I think the example of Buddhism shows, “religion” does not equal “belief in God”, despite what the compilers of the American Heritage Dictionary may think. I understand it to mean a rule for living, or a rule for right behaviour. I think the etymology will support me here. On reflection I would – possibly – qualify that by saying that religion probably implies some notion of community or collectivity; it is a rule or way of life or guide to right behaviour adopted and practised by a group or community.

Scientific impulses are human impulses, scotth, in that they are driven by a human desire to study and understand the natural world. A person doing this would indeed be morally and ethically bankrupt, but they would still to my mind be acting on a scientific impulse (assuming their objective is to understand the world rather than to torture their subjects) and, indeed, the results of their experiment might conceivably make a signficant contribution to a scientific understanding of whatever phenomenon they were seeking to investigate.

And, you forgot to add, it has restrained or condemend horrific deeds many times.

But you make my point. Science neither encourages nor discourages evil. In fact, science offers no basis at all for distinguishing between good and evil; we must look elsewhere for that. I entirely accept your point that we can distinguish between good and evil without a belief in a god; my point is that any attempt, at least on a community level, to arrive at a rule for right behaviour is “religion”; I cannot understand the term in any other way.

I disagree. 360 million Buddhists agree with me, not to mentionion various Taoists, Confucians and so forth.

Lots of religions are uncodified, and they all change and grow every single day. They’re still religions. If you have adopted a set of values and beliefs which guides you as to what is right behaviour and which you broadly share with others, then I say you have a religion.

Of course, people can start from a relious, even theistic, basis and arrive at conclusions about right and wrong, and good and bad behaviour, with which you or I would fundamentally disagree. Equally someone can start from a nontheistic basis and arrive at conclusions about right and wrong which we would find abhorrent. But a world without religion is a world in which there is no attempt at all by the community to arrive at rules of right behaviour. That is why I consider such a world to be (a) horrific, but (b) impossible.

Now, if the OP had asked us to choose between a world with no belief in god and a world with no science . . .

22

I agree that your can find a definition of religion that omits the belief in the supernatural. However, I think the common usage of term implies an ethical philosophy couched in the worship of a divine being.

If you are comfortable calling an ethical philosophy that does not make acknowledge the supernatural, an afterlife, miracles, or reincarnation a religion, than I guess I am right with you.

I would prefer to call something like that an ethical philosophy, not a religion, and avoid the confusion.

Perhaps the original poster will clarify if his/her meaning of religion intended to mean the more restrictive definition that also denotes the supernatural. All the follow ups so far, indicate to me, the defintion I’ve chosen. But, I could be wrong.

23

Gimme science anyday.

That said…I notice that most of what has been posted are arguments (alright…discussions) about the definition of what religion is/isn’t. Seems we know what science is, though. I wonder why? (note: rhetorical question)

That also said, let’s postulate (ohhhh…good word!) that somehow EVERY religion (Christianity/Buddhism/Muslim/whatever, including all cults and sects) was to vanish from this here old Earth. I think that people would still have a need to wonder about their place in the Cosmos, and would naturally begin to postulate (there’s that word again…I’m on a roll!!) Grand Causes Of Everything. Whatever they come up with is likely to BECOME their religion.

24

That’s a caricature at best, and a pretty gross one. Many of the world’s best universities – Harvard, Yale and Princeton, to name a few – started out as Christian institutions. Only later did they fall away from that vision. In addition, there are colleges and universities such as Biola and Wheaton which offer both religous and secular degrees.

25

Quite the contrary. The Guiness Book of World Records reports that the greatest mass murders in history were all committed by atheistic regimes (Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, Lenin and Stalin, to name a few), and the suffering inflicted by these regimes was immeasurable.

http://www.str.org/free/commentaries/apologetics/comparisons/realmurd.htm

26

I think my assertion was relatively close to the mark. Those three institutions you mentioned did start out as Christian institutions but with the gain of knowledge comes the questioning of existing precepts.

For a church to preserve it exsitence, it must gain members and receive money for doing so. In the past, it did this through fear of retribution and education. The most studied people in the past were certainly the biblical scholars those associated with them. It was in their best interest to educate the people, in their theology and methods to ease life but certainly not to question their veracity. Teach them just enough to get them hooked and in your debt…

Harvard, Yale and Princeton, they learned, they questioned, and they left.

27

This misses the point entirely. While they may have been atheistic, they did not do any of their crimes in the name of atheism. These were all megalomaniac assholes. Atheism was coincidental. Being dictators is what drove these people. Also, Hitler was decidedly not atheist. But, in the same vein, I would not attribute his stupendous abuses of the world to his religious beliefs. That is not what motivated him. Though, he did use religious rhetoric in his war propaganda from time to time.

Also, while these may be the largest single incidents, they pale in comparison to the totals of all the murders and tortures directly inspired by religious belief.

Individuals, not institutions, also run your mentioned atrocities. When they were gone, their continuing evil died as well. Institutions live on beyond the lives of the individuals in them. That is a big difference.

28

scotth: perhaps Auschwitz was a bad example then, I merely wanted to emphasise the difficulties of weighing up bad vs bad across systems or good vs bad within systems.

Religion can be used as the justification for atrocity or the motivation to nurture.
What do you want to do today?

Science can provide people with the means to kill or to heal.
What do you want to do today?

(BTW: which is better: cheese or balloons?)

29

I am not comparing science to religion.

I am making two comparisions. Religion to no religion and science to no science.

Science is science… and I for one am glad we have it.

Religion is not science. It is an ethical framework. It is not the only type of ethical framework. Where things get muddy is that I only compare science with the lack of it, but compare religion to a replacement ethical system.

I don’t know what to replace science with except a lack of science. Religion does have a substitute. Twisting the question this way, If I had to chose between a world with no science or no ethical framework entirely… that would be tough. No ethical framework would be a horrible thing, but taking religion away would not cause that effect. Removing religion would not create the void that science would. There are alternatives.

Hitting your words exactly, science can provide the means to a good or bad end regardless of motivation. Science can provide the tools to do a really spectacular job of evil with a religous motivations (See 9/11). Science is not and should not be a source of motivation. Notice, you used the word “means” with science and “justification” with religion.

Science is just a tool. Good ethics should guide its use.

Religion is causing immense tension and harm to this very day and is a source of some firmly entrenched horrible ethics. Everyone, today, seems to agree that the Inquisition was a bad thing. Next year, everyone will agree that the persecution of homosexuals by the religeous was a bad thing too. This seems to go on and on.

Have good things come of religion? Sure they have.

Have bad thing been done with science? Yes again.

In the balance though, science has done more to improve the quality of life for more people than any other thing. Science, particularly medical science, has given more life to people than can hardly be believed. It is very hard to have quality of life when you are dead.

30

Thank you for making a special effort just to point that out to us. Hmmm…

31

Maybe Yale and Harvard have "learned, questioned, and left,"but there are quite a few colleges that are of a religious nature, and still manage to educate, such as Georgetown University.

I doubt anyone would contend that Georgetown doesn’t have high acedemic standards.

Like others have said in this thread, neither science or religion are good or bad on face. It all depends on how they are used.

Cheese. Without it, vegetarians would need to get protein from soy. Yuck. :frowning:

32

Religion, science bah humbug…I had to make sure no one missed the most important issue of all!
:smiley:

33

Cute.

34

Well, since these people were killed specifically for worshipping God, I think that point is contestable. More importantly though, your exact words were

“Clearly, religion has caused more grief and suffering than any other single cause in recorded history. Nothing to debate here.” (Emphasis mine.)

Even if we grant that these people weren’t killed in the name of atheism, most of them were certainly killed in the name of communism. This disproves your assertion that religion is responsible for more suffering than any other cause in history.

35

Would you care to prove your accusation? Despite my research, I have yet to find any evidence that these institutions consciously chose to question and reject Christianity. In all likelihood, they simply fell away as the original founders died off and were replaced by people of different philosophical bents.

More importantly, the mere existence of these institutions disproves your assertion that religion has no interest in education for "broadening your horizons’ or “improving your station in life.” (In case you’ve forgotten, those were your exact words.)

Religion does NOT oppose education, as evidenced by the thousands of Christian institutions which offer secular degrees. One could insist otherwise, but that accusation is naught but a pathetic strawman.

36

Well then, please tell us how many murders and tortures were “directly inspired by religous belief.” Since you insist that these numbers vastly outnumber those liste in The Guiness Book of World Records, then your accusation should be easy to substantiate, no? That is, if it has any shred of truth to it.

Number,s, please. Numbers.

37

There was no accusation.

As far as ‘broadening your horizons’ and ‘improving your station in life’, yes I know they were my exact words, and the mere existence of those institution does not prove that religion has a vested interest in the aforementioned. Existence doesn’t prove that they attempted to perform those civic duties outside of the parameters the Church would allow.

As you’ll see in the rest of my previous post, religion did educate, but the true intent was to ingrain their dogma on the students, solidify their grasp on their belief, and grow the membership base.

That may be true today and in recent times, but the discussion so far has been about religion in the aggregate of human history. If you broaden the scope of study, secular degrees granted by religious institutions are a recent of innovation.

38

You have set a difficult task before me, I will try to come forward with honest estimates.

As I am sure you realize, the numbers for your side come from the 20th century. Record keeping on this sort of thing is much better recently.

Also, I didn’t limit my idea to murder only. Guessing the people in slavery, or who were just tortured or stripped of their property and sent on their way will be diificult. But, this type of behaviour easily goes back to ancient Egypt. That is a huge amount of time for small and large acts of persecution to be carried out.

But, I made the claim. I still believe it to be likely. I will try to back it up.

As an aside, I would not even attempt to argue that the acts you sited are any less henious. They deserve every bit of our derision. And, in any event it will not change the fact religion today supports abhorent ehtical positions.

39

Perhaps, but since you said that these numbers far outstrip the murders and tortures performed by Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao and Lenin, then those numbers must be readily available. Considering the magniitude of their deeds, it would be most unusual if those figures were not available.

And please make sure that your “estimates” are supported by solid historical data. Obviously, a statement such as “Well, I figure it must have been a few billion” doesn’t cut it.

Could this mean that you were too hasty in your claim? After all, if you say that these 20th century atrocities pale in comparison to those performed in religion’s name, then surely you must have some historical proof of that claim.

Perhaps, but that’s hardly the same as proving that such atrocities WERE done in the name of slavery, or that they do outnumber the ones which I mentioned.

In the past few years, I have OFTEN heard people claim that religion (or Christianity in particular) is the number one cause of murder or suffering in the world. Interestingly enough, I have yet to meet anyone who could substantiate that claim – and the Guiness Book shows that the greatest records of mass murder occured under regimes where religion was banned.

40

Just a thought, prior to the 20th century, the Church was the primordial record keeper of note. He who records hsitory, controls it.