Libertarian-
I made that post and went to bed, and later thought that it was pretty presumptuous to say that I agreed with anybody. Sorry, didn’t mean to tread on any toes.
As I understand what Jesus reportedly said about the whitewashed tombs full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean, the point was that the religious leaders were corrupt and hypocritical, and by extension, the church was as well. It isn’t much of a jump to say that organized religion in general was what he meant, though I’m sure some would disagree. The corruption of organized religion in general is hard to deny, but it doesn’t follow that religion is dead. Some of us think it should be, but it isn’t. Faith, as you said, is a different thing. I tend to conflate religion and faith, sometimes–to be more specific, I tend to think of faith as a by-product of religion, a sometimes harmful by-product, though I know it’s much more complicated than that.
mayberrydan, et al-
As for what’s wrong with religion, what harm does it do, and why should it die questions, well, I’ll admit that I sometimes don’t see the harm in it. It doesn’t seem to hurt most people much, although I might say that it limits their intellectual development. Still, what’s the harm in that? I think I heard a famous person say once that if it gets you through the night, whether it’s a bible or a bottle, it’s all right. For some, I think that’s true.
But of course the bottle isn’t all right for everyone. It ruins lives sometimes. Similarly, there are others that just seem to take religion so seriously that it does do some real damage to them, and through them, to society. I used to be one of those people, in a minor way, but I’ve recovered.
Most “religious” people I know just have their religion and don’t examine it much, don’t let it impact their lives much. Fine, I guess, if you can do that. It always seemed to me that if that stuff was true, then it was pretty much the only thing that mattered–how people could say they believe it, and still so consistently disregard the wisdom and advice it offers, was always beyond me. I guess I just take things too seriously.
So I’ll just say that religion hurts some of us. I realize how incredibly arrogant this sounds, but I’ll say it anyway, with an advance apology to those who find it insulting. To be honest, it seems to me that religion doesn’t hurt ordinary people much, it just keeps them ordinary. But for those with some intellectual curiosity and a sense of conscience, religion can be a terrible burden, a shackle.
Religion doesn’t seem to bother most people much, and it’s a fairly effective means of social control (not to mention a big, big business), so I doubt that it will ever die. Still, I’m encouraged when I hear that it is on the decline.