Has Religion Done More Good Than Bad?

[Flee Fleet!]

14 hours ago, blah the Prussian said:

Muslims also had to pay a special tax into state public services

You mean the Zakat? That's an obligation on Muslims, according to Islam. The zakat money is then distributed to those who need it ( iirc, people like the poor, debtors,new converts e.t.c.)

Also, iirc, the amount of Jizya is less than Zakat, but I may need to check again to make sure. Although I don't think any Muslim country actually has Jizya as part of the law anymore, but again, I'll need to make sure.

[blah the Prussian]

21 minutes ago, Flee Fleet! said:

You mean the Zakat? That's an obligation on Muslims, according to Islam. The zakat money is then distributed to those who need it ( iirc, people like the poor, debtors,new converts e.t.c.)

Also, iirc, the amount of Jizya is less than Zakat, but I may need to check again to make sure. Although I don't think any Muslim country actually has Jizya as part of the law anymore, but again, I'll need to make sure.

Yeah, exactly, in the long run it evens out. Anyway, @Kalken, first off, the sources you've cited are from a site called Islamwiki or whatever, which based on looking into it seems to have an anti-Islam agenda. As for the origins of terrorism, it was due to a mixture of the failures of the West(and USSR) and the failures of native Arab rulers, particularly the secular Arab nationalism of Nasser. The consistent failure of these ideologies led to the rise of the likes of Khomeini and the adoption of Islamist ideas by men like Saddam. I'd also love to see your thoughts on the arguments I've already put forth, given that you've made two posts without addressing them and I've reminded you once.

[Flee Fleet!]

16 minutes ago, blah the Prussian said:

the sources you've cited are from a site called Islamwiki or whatever, which based on looking into it seems to have an anti-Islam agenda

That is correct. Sites like WikiIslam, as well as religionofpeace.com, are anti muslim sites, with the former pretending to act like a wiki for "modern Islam", but in actuality it spreads false info about Islam, like posting fake verses and fake hadiths. 

[Shoblongoo]

 

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

Might be completely off due to lack of real knowledge, but as far as I know the Arabic Numeral System stems from the early Islamic world.

...you see where he's going with this though...

Everything bad that's ever come out of the Islamic World--i.e. religious violence, sex trafficking, slavery--is intrinsic to Islam and proof that Islam is uniquely awful.

Everything good that's ever come out of the Islamic World--advancements in mathematics and medicine and astronomy, the magnifying lens, the public hospital, etc.--that has absolutely nothing to do with Islam, and we have the burden of demonstrating that it was not derived from another culture. 

I don't think we even owe it to him to take the bait on that challenge to demonstrate; it will suffice to point out the absurdity of how he has framed the issue, with his disparate treatment of credit for achievements and blame for bad acts. (and the truth is probably somewhere in between. Generally, religion gets too much credit  when believers do something good and too much blame when believers do something bad, while other factors are overlooked)

____

Specifically on the Subject of Sex Trafficking: the sex trafficking capital of the world is East Asia. The top  exporters of sex slaves per capita aren't ISIS strongholds or Islamic Theocracies; its Thailand and Vietnam.  (and IIRC, the #1 importer of sex slaves per capita is Japan)

...so lets not get all self-righteous with "show me where Buddhist countries are having these problems!"  

Edited January 31, 2018 by Shoblongoo

[Lord Raven]

3 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

I don't think we even owe it to him to take the bait on that challenge to demonstrate; it will suffice to point out the absurdity of how he has framed the issue, with his disparate treatment of credit for achievements and blame for bad acts. (and the truth is probably somewhere in between. Generally, religion gets too much credit  when believers do something good and too much blame when believers do something bad, while other factors are overlooked)

Also homeboy doesn't have the decency to argue on his own terms. If he were in an academic setting and he just threw sources at people, then he's definitely not getting tenure.

Which is assuming he even makes it there in the first place.

Edited January 31, 2018 by Lord Raven

[John Denver Fan]

I don't think that religion has done any bad. People say "Well this religion does this bad thing and that religion does that bad thing" Religion doesn't do any bad it is people who makes it look bad. I'll do an example. In the 1990s in Waco, Texas there was a religious cult that the leader claims he was Jesus Christ, there was a long siege on the compound and when the FBI said that they would put teargas into the building they set it on fire and everybody inside died. That isn't the result of religion it is a result of plain stupidity. The actions are made by bad people, not bad religion.

[eclipse]

1 hour ago, John Denver Fan said:

I don't think that religion has done any bad. People say "Well this religion does this bad thing and that religion does that bad thing" Religion doesn't do any bad it is people who makes it look bad. I'll do an example. In the 1990s in Waco, Texas there was a religious cult that the leader claims he was Jesus Christ, there was a long siege on the compound and when the FBI said that they would put teargas into the building they set it on fire and everybody inside died. That isn't the result of religion it is a result of plain stupidity. The actions are made by bad people, not bad religion.

If I suddenly made a religion that said to give me all of your money or bad things happen to you, that's solely on the fault of the religion.

And no, this isn't a hypothetical example.

[Moblin Major General]

27 minutes ago, eclipse said:

If I suddenly made a religion that said to give me all of your money or bad things happen to you, that's solely on the fault of the religion.

And no, this isn't a hypothetical example.

There is a religion that tells people to kill themselves and plays it straight, but can any suicides be criminally attributed to that group? There was no specific intent to influence those people, and technically, they didn't kill anyone. Is it the fault of the religion, then? This is quite a gray area, as the person saying it means it, but only in the context of their faith, and the "prophet" probably bears no real animus against the "sinner" in this case, either. They just want everybody (themselves included) to fuck off and die because humans are dicks.

[eclipse]

1 minute ago, Hylian Air Force said:

There is a religion that tells people to kill themselves and plays it straight, but can any suicides be criminally attributed to that group? There was no specific intent to influence those people, and technically, they didn't kill anyone. Is it the fault of the religion, then? This is quite a gray area, as the person saying it means it, but only in the context of their faith, and the "prophet" probably bears no real animus against the "sinner" in this case, either. They just want everybody (themselves included) to fuck off and die because humans are dicks.

If everyone's dead, there's no one to charge.

[Shoblongoo]

The fact that personal responsibility is a thing and that individual people are ultimately responsible for the moral choices they make does not overcome the reality that certain systems of belief, when followed, are substantially more likely to induce their followers to make spectacularly poor moral choices.  

And that systems which promote unconditional obedience to a purported source of moral authority (i.e. religious orthodoxy)--holding it is moral hazard to even entertain the thought that the authoritative source may be in error or directing followers to commit wrongful acts--are particularly problematic.    

Edited February 1, 2018 by Shoblongoo

[John Denver Fan]

13 hours ago, eclipse said:

If I suddenly made a religion that said to give me all of your money or bad things happen to you, that's solely on the fault of the religion.

And no, this isn't a hypothetical example.

Well I disagree with your statement. The event in Waco that I highlighted as an example is a good example that it wasn't a religion's fault, just followers that are stupid are at fault. Look at ISIS, they follow Islam and twist the word of their religious book. The same can go to the people in that siege in Waco, it is that people twist the word of their religious book, it is the people who twist the word of those religious books that are at fault NOT the religion. 

[Jotari]

11 minutes ago, John Denver Fan said:

Well I disagree with your statement. The event in Waco that I highlighted as an example is a good example that it wasn't a religion's fault, just followers that are stupid are at fault. Look at ISIS, they follow Islam and twist the word of their religious book. The same can go to the people in that siege in Waco, it is that people twist the word of their religious book, it is the people who twist the word of those religious books that are at fault NOT the religion. 

But, then you do get cults where people write their own religious doctrine and present themselves as a divine figure and then order mass suicides. There's no twisting of any religious beliefs because they literally make it all up themselves. Usually involving aliens of some sort.

[Lord Raven]

15 minutes ago, John Denver Fan said:

Well I disagree with your statement. The event in Waco that I highlighted as an example is a good example that it wasn't a religion's fault, just followers that are stupid are at fault. Look at ISIS, they follow Islam and twist the word of their religious book. The same can go to the people in that siege in Waco, it is that people twist the word of their religious book, it is the people who twist the word of those religious books that are at fault NOT the religion. 

Religious leaders influence their community, though. You're arguing in favor of religion because it influenced you positively, but religion influences others negatively -- and they're not often stupid, they're probably desperate.

[Shoblongoo]

32 minutes ago, Jotari said:

But, then you do get cults where people write their own religious doctrine and present themselves as a divine figure and then order mass suicides. There's no twisting of any religious beliefs because they literally make it all up themselves. Usually involving aliens of some sort.

TBH--the only difference between a cult and a religion is age + number of followers.  

Religions are just cults that stuck around long enough and got big enough to go mainstream. 

Edited February 1, 2018 by Shoblongoo

[Moblin Major General]

8 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

Religions are just cults that stuck around long enough and got big enough to go mainstream. 

Unless it's polytheism, then it's multiple cults coming together and forming a religion through lore swapping.

[치퍼 존스 팬]

Religion has done a lot of good it has influenced mankind for thousands of years. But people are forming evil cults and that is when people say that religion is doing stuff bad. 

[SuperIb]

Religions were created in the first place to install moral codes and laws, more-or-less starting around the Mesopotamia area (at least, to the best of our knowledge). For the most part, religions have been used for good and have been rather ethical, however, not always.

I'll give an example.

I'd argue that for Christianity and the bible, you could say the condemnation of homosexuals is innately bad, but the cause of it is directly from the religion as homosexuality is labeled as a sin. Obviously people are split on this notion in the first place (that homosexuality is "bad" or not - I'm taking the stance that it's not), but as far as I can tell, most, if not all of the distaste for HS (I'm gonna use HS for homosexuality to abbreviate) people has been attributed to religion. Take feudal Japan for example. Before western migration and the introduction of Christianity in Japan, HS (more specifically for those in samurai classes) wasn't all that uncommon nor was it frowned upon. But after Christianity started being preached there, HS began to become immoral or unacceptable. And whenever people are to argue why being HS is bad, the majority of the time they point to religion or their religious texts and say "Well the Bible says 'this'" or "God said 'that'".

EDIT: I failed to mention that for my example, I was specifically talking about homosexual men in Japan. I don't really know if it's any different for females or if they were treated the same.

Basically, as a tl;dr, religion has served good purposes for setting morals and rules in society, and while the majority of cases involving religion being seen as bad stems from bad people, who proclaim they are apart of the religion, I'd argue that some of the bad is directly tied to the religion itself.

And then there's other fun stuff like talking about religious leaders who have influence over their community but I'm not going to go into that right now. As for my personal stance on religion, I'm neutral. It's done good, it's done bad, it's been used for good, it's been used for bad... I myself am not religious but I think one of the main problems with religion in general is that, for some people, it blinds them and all of their stances and politics (mostly social) become solely reliant on said religion, resulting in them being less open minded. Obviously this doesn't apply to all, but it certainly does for some, I can certainly attest to that...

Edited February 16, 2018 by SuperIb

[Jotari]

2 minutes ago, SuperIb said:

Religions were created in the first place to install moral codes and laws, more-or-less starting around the Mesopotamia area (at least, to the best of our knowledge). For the most part, religions have been used for good and have been rather ethical, however, not always.

I'll give an example.

I'd argue that for Christianity and the bible, you could say the condemnation of homosexuals is innately bad, but the cause of it is directly from the religion as homosexuality is labeled as a sin. Obviously people are split on this notion in the first place (that homosexuality is "bad" or not - I'm taking the stance that it's not), but as far as I can tell, most, if not all of the distaste for HS (I'm gonna use HS for homosexuality to abbreviate) people has been attributed to religion. Take feudal Japan for example. Before western migration and the introduction of Christianity in Japan, HS (more specifically for those in samurai classes) wasn't all that uncommon nor was it frowned upon. But after Christianity started being preached there, HS began to become immoral or unacceptable. And whenever people are to argue why being HS is bad, the majority of the time they point to religion or their religious texts and say "Well the Bible says 'this'" or "God said 'that'".

Basically, as a tl;dr, religion has served good purposes for setting morals and rules in society, and while the majority of cases involving religion being seen as bad stems from bad people, who proclaim they are apart of the religion, I'd argue that some of the bad is directly tied to the religion itself.

And then there's other fun stuff like talking about religious leaders who have influence over their community but I'm not going to go into that right now. As for my personal stance on religion, I'm neutral. It's done good, it's done bad, it's been used for good, it's been used for bad... I myself am not religious but I think one of the main problems with religion in general is that, for some people, it blinds them and all of their stances and politics (mostly social) become solely reliant on said religion, resulting in them being less open minded. Obviously this doesn't apply to all, but it certainly does for some, I can certainly attest to that...

Even stuff like the outlawing of homosexuality probably came from a pretty rationale place when it was first put down. Namely to try and stifle the spread of STIs (anal sex has a much higher risk of disease, or so I hear. And curiously enough the Bible doesn't mention anything about lesbian sex. Although that could be just attributed towards women not being worth mentioning at all). I say the whole reason marriage is a thing in practically all cultures was born from an attempt to stop the spread of STIs too.

[SuperIb]

14 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Even stuff like the outlawing of homosexuality probably came from a pretty rationale place when it was first put down.

Being rationale isn't that same as moral though, which is why I brought it up.

14 minutes ago, Jotari said:

And curiously enough the Bible doesn't mention anything about lesbian sex. Although that could be just attributed towards women not being worth mentioning at all)

Yes you are indeed correct about this, but I believe when the Bible uses the word "man", it often implies "mankind", as in all humans, as that seems to be the case in earlier societies/writings. I could be wrong, of course, though it's just a hunch. Also I should mention that, in my previous post, I was specifically talking about homosexual men, not women, which I should've made clear. I apologize for that. For the Japan example, I'm not quite sure how lesbians were treated, I'd have to do research on that.

14 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I say the whole reason marriage is a thing in practically all cultures was born from an attempt to stop the spread of STIs too.

lol you got me there. I wouldn't be surprised if it's different from culture to culture, religion to religion though. I mean, it wouldn't surprise me if the reason in some cultures is that so you could acquire a woman as "property." That doesn't seem too far-fetched tbh.

All in all, as far as marriage goes, it certainly has changed substantially since it first appeared, whenever that may have been.

Edited February 16, 2018 by SuperIb

[Lord Raven]

I thought it was because infant mortality rate was high and outlawing homosexuality ensured reproduction or something

[Flee Fleet!]

1 hour ago, Lord Raven said:

outlawing homosexuality ensured reproduction or something

Wasn't it just considered extremely immoral, hence why it was outlawed?

[Tryhard]

2 hours ago, Lord Raven said:

I thought it was because infant mortality rate was high and outlawing homosexuality ensured reproduction or something

I remember watching a documentary, and I'm not sure how much truth there was to the claim, but that at least for Christianity, "abomination" was used to refer to a ritual wrongdoing instead of innately immoral, as the human population was in the stage of needed growth from reproduction.

Here was where I saw that. Interesting video in general, really.

23 minutes ago, Flee Fleet! said:

Wasn't it just considered extremely immoral, hence why it was outlawed?

By humans, yes.

Edited February 16, 2018 by Tryhard

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, Flee Fleet! said:

Wasn't it just considered extremely immoral, hence why it was outlawed?

Yeah, but the question is "Why was it considered immoral?" If you don't believe it's the will of a divine being, then there must be some other explanation. Generally things are outlawed for a reason, wether it be a good reason or a bad reason, there's still likely some reasoning involved.

[blah the Prussian]

While the introduction of Christianity had some negative consequences for human rights it also had some positive ones. For example, during the reign of Justinian Christianity provided homes and livelihoods to thousands of(fairly uniformly forced) former prostitutes.

[John Denver Fan]

On 02/10/18 at 8:35 PM, Chipper Jones Fan said:

Religion has done a lot of good it has influenced mankind for thousands of years. But people are forming evil cults and that is when people say that religion is doing stuff bad. 

That is true, but there is also bad religions, not just evil cults. The evil cults are formed when people of a religion twists their sacred book's words. I'll note one but will not reveal its name for obvious reasons. That cult that branched from Islam and controlled a lot of Syria and Iraq at its peak. If I am correct on the second one. They want Islam to be a world religion. Of course people started complaining about Islam due to the group.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I am not trying to offend anybody, I am just highlighting a way that people think that religions are bad.

Edited February 18, 2018 by John Denver Fan