Author Topic: Good Things Religion has Done  (Read 42647 times)

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Offline Shane for Wax

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Re: Good Things Religion has Done
« Reply #90 on: May 16, 2013, 04:25:54 pm »
Exactly.  Did you know that Iraq was once a great center of culture and learning?

I have no idea how but I misread that as centaur of culture and almost even corrected but then I looked again.

Actually didn't we get math from Islamic areas?

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Offline Dynamic Dragon

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Re: Good Things Religion has Done
« Reply #91 on: May 16, 2013, 04:31:39 pm »
Exactly.  Did you know that Iraq was once a great center of culture and learning?

I have no idea how but I misread that as centaur of culture and almost even corrected but then I looked again.

Actually didn't we get math from Islamic areas?
We got arabic numerals, algebra, and a lot of other mathematical concepts from the Islamic world.
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Offline Reality Warper

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Re: Good Things Religion has Done
« Reply #92 on: May 17, 2013, 02:28:33 pm »
Islamic scholars also preserved a lot of classical learning.

Offline Dynamic Dragon

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Re: Good Things Religion has Done
« Reply #93 on: May 19, 2013, 04:22:46 pm »
Islamic scholars also preserved a lot of classical learning.
Yeah, and a lot of that learning was brought to Europe after the Crusades.
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Offline doomcup

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Re: Good Things Religion has Done
« Reply #94 on: May 20, 2013, 01:05:53 am »
Inasfar as religion goes, as well as people, I have a maxim: I don't care about what people believe, I care about what they do.

There are religious organizations that feed the hungry and provide medical care. Provided they don't reject people of other faiths or use this as a means of proselytization,  this is fine, because otherwise these people would be worse off. There's tangible good.

People who fight for the rights of others and do real work to help people are good, no matter what their religion.

People who fight to oppress others and sit there and do nothing when people are in need are assholes, no matter what their religion.

Offline Reality Warper

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Re: Good Things Religion has Done
« Reply #95 on: May 20, 2013, 07:26:32 pm »
Inasfar as religion goes, as well as people, I have a maxim: I don't care about what people believe, I care about what they do.

There are religious organizations that feed the hungry and provide medical care. Provided they don't reject people of other faiths or use this as a means of proselytization,  this is fine, because otherwise these people would be worse off. There's tangible good.

People who fight for the rights of others and do real work to help people are good, no matter what their religion.

People who fight to oppress others and sit there and do nothing when people are in need are assholes, no matter what their religion.
I agree completely.

Offline Shane for Wax

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Re: Good Things Religion has Done
« Reply #96 on: May 20, 2013, 08:55:23 pm »
Inasfar as religion goes, as well as people, I have a maxim: I don't care about what people believe, I care about what they do.

There are religious organizations that feed the hungry and provide medical care. Provided they don't reject people of other faiths or use this as a means of proselytization,  this is fine, because otherwise these people would be worse off. There's tangible good.

People who fight for the rights of others and do real work to help people are good, no matter what their religion.

People who fight to oppress others and sit there and do nothing when people are in need are assholes, no matter what their religion.

I think you will find a good portion of the forums to be in agreement.

&
"The human race. Greatest monsters of them all."
"Ke barjurir gar'ade, jagyc'ade kot'la a dalyc'ade kotla'shya."
Fucking Dalek twats I’m going to twat you over the head with my fucking TARDIS you fucking fucks!

Offline ironbite

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Re: Good Things Religion has Done
« Reply #97 on: May 21, 2013, 12:50:42 am »
Religion as a whole...sucks and hasn't done much for humanity.  Religion in it's component parts on the other hand has done some wonderful and terrible things for humanity.

Ironbite-which in and of itself isn't a bad thing but hey...look where we are.

Offline Dynamic Dragon

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Re: Good Things Religion has Done
« Reply #98 on: May 21, 2013, 10:23:11 am »
Religion as a whole...sucks and hasn't done much for humanity.  Religion in it's component parts on the other hand has done some wonderful and terrible things for humanity.

Ironbite-which in and of itself isn't a bad thing but hey...look where we are.
Stop with the anti-theism please.  Or do you want me to create another "FSTDT Members Behaving Badly" thread?
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Offline Sleepy

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Re: Good Things Religion has Done
« Reply #99 on: May 21, 2013, 11:09:23 am »
He has a perfectly valid point and I don't see that as misbehaving in any way. Can't just hide from his statements forever.
Guys, this is getting creepy. Can we talk about cannibalism instead?

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Offline Dakota Bob

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Re: Good Things Religion has Done
« Reply #100 on: May 21, 2013, 11:26:22 am »
Religion as a whole...sucks and hasn't done much for humanity.  Religion in it's component parts on the other hand has done some wonderful and terrible things for humanity.

Ironbite-which in and of itself isn't a bad thing but hey...look where we are.
Stop with the anti-theism please.  Or do you want me to create another "FSTDT Members Behaving Badly" thread?

You must have a pretty low bar for "anti-theism"

Offline ironbite

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Re: Good Things Religion has Done
« Reply #101 on: May 21, 2013, 12:52:13 pm »
Religion as a whole...sucks and hasn't done much for humanity.  Religion in it's component parts on the other hand has done some wonderful and terrible things for humanity.

Ironbite-which in and of itself isn't a bad thing but hey...look where we are.
Stop with the anti-theism please.  Or do you want me to create another "FSTDT Members Behaving Badly" thread?

Go right ahead.  I'll just be the one laughing at you.

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Re: Good Things Religion has Done
« Reply #102 on: May 21, 2013, 02:00:19 pm »
If you're going to call ironbite an ass just make a thread for him, I have a 'Castration' picture I've been considering posting for a while now. It's less back bitey when someone's name is in the title and they at least realize they should be defending themselves. Still not much of a way to argue, but it beats thread jacking.

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Re: Good Things Religion has Done
« Reply #103 on: May 21, 2013, 02:21:43 pm »
Religion as a whole...sucks and hasn't done much for humanity.  Religion in it's component parts on the other hand has done some wonderful and terrible things for humanity.

Ironbite-which in and of itself isn't a bad thing but hey...look where we are.
Stop with the anti-theism please.  Or do you want me to create another "FSTDT Members Behaving Badly" thread?

Well, I'm just going to chime in and agree with Ironbite. What we have seen historically is that good deeds are done both with and without religion. It would be hard to quantify this, but clearly religious faith isn't necessary for extraordinary feats of generosity.

On the other hand, an interesting book discusses religion in part. The book is called "The Authoritarians" and it shows that, statistically speaking, religious people are more likely to be racists, bigots, and other nasty things. They are more likely to see the world as "Us vs. them" directly due to their upbringing telling them that they are of X faith and others are damned" They are more likely to judge others harshly and more likely to "punish" those see fit (be it legally or illegaly). Religious types are more likely to blindly follow their leaders, to the point of killing others. They are more likely to create posses to seek mob justice. Finally, they are more likely to elect leaders who are inept, corrupt, selfish, and inhumane. Not to mention their ability to perform mental gymnastics and not critically analyze because "God" or "their President" says not too. It is a rather short step from "God is infallible" to "this leader whom I like is infallible" as Bob Altemeyer proves.

Long story short, we can't say individual acts done by religious people or institutions are done because of faith because we can't create that experiment to test such an dependent variable. However, we can see that statistically speaking, religion is more detrimental than positive to both societies and individual psyches. Especially when we consider the only benefit of religion to be either socialization or a placebo effect to one's own mortality.

Quite frankly, I think this thread is silly for a forum dedicated to skepticism. Just my opinion, but it would be like if I went to a trans forum and said "hey guys, we don't talk about cis-people (read: Cis-scum) enough, let's talk about all the good things they've done." Just seems counter to the purpose of the forum and a tad trivial.

Also, yeah, I'm an anti-theist. I find it all irrational and bullshit to be honest. I just don't care enough to argue such silly things as "does god exist?" or "what color is Saturday?"

Offline Dynamic Dragon

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Re: Good Things Religion has Done
« Reply #104 on: May 21, 2013, 02:28:23 pm »
*snip*
Also, yeah, I'm an anti-theist. I find it all irrational and bullshit to be honest. I just don't care enough to argue such silly things as "does god exist?" or "what color is Saturday?"
Anti-theists are just as bad as Religious Fundamentalists in my book.
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