Religion is Evil

[Davka]

Think about it: without religion, we wouldn't even have the concept of evil. We'd have good and bad, but those would be based on personal preference and experience, not some pretense of universal morality. Like "Sam Adams is pretty good beer, but PBR is just bad."

But that's just the beginning. Religion tells us to avoid perfectly natural behavior like sex, and to feel guilty if we even think about such things, and to shun and disdain people who don't feel similarly guilty. And I haven't even touched on the killing of infidels or the knee-jerk resistance to any new ideas.

It's fucking evil. And I'm done with giving it the benefit of the doubt. Religion needs to be done away with, period. There can be no defense of the archaic, misogynistic, manipulative bullshit forced on society by these well-meaning brainwashed cults. Religion must die if Homo Sapiens is to live.

 

[Keith&Co.]

But i don't think religion introduced the idea of being jealous of other people's fun. And religion disapproves of casual sex because people who made (and made up) the religion disapproved of casual sex.
If people couldn't say that 'god will think less of you for being a promiscuous slut,' they'd probably say 'A True Republican would not cock a leg over as many women as you,' or 'Come the Enlightenment, no one will wear fuck-me heels,' or 'It's sad that so many patriots died to preserve your freedom to spread your legs for anyone with the price of a Mai Tai in their wallet,' or 'I'm SO happy i put you through grad school so you could spread your seed across seven time zones.'

The concept of evil is merely there to justify feeling good about pointing fingers at people.
Even if you do away with religion, you still have people, and you will always have fingers.

Until the Enlightenment, when people will stop throwing their opinions around....

 

[ideologyhunter]

The reason I'm not so alarmed as the OP is that so much of religion is vestigial, hypocritical, and dormant... I know there are horrible exceptions, but I see a lot of social believers who go along with the outer forms and observances but essentially are not on board with the more blockheaded dogma... or those who insist that the core of religion is love (by which I interpret them to mean that there's a lot of antiquated baggage in their religion that they will politely overlook.) For every Fred Phelps there are a thousand social believers who believe in a hazy sense that their religion compels them to seek goodness and positivism. I know they think their faith outclasses my unbelief, but about that, I don't give a hoot.

 

[Davka]

The reason I'm not so alarmed as the OP is that so much of religion is vestigial, hypocritical, and dormant... I know there are horrible exceptions, but I see a lot of social believers who go along with the outer forms and observances but essentially are not on board with the more blockheaded dogma... or those who insist that the core of religion is love (by which I interpret them to mean that there's a lot of antiquated baggage in their religion that they will politely overlook.) For every Fred Phelps there are a thousand social believers who believe in a hazy sense that their religion compels them to seek goodness and positivism. I know they think their faith outclasses my unbelief, but about that, I don't give a hoot.

Take a look around the country at all the bass-ackward laws that are being passed by Tea Party God-Fearing numbnuts. It may not be the norm for religious people to live their daily lives in accordance with their Book of Rules, but it certainly appears to be the norm for them to VOTE according to religious principles. Oppressing and punishing "sinners" is the primary justification for voter suppression laws, anti-abortion laws, anti-gay-marriage laws, the War on Drugs, and all the other regressive bullshit being peddled in this country. Religious evil is popular among voters.

 

[Sheshbazzar]

I do not regard all religion as necessarily being evil. Certainly the organized Abrahamic religions with their various hatreds and venoms do seem to take the cake in their historical vying for which can spew the most hate speech and cause the most human suffering and genocide in the names of their various insane deities and their demented prophets.
But I have over the years met a lot of gentle people of quiet faith, with all goodwill helping their neighbors, and seeking peace and equal justice for all people. These I cannot in good conscience lump in with those ignoramuses that join and try to rationalize and justify the teachings of religious hate cults or causes.

It all comes down to what individuals say and do themselves, and what types of organizations they willingly give their lip-service and/or financial support to.

 

[Syed]

Religion tells us to avoid perfectly natural behavior like sex, and to feel guilty if we even think about such things,
.

which religion say to avoid sex?

sex can be bad if you do out side marraiage

 

[Brian63]

I definitely have sympathy with Davka's take on the harms of religion, but just would not call it "evil." Religion is a concept, a system of beliefs, and has no capacity itself for good or evil, anymore than other mere concepts do. I would reserve that term and apply it to conscious beings instead. Religion is moreso a psychological bias. All humans have all sorts of biases, and religion has adapted over history to take advantage of them (again though, not consciously, since it is not a conscious entity itself), and spread itself throughout human history. The more successful religions build upon various human traits to spread themselves from human to human, and unfortunately do a lot of harm in the process. So I would agree they are very harmful, just would not say "evil." They do not mean harm anymore than they mean good. They are not capable of intentions, thoughts, feelings, or desires.

Brian

 

[Unbeatable]

Think about it: without religion, we wouldn't even have the concept of evil. We'd have good and bad, but those would be based on personal preference and experience, not some pretense of universal morality.

We have a language that allows us to tell lies, cognitive biases that encourage us to believe them, and emotions and external circumstances that encourage us to tell them. The pretense of universal morality was going to happen anyway because it's an incredibly useful invention that's incredibly easy to invent.

It's fucking evil. And I'm done with giving it the benefit of the doubt. Religion needs to be done away with, period. There can be no defense of the archaic, misogynistic, manipulative bullshit forced on society by these well-meaning brainwashed cults. Religion must die if Homo Sapiens is to live.

I'll grant that if you're emotionally invested in the pursuit of some sort of Greater Good for the sake of an entire species, then even if religion is immortal, any diminution of its prevalence can be seen as a victory worth fighting for. I just don't personally have a horse in that race, so when I look at arguments like yours, I just see someone banging their head against a wall or putting up cheap applause lights, and so I feel somewhat compelled to speak up, not in defense of religion, but in defense of said arguers from their own futile pitched battles.

 

[Keith&Co.]

sex can be bad if you do out side marraiage

Can't be, Syed. IT's the same sex.
Had sex with my girlfriend, had sex with my fiance, had sex with my wife. It's the same sex.* The fights change after marriage. You're not longer able to just storm out and stay gone, but the sex has been the same*.

IF she turns out to have had a husband, who died, and he comes back with a faked death and the marriage is null, it's the same sex.*
If she turns out to know that her dead 1st husband is really alive, but i didn't, it's the same sex.*
If she turns out to have BEEN a husband, who faked his death and came back as his cousin, it's been the same sex. It won't be the same sex anymore**, but it's been well within established bounds up to now.
If Father Ernie or Father Jerome turns out to have been kicked out of the church the day before we were married, and the Pope Himself invalidates either our Catholic Marriage School or our Catholic Wedding and we've been outside of marriage for the whole 27 years, it's the same sex.*
If the town we were married in suddenly realizes there was a law against miscegenation on the books and invalidates our marriage... We're going to sue.

It's only 'bad' outside of marriage if your skybeast beliefs tell you it's bad.


*Not counting improvements by experience and increased communications. Because that didn't chart any differently between GF and Fiance or between Fiance and Wife. The steady rise in quality and duration (and the drop in frequency) has been affected more by childbirth and physical health than a change of relationship status in the eyes of the gods.
**Kind of like when you're eating chicken, and it tastes a LITTLE gamey, but it's still chicken until your goddamned loon of a cousin reveals ....in mid-bite... that you're eating rattlesnake and THEN the flavor changes. But right up to then it was chicken plus or minus, to you.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Generally speaking when someone hears about something religious they associate it with being good and desirable. What's needed is a word that distinguishes what's good about religion with what's destructive about religion. Some social values and behaviors that religion incorporates are good, but as an 'all or none' question I'd rather have "none' when it comes to religion. Just think of all the resources wasted over the generations. Maybe the things done weren't necessarily evil but they were certainly wasteful.

Religion is simply for losers.

 

[Syed]

sex can be bad if you do out side marraiage

Can't be, Syed. IT's the same sex.
Had sex with my girlfriend, had sex with my fiance, had sex with my wife. It's the same sex.* The fights change after marriage. You're not longer able to just storm out and stay gone, but the sex has been the same*.

IF she turns out to have had a husband, who died, and he comes back with a faked death and the marriage is null, it's the same sex.*
If she turns out to know that her dead 1st husband is really alive, but i didn't, it's the same sex.*
If she turns out to have BEEN a husband, who faked his death and came back as his cousin, it's been the same sex. It won't be the same sex anymore**, but it's been well within established bounds up to now.
If Father Ernie or Father Jerome turns out to have been kicked out of the church the day before we were married, and the Pope Himself invalidates either our Catholic Marriage School or our Catholic Wedding and we've been outside of marriage for the whole 27 years, it's the same sex.*
If the town we were married in suddenly realizes there was a law against miscegenation on the books and invalidates our marriage... We're going to sue.

It's only 'bad' outside of marriage if your skybeast beliefs tell you it's bad.


*Not counting improvements by experience and increased communications. Because that didn't chart any differently between GF and Fiance or between Fiance and Wife. The steady rise in quality and duration (and the drop in frequency) has been affected more by childbirth and physical health than a change of relationship status in the eyes of the gods.
**Kind of like when you're eating chicken, and it tastes a LITTLE gamey, but it's still chicken until your goddamned loon of a cousin reveals ....in mid-bite... that you're eating rattlesnake and THEN the flavor changes. But right up to then it was chicken plus or minus, to you.

if you have sex out side marriage you may get aid or other disease but sex in side marriage you dont

 

[Keith&Co.]

if you have sex out side marriage you may get aid or other disease but sex in side marriage you dont

Don't?
That's not true.
The Catholics beatified a woman a few years back, her husband got AIDS in a drug transfusion. She asked for dispensation from the ban on condoms, in order to continue having sex with her legal husband. The church refused. So she had sex with her husband and died of AIDS. The Church said this was a WONDERFUL example for how women should behave: perfectly loyal to a stupid superstition, to the point of an avoidable death.

That's about the time my wife stopped attending services with the church she grew up in.

So, Syed, as i said...it's the same sex. SEX isn't bad outside of marriage.

STUPID sex, paying more attention to STUPID rules rather than taking BASIC precautions, that can hurt you. Whether you're married or not....

The marriage licence does not work as a condom.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Syed, do you have a comment on:

Under Islamic law, rape can only be proven if the rapist confesses or if there are four male witnesses. Women who allege rape without the benefit of the act having been witnessed by four men who subsequently develop a conscience are actually confessing to having sex. If they or the accused happens to be married, then it is considered to be adultery.

It seems to me that most Muslim rape victims would not be in a position to successfully get their rapists prosecuted.
So i'm guessing that most rapes in Muslim areas are not reported?

What are the chances that the rapists are clean of any STD's? If they rape more than once, or rape more than one woman, they're at the risk you mentioned of 'bad things' happening to them. Aid and other disease.
And if the wife keeps quiet, she won't get treated.
And she'll spread the bad things to her husband. So even if HE isn't a rapist, he's going to suffer from the rape, which wasn't reported because of the area's predominant religion.

At least if my wife is raped, she can report it without fear of being punished.
She can be tested for STD's without fear. Not completely without stigma, but she won't be stoned.
And as an adult, she can get tested and treated and, if it's her choice, never tell me she has been assaulted or diseased. And she can turn me down for sex. So it won't spread to me She doesn't have to justify not giving me sex. She might. She can explain her concerns or her diagnosis. With no risk of being stoned or treated as an adulteress. Because i don't practice a religion that tells me to blame her for things outside of her control, or to assume it was under her control unless and until four males can vouch for her.

Huh.


I was hesitant, Syed, but you've talked me into it. Religion IS evil...

 

[Syed]

if you have sex out side marriage you may get aid or other disease but sex in side marriage you dont

Don't?
That's not true.
The Catholics beatified a woman a few years back, her husband got AIDS in a drug transfusion. She asked for dispensation from the ban on condoms, in order to continue having sex with her legal husband. The church refused. So she had sex with her husband and died of AIDS. The Church said this was a WONDERFUL example for how women should behave: perfectly loyal to a stupid superstition, to the point of an avoidable death.

That's about the time my wife stopped attending services with the church she grew up in.

So, Syed, as i said...it's the same sex. SEX isn't bad outside of marriage.

STUPID sex, paying more attention to STUPID rules rather than taking BASIC precautions, that can hurt you. Whether you're married or not....

The marriage licence does not work as a condom.

dont take one bad example to say sex outside marriage is as save as is inside marriage

 

[rousseau]

Yea, it's an overwhelmingly large cult filled with bad ideas and the world would be better off without it. What annoys me the most is that Christianity is so normalized across the world that if you point out that it's false then you are actually the bad guy. On the other hand if I come across some poor sap who believes their life is moving along God's divine plan and that gives them endless comfort, I figure who am I to take away their safety net? That's not to say it shouldn't be done, but rather that I'm way too apathetic about atheistic progress to worry whether some random person believes in fairies or not.

If I might add another point, that doesn't necessarily point to the evil of Christianity, but is a notch against it nonetheless, it's the fact that people who are born into and persist in Christianity live their entire lives, the only life they have, in complete delusion about what it means to be a human being. Even if it's kind of weird and fucked up to be aware that you're just a speck of dust in the universe, I think that's an infinitely better state to be in than one of complete delusion.

 

[Keith&Co.]

dont take one bad example to say sex outside marriage is as save as is inside marriage

It does take one example to say your absolutist language is wrong.

Sex outside marriage CAN be as save as it is inside the marriage. Except superstitious attitudes screw up everyone's attitudes and make it hard to talk about, hard to share and hard to get decent rapports going with your kids out of a fear that the concept of sex is something contagious.... Conservative religious sentiments towards sex fuck things up far more than they help.

 

[Syed]

dont take one bad example to say sex outside marriage is as save as is inside marriage

It does take one example to say your absolutist language is wrong.

Sex outside marriage CAN be as save as it is inside the marriage. Except superstitious attitudes screw up everyone's attitudes and make it hard to talk about, hard to share and hard to get decent rapports going with your kids out of a fear that the concept of sex is something contagious.... Conservative religious sentiments towards sex fuck things up far more than they help.

when you have sex with your wife do you worry about getting disease? how about prostitute ?

 

[Underseer]

Think about it: without religion, we wouldn't even have the concept of evil. We'd have good and bad, but those would be based on personal preference and experience, not some pretense of universal morality. Like "Sam Adams is pretty good beer, but PBR is just bad."

I don't see a need to distinguish between evil and bad.

But that's just the beginning. Religion tells us to avoid perfectly natural behavior like sex, and to feel guilty if we even think about such things, and to shun and disdain people who don't feel similarly guilty. And I haven't even touched on the killing of infidels or the knee-jerk resistance to any new ideas.

We would still do those things without religion. Don't believe me? Just look at the Soviet Union. As Hitchens pointed out, they turned an economic theory into a religion, complete with priests, missionaries, and prophets, and yes they even persecuted "infidels" who weren't communist, weren't the right kind of communist, or weren't communist enough.

It's fucking evil. And I'm done with giving it the benefit of the doubt. Religion needs to be done away with, period. There can be no defense of the archaic, misogynistic, manipulative bullshit forced on society by these well-meaning brainwashed cults. Religion must die if Homo Sapiens is to live.

I think the example of the Soviets shows that getting rid of religion won't make anything better. People in power will simply take any old idea and weild it just like a religion and continue doing all the same horrible things with it.

The problem is not religion, the problem is the flaws in our thinking that make religion possible.

 

[Keith&Co.]

when you have sex with your wife do you worry about getting disease? how about prostitute ?

I can marry a prostitute and do both.

Risky behavior is unsafe. But that's a matter of precautions and risk assessment.
You said sex outside of marriage is bad.
I had sex with my current wife outside of marriage. I had sex with her within the bonds of holy matrimony AND recognized by the state. It's the same sex.
It's the same risk assessment as far as STD's, kids, angry husbands, and anything else that conflates 'bad' with 'risky.'
There's nothing more bad about one than there was about the other.

You're going pretty far afield to try to justify 'scared God will punish me' is equal to 'scared it will rot and fall off.' As usual, Syed, you mix apples and applets.

 

[Syed]

when you have sex with your wife do you worry about getting disease? how about prostitute ?

I can marry a prostitute and do both.

Risky behavior is unsafe. But that's a matter of precautions and risk assessment.
You said sex outside of marriage is bad.
I had sex with my current wife outside of marriage. I had sex with her within the bonds of holy matrimony AND recognized by the state. It's the same sex.
It's the same risk assessment as far as STD's, kids, angry husbands, and anything else that conflates 'bad' with 'risky.'
There's nothing more bad about one than there was about the other.

You're going pretty far afield to try to justify 'scared God will punish me' is equal to 'scared it will rot and fall off.' As usual, Syed, you mix apples and applets.

please answer the question

when you have sex with your wife do you worry about getting disease?