Thinking of the good things religion brought to the world (Challenge)

[pato15]

Well, if it weren't for Christianity, I would have never had Life Savers books during Christmas growing up. So there's that.

[Shiranu]

Monk's mound at Cahokia is another; largest pre Colombian earth mound with a base comparable to the great pyramids. Saved by trapist monks who had a monastery located on it.

Actually, all the native American mounds and art we can thank to their religion...

[Mike Cl]

I would divide this question into two types--organic or unorganized religion and organized religions.  Organized religions have produced some good things, like art and great buildings, I guess.  But at a huge cost to humanity.  It would have been much better for human kind if organized religion had never existed.  Unorganized religion--types of a spiritual nature--are harder to organize and have leaders.  Those are far less dangerous.

[Johan]

If religion and God-belief can be good, it also has many faults, which I believe outweigh any good:

I didn't say I thought religion was good. I don't. But I also think that our species would not be here today had religion not existed. You need to be able to keep the people in line. Religion was a good way of doing that and if it didn't exist in any form, I think we probably would have driven ourselves into extinction long ago.

[drunkenshoe]

Johan is right. Religion did make survival possible. This is not just about Abrahamic religions, but then Abrahamic religions are an inevitable result of most primitive religious systems and a very little, young fragment of human history.

5000 years ago the 'law' is that you shouldn't cut down a tree or a bush -any plant- from the sacred forest and penalty is death. Not because somebody invented this idea for shits and giggles. It's because the 'sacred forest' is full of plants with very important nutrituional values and also home to game meat. Nuts, fruits...etc. If people cut them down or harvest it just the way like it, they would jeopardise the clan's life, esp. women and children and everyone would die eventually. So tens of thousands of years ago -if you think oldest goddes idol is dated to around 35 000 BC, porbably even much more older than that- humans figured out the most efficient control mechanism veeery long time ago.

"This is sacred; you cannot touch this; you cannot do this". TABOO. And comes the primitive laws and orders.

It's not really helpful to look at this with a modern human understanding. But its more than that. What modern human understanding can do better than anything is to connect religion with culture and economical-political systems we have today. Because they are the result of religion too.

[aitm]

But I also think that our species would not be here today had religion not existed. You need to be able to keep the people in line. Religion was a good way of doing that and if it didn't exist in any form, I think we probably would have driven ourselves into extinction long ago.

Speculation. How can one suggest that if there is no way to determine the alternate? The Chinese were not particularly religious towards a specific god, they had multiple gods and even their own relatives were considered gods after death. There was no structure no "organized" religion. I think it is an error to say humanity would not have made it without religion, we have seen examples of where they have.

The one thing that religion was good at, was the spread of "technology" and this was by the conquest. It was the art of war that produced technology and introduced people to other technologies of the cultures the invaded or were invaded by.

I can't grant religion a big ole check mark for pushing humanity to where we are, when the fought so hard to keep us where we were.

[widdershins]

The "church" did not spread peacefully. Religions historically do not spread peacefully. In order for the church to play the role they did they first had to become the major religion in order to have that power. They killed a lot of people to do that. Every thing that humanity has done could easily have been done without religious interference. To suggest that it would be a shame that if we didn't have religion then we wouldn't have the Sistine Chapel could as easily be suggested that we should trade the grandeur of the Sistine Chapel for several tens of thousands of lives that could have produced enough genius's to have put a man on the moon two hundred years earlier. We don't know. I won't give them credit for that, just as I won't give Hitler credit for all the medical information "he" gave us through his torture. We would have eventually found it, not as early perhaps, and perhaps not as costly in human lives.

I don't disagree with any of that.  But the topic wasn't about "the good vs evil religion has caused".  It was about the good things religion has brought to the world, and art is certainly one of those things.  Does it mean religion is in any way a "good thing"?  Certainly not.  As I'm sure you are well aware I am very anti-religious (well, I'd be okay with them if they stayed the fuck away from my children and laws).  I hate religion.  But that doesn't mean I can't step back, take an objective look and see some good which came from it.  Realistically it is absolutely impossible for it to have brought nothing but bad into the world unless the devil were real and running the church.  Since magic isn't real then religion has absolutely brought "good things" into the world.  Now of course that doesn't come anywhere near outweighing the bad, but that wasn't the topic.

[drunkenshoe]

I can't grant religion a big ole check mark for pushing humanity to where we are, when the fought so hard to keep us where we were.

I think you misunderstand this whole thing. This is NOT about 'giving a push' to humanity. Human history doesn't have a determination to achieve the best secular civilisation level, exactly like there is no determination in evolution to reach human species.

Speculation. How can one suggest that if there is no way to determine the alternate? The Chinese were not particularly religious towards a specific god, they had multiple gods and even their own relatives were considered gods after death. There was no structure no "organized" religion. I think it is an error to say humanity would not have made it without religion, we have seen examples of where they have.

That's because you are evalauting their religion according to terms of the one you are living in from the perspective of what it has become today. Chinese had very strict and strong belief in their religious system and its function is the same even if it is a different one.  Like ancient Egyptians and Greeks. Or Romans. Or Ethiopians. Or Amazon tribes. And all their religions are OLDER than ABrahamic ones.

Abrahamic religions don't have monopoly on how religion functioned in human history.

[Baruch]

I must agree with Shoe again.  From the Han dynasty forward, religion and state were closely tied for over 2000 years.  The Emperor was the Pope of their religion.

It is interesting that many people still believe in Aristotelian teleology ... even though they have moved from the WASP model of evolutionary perfection to the WASA model ... White-Anglo-Saxon-Atheist.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

I was in a bit of an argument this morning,  actually just moments ago so this afternoon,  but my gf made a ridiculous comment about some 'nice little catholic woman ' who said that many people made fun of her faith, but then went on to say that if she was right then she was a better person because of it, but then I had to ask in what way could it have made her life better? Why couldn't her life be just as great without the crutch of thinking it faith that made her life better?  It's a belief system nothing more, but suppose her belief was that wiping her ass with brand x toilet paper was what made her life better and not the belief in big spooky.. So now we have billions of people running around who believe they're the special ones for believing in the unbelievable. Maybe religion gave us brand x.. No wait,  that was the marketing geniuses of the former Madison Avenue.. All hail the advertising propaganda business ..
Thinking about emporors, wasn't it the Japanese who believed that Hiro Hito descended directly from the sun? Get a few billion people to believe that you descended from the sun and you'll find yourself a gold mine..

[aitm]

Meh, humanity has done a lot of good things in the world. If you wish to say religion was the reason, you may. You're wrong of course, but you can say it.

[PickelledEggs]

The Catholic church commissioned the living shit out of Michelangelo. I've heard a few rumors that he wasn't even a fan of religion, or at least the pope

[_Xenu_]

Monotheism allowed the the unification of disparate peoples into larger groups. It gave them a common belief system that made cooperation possible.

[Hydra009]

On the contrary, religion has brought about many good things in the world.  Art and architecture are two of the things that come to mind right away.  Some of the greatest art known to man came about because of religion, as well as some of the greatest structures ever built, like the pyramids of Egypt.  And who hasn't seen at least pictures of a church which took their breath away by its sheer beauty?

I completely agree.  This is my answer as well.  Though of course, neither is dependent on religion - we wouldn't be living in some artless world without religion - these fantastic works of art just happened to coincide with religion.

[Hydra009]

The main thing I can see is the comfort it might give some grieving family members after the death of a loved one. If the kids wanna believe they'll meet grandma again in the clouds, I'm not going to take that away from them at that moment.

(sorry for the digression from the point of the thread, but I really want to address this.)

I want to agree, but it strikes me as really odd to endorse these sorts of beliefs as good coping mechanisms.  I've struggled with this situation myself - I've found out just what a mistake it is to be brutally honest in these situations.  But I find it lamentable that our collective human response to grief is to lie to ourselves about reality.

Let's take three different people with suspect claims.  The first person says that he's bulletproof.  Complete lunatic.  The second says that he can transform into a tiger.  Total nutbar.  The third says he'll live forever in heaven.  Well, if that's what he wants to believe, I don't see a problem with it.  Hell, this belief could even be widely seen as noble or well-adjusted.

Is there really any difference between these claims other than their relative popularity?  Does nonsense somehow become respectable when it becomes popular?