religion and charity

[miriam_e]

Why is it that even religious moderates are so often convinced that you need religion or faith to be a good person or to find purpose in life? It is incredibly arrogant. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised. It is really no more arrogant than believing that out of thousands of irrational beliefs, theirs is the only one that is right.

I listened to The Spirit of Things tonight. Big mistake. The guy being interviewed was amazing, but tripped and fell headfirst into the metaphoric mud when he said that faith is necessary for purpose. And Rachael Kohn clearly showed her limitations when she implied that religion gives us charity. Of course she ignored all the charitable atheists and agnostics (oh, but they don't count -- how could atheists possibly be charitable?). Ignore the fact that the least religious countries regularly live up to their international aid promises, whereas the most religious countries have never done so. The least religious countries have the most peaceful and healthy populations, whereas the most religious countries are split by fear and hatred and obscene wealth contrasted with appalling poverty.

Are people so willingly blind?

Sure, some religious people can be good and charitable, but on balance religion's harm far, far outweighs any good it has ever done. While atheists and agnostics quietly get on with the job of doing good without constantly trumpeting how great they are.

Comments

[idealistagain.livejournal.com]

In actual fact far more killing and other evil deeds are done by religious people than atheists.

I'm still waiting for some documentation of this. Not only is there no documentation, but you don't even lay out any standard by which we can determine if its true. You say its "actual fact" but its not fact at all, its just a statement waiting for facts to back it up. Since there are no facts presented to back it up, it only falls into the realm of opinion.

the central point: that religion promotes itself as the guide to good and moral behaviour, when it is actually the opposite.

I think this is very oversimplified; there's a lot more issues involved here. Most religious people do not claim to have a monopoly on perfection. The exceptions to that are the ones who are so blinded by an ideology that they lose the ability to think rationally--and that can be caused by any number of factors other than religion. I also think you can't really make the claim that its "the opposite". The opposite, as near as I can infer, would be that religion is somehow a guide to evil and although I think you can make a good case that many people have corrupted religious doctrine for evil ends, that's a far different thing than proving that religion itself is evil.


Keep in mind, that for the most part I agree with your posts and I don't consider myself particularly religious. Its simply that in this case, I feel you are going too far and presenting unjustified conclusions that aren't really supported by hard fact and that concerns me.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. :) The statistics published in The Journal of Religion and Society at http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html show that homicide and other social ills correlate directly with religion.
The original article uses a tricky, but annoying technique of swapping graphs into and out of the document. I've uploaded a more readable version to my site at
http://miriam-english.org/files/religion_ill.html

You are right that I've assumed that this holds true for big, dramatic confrontations like wars. I'd be surprised if it doesn't, considering the ease with which religion can be used to dupe people into doing irrational things, but I will see if I can find reliable info to validate or falsify my assumption. Thanks. I honestly appreciate being called on a possible mistake.

I didn't say that most religious people claim to have a monopoly on perfection. I said religion promotes itself as a guide to good and moral behavior. I think that is a fair enough statement, and I think most religious people would agree with it. When I say that it is the opposite I don't mean that religion is evil (though I do think a pretty good case could be made for that). What I mean is that religion is a guide to behavior that bad and immoral (the opposite of good and moral). There is very little in the bible that exhorts people to do good or be a truly moral person, and virtually nothing in that disgusting document the koran. Most other religious literature that I've read is similarly lacking in the simple niceties of being good human beings. They all tend to pander to xenophobia and maintaining the status quo, generally having more to do with hate than love. So, yes, I'd say I'm justified in saying they promote the opposite of good and moral behavior.

Yep, :) I realise you are trying to keep my comments honest, and I am grateful for that. I hate it when I use shaky assumptions and I'm always relieved to be pulled up on it. There is nothing more embarrassing for me than looking over something much, much later, after an exchange has died down, and realising I made a major mistake. Much better is to be able to correct it while to conversation is still active. I'll see what I can find out about religious involvement in the major conflagrations.