Does religion cause more harm than good?

    Bit of background on me, I come from a pretty liberal Muslim family.


    However, I identify as an atheist/agnostic and have heard true horror stories of women being beaten and even killed just because they didn’t dress “modestly” or showed their hair on TikTok.


    Not to mention the countless wars and violence that has been caused because of religion.


    There’s also the fact that blasphemy laws still exist in many countries and people are literally mobbed and brutally murdered for even voicing that they don’t believe in Islam or other religions.


    Then I look at the church and while Christianity in the west is a lot less violent, it’s still full of judgmental people that make it their life goal to ostracize and harass LGBTQ+ people or anyone that’s “different”.


    So overall, I believe that the world is better off without religion…I just see it as a group of people that are killing and dying by their belief in the tooth fairy or something. I can’t understand them and their desperation that blinds them to reality.


    But then I also see that religion gives people hope in this world, it gives people comfort believing that there’s something better after this cruel life.


    And although I don’t believe in anything, a lot of people need religion to get them through hardships and death of family members etc.


    Also I’m aware that a lot of our common day morality derived from religion. So it’s not all bad, but still it would be better without it.


    What are your thoughts?

    The Crusades, the Holy Wars or what have you, yeah....it certainly less violence NOW compared to the past. But still, innocent people are getting hurt.


    If religion keeps you at peace or sleep better at night, I am all for that. It is when its being used as a weapon or justified an action, that's when I wish it'll just disappear.

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    Absolutely.

    Religion is also how many people are first introduced to the idea that it's good to believe things without evidence - or worse - despite abundant evidence to the contrary.

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    I think Christianity has contributed a lot to the founding of principles and values of the collective west. Social Democracy, Universities, Morality. We became guilt cultures instead of the shame and honour cultures of the east. Islam on the other hand never seemed to go through an enlightenment period as the idea of separating church from state never caught on. Many Islamic countries that were former colonies reintroduced some elements of sharia law into their systems (courts etc...)


    I think religion is not just about faith but philosophies societies run on. Even in islamic countries that have a tradition of secularism, the ethics and values are still radically different from the west.

    it depends my friend on a person's underlying believes in order to classify something as good or bad


    if a person believes in utilitarianism - then the question would be does the overall good that religion has done outweigh the bad?


    if a person believes in deontology then they believe that harm is unacceptable irrespective of its consequences and thus if religion has caused even one suffering then it is "bad"


    obviously there are many more beliefs and opinions

    Absolutely. Although I still think you’re giving Christianity too much credit. It’s still very much used as a fear tactic, plus we can’t forget about the horrendous amounts of far right extremist groups that use some form of a Christian god as justification for their racist and fucked up beliefs

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