[Guest]

Are their advantages or disadvatages in Religion?

How many Religions are there? 10? 100? even 1000?

[Izzy]

Advantage*: Population control. More people have died in the name of God, whatever God, than anything else. I'm pretty intolerant of most religions, but what keeps me from wanting to destroy them all is the thought of them (different denominations) killing each other off while atheists have the chance to watch from the sidelines. Biggest threat to US atheists would be getting grouped with the damn Christians, but I'm sure since we're amazing, we can figure out a way out of it. Religion (at least back then) made the world a very 'survival of the fittest' one. I'm afraid it isn't exactly like that now, look at the obesity level and prediction levels in the US, but all in good time.

*Disclaimer: What I'm saying isn't targeted at anyone. I feel the Holocaust will be mentioned. I believe IN NO WAY that the slaughter of 12 million people was justified. However, looking at these types of things in the .... sorta selfish, can be optimistic, will probably come off like an a**hole 'how does this benefit me/things related to me' way, yeah, population control.

Disadvantages:

1. There is no reason to believe in a lie, regardless of whether it makes you happy or not. Every religion is some complete BS, made up either for money, or to spread completely illiberal beliefs, like ones where slavery is okay, women should be oppressed, and homosexuals should be stoned.

2. Childhood indoctrination, i.e. corrupting the mind of youths before they're given to tools to think things over logically, is evil and should be illegal. This can be compared to Santa Claus, a mostly harmless, fun, tradition. From an incredibly young age, children are made to believe in things that aren't real, be that Santa, the Easter Bunny, God, whatever. Fortunately, the children eventually develop some logical thinking skills, where they begin questioning Santa, and other like creations, because, given the lack of evidence for his existence ("I stayed up all night but he didn't eat my milk and cookies." "Daddy is in the costume." "How can Santa be at EVERY mall?" etc.), asserting he isn't there is no longer hard. Unfortunately, the same logic is rarely applied to God. Maybe that's because we're not meant to sense (with the physical senses) his presence.

3. What's the point of a God that doesn't interfere? And when the only time he does, it's with murder? According to some religions, AIDs isn't a serious disease, merely God's solution for homosexuals. According to some Muslims that made the news, swine flu isn't any scary epidemic (well, it isn't anyway, but yeah), it's Allah showing his fury and killing those who disobey him and eat pork. I'm sure it's even been argued that STDs are merely the punishment for premarital sex.

4. Religions are intolerant of other religions. This isn't just at the adult level, but helpless kidlets are actually being bullied in school for having beliefs off par the norm in their area. There was a kid who refused to pray with his class when prompted, and he never heard the end of it. I've refused to do the Pledge of Allegiance since I've understood it, sometime in second grade, and kids make such a big deal out of it. Thankfully, most people have gotten over that now, but yeah, that was like three years of elementary hell. I even remember this one time, this year, when we had some ex-military (female) fundie substitute. As usual, I would sit respectfully while everyone else did the pledge, and she came over and told me off. We got into a very debate style argument, which ended something like..

Me: I have the freedom to do or not do whatever I want, and the pledge, your moment of silence, and any other silly singalongs non class related are completely optional. If you don't believe me, go look it up in the school rules. If you refuse to look it up, ignorance of the rule is no justification for any complaint I decide to make, as you've now been well informed.

Her: I don't care. You will stand and do the pledge and pray with the rest of us while I am in this classroom.

Me: Um. No. No, I won't.

Her: Go sit in the hallway. You can come back in in five minutes.

Me: *leaves classroom and immediately walks to the administration building to complain*

More to come when I feel like typing them out.

Edited May 3, 2009 by Izzy

[Guest]

There are open threads where advantages and disadvantages are being discussed right now. If you want to know how many religions there are, you can use a search engine.