I don’t believe that religion is the sole cause of all evil (forgive the bad pun). Money, sex, greed, land, slavery, oil and power have a lot to do with warfare and anguish, but it is difficult to find a terrible event in human history where religion didn’t have at least a tiny bit of negative influence on the situation.

With religion comes complete confidence. With misplaced confidence comes arrogance. With excessive arrogance comes violence. Religion isn’t the only thing that boosts confidence in flawed opinions to dangerous levels, but it certainly has a key role, and it starts, in many nations, a dangerous path to war.

I believe that the world would be a much happier, much more peaceful place if religion were to suddenly vanish, but I don’t think that religion is the only thing keeping us from living in a Utopian ideal world.

Posted: November 2nd 2009

See all questions answered by Reed Braden

I think it would be difficult to add up all the positive and negative effects of religion. For one thing, people don’t agree on what all the positive or negative effects are.

As to whether more people have died as a result of religion than any other cause, I don’t know and I wouldn’t like to guess.

But what is clear is that religion has caused significant harm to humans and continues to do so. I’m not pretending it is the only cause of trouble in the world, nor even the worst.

The reason I oppose religion and encourage people to think critically about it is that I think religious beliefs are mistaken. Mistaken beliefs lead to bad decisions which can hurt people.

For example, the idea that ionising radiation is good for the health is a mistaken belief, as is the belief that all that is needed to cure a child’s illness is prayer.

Posted: November 1st 2009

See all questions answered by Eshu

I don’t think it’s the root of evil, just very potent fertilizer for the root.

Posted: October 30th 2009

See all questions answered by Dave Hitt

I think any belief system that says, “you don’t need to figure out what is right or wrong, just listen to me/this book” is destined to be corrupted for evil purposes. The more a religion subscribes to this, the more likely it is going to cause issues.

I also think that religion is a great business for a lot of people. The average minister makes very little money, but those who run big churches can do quite well, and those who are on TV and/or do travelling shows really rake in the money. Not to mention giving a whole lot of people baseless hope.

Then there’s the societal cost of churches. If a person has a country club membership, they pay dues to the membership, and for that money they get to use the facilities.

People pay money into their churches, and are also able to use the facilities there.

But because it’s religious, the people donating the money get a tax deduction and the church doesn’t pay property taxes. Even though that money goes almost exclusively to maintain the church and staff that the church member benefits from. Yes, churches do do charity work, but so do many country clubs.

It’s no wonder the L. Ron Hubbard decided to create his own religion.

Posted: October 26th 2009

See all questions answered by Eric_PK