The Top One Reason Religion Is Harmful

I hear u sister!

I agree.

I agree too, but we are all born a blank slate, with no hate or prejudice. But it's the institutions that have been built up around us -like religion- that create tensions and make us hate and in turn can make us kill.

if you believe that then you must really be critical of parents, public education, and sports programs.

yes i am critical of parents and especially public education(the same kind that left out the attrocities of the british empire and the real reason for the black slave trade in history lessons when i was at school)

i see what you are saying but...
with regards to everyone beginning as a blank slate this is true. but the blank slates arent put into the same socio-economic classes. one blank slate can have a 15 yr old, uneducated, single mother and another blank slate can be born into a more optimal family setting. i see way more hatred and violence between people because of poverty and the growing gap between rich and poor. if i had the choice, i'd end world poverty over world religion.
if a guy says he killed a guy cuz his god told him to do it are you going to blame the god?
if obama said tomorrow that people over the age of 19 and under the age of 35 should jump off of a tall building and they do are you going to blame the gov't? i'd blame it on stupidity.

xxxooo you are so right!

so true...the exact same could be said for political discussions.

This is a fundamental fallacy that has always fascinated me among atheists' logic. You are quick to dismiss religion because the sermon on Sunday doesn't tell you why war exists, yet you readily rationalize your dismissal of faith because you are being logical and asking questions about the organization.

Do you not see that there is a Catch-22 there? You are completely unwilling to put forth the effort to learn more about God and religion, and perfectly content to step back and say that none of it is real, and that this is "reality," simply because it's right in front of your fucking face. Put in the work to develop a relationship with God, and you just might catch yourself more fully considering the flaws and triumphs of atheist "logic."

@ Ares: MORE angry religious fanaticism... Par for the course I suppose.

Ares, i know why war exists, i dont need a sermon to tell me that. And just because i choose to live in the reality that is right in front of my 'fucking face' (nice choice of words u prick!) does not mean i like it, there are aspects of this world i despise.
I know about god, i know quite a bit about a few religions actually, I just mentally can't take them in, i can't even watch sermon's on TV as my reasoning takes over my head and alls i see is lies and faults (a bit like looking at the government)
and instead of allowing god or jesus to show me the way, i would rather find it out by myself, I do my own research and i know my own truths. I don't go on ones that have been passed down through thousands of years and have been conveniantly edited by anyone. oh and last but not least, i am an agnostic.

Ares is assuming that people of no faith are ignorant about the concepts of religion and have never attempted to be religious. I know I went to catholic school for 9 years, sunday school, kairos spiritual vacation, church on sundays, etc. Don't you dare try to dismiss disagreement with your faith *which you cannot backup with any sort of evidence besides your own faith* by saying that we just haven't tried and don't know enough. I could easily counterclaim that you know just enough to keep you catatonic and mindless enough to believe in religion and yet have not delved into the history and creation of those institutions--the writers, selection, and compilation of the bible, the similarities/plagiarism of other ancient religions, and so on.

I fail to see any logic in faith...it is the antithesis of logic.

Ares
I will tell you why war exists.

RELIGION !!!

Plain and simple my man.
No illusions there at all.

"Ares is assuming that people of no faith are ignorant about the concepts of religion and have never attempted to be religious."

False. I'm claiming that people without faith never put forth adequate effort to understand faith, and are content with saying "screw it, I'm atheist," instead of actually trying to achieve any higher understanding.

The only cause of war is religion? Really? What about the Spanish-American War? Or the Civil War? Or the Vietnam War? Or WWI?

Once again, you are claiming that people are ignorant and not as enlightened as you are. They simply "haven't put the effort in to understand." What a load of crap. There is no higher understanding of faith. Don't act like you've got something that other people wish they had cause you have nothing but fairy tales in your head. Glad you have confidence in it, but don't say that other people are wrong because they haven't put in the effort and come to the same conclusion that you have. Many people, and myself included as stated above, have put in many years into trying to develope some relationship. People see things differently and it surprises me that you are so steadfast in something with such a shaky foundation from the start. The bible is the base of christianity. Take a history of western civilization class, or bible study classes for 9 years, or survey of world religions. You'll see why the bible is so lacking in credibility.

Morality is never rational.

Is it "religious" to HATE?

I think it is religious to hate, definatly. and it's also catholic to abuse kids!

Sometimes the truth hurts. Your Pastor is a con man and you have been conned. Don't let your fear of death drive you to absurd irrationalities. You are smarter than that, Ares.
Let go of ignorance and superstition.

Those rebuttal post made me laugh so hard.

On topic:

I love how Ares does most of the work for me by contradicting himself.

"you can't prove what happens when we die"

Yet you argue for, live life based on, and make decisions based on a theology that say it does.

Too easy.

"You can't prove what happens when we die. Deal with it." You're right. There is no evidence that anything happens after we die, aside from decomposition, and claims of non-physical immortality have no way of being proven. Death, as far as we can tell, is final. It's something we all have to come to terms with, and wishful thinking about surviving your own death is counterproductive to that end. Like you said: deal with it.

"Sometimes the truth hurts. Your Pastor is a con man and you have been conned. Don't let your fear of death drive you to absurd irrationalities. You are smarter than that, Ares.
Let go of ignorance and superstition."

You seem laughably confident of yourself, given that you have just as much evidence as I do. Let go of superstition indeed.

very well put. i would submit tho that religion is and has always been just an idea. so the one real reason religion is harmful is cuz there is a silly human race trying to interpret it.