The Top One Reason Religion Is Harmful

Awesome post. Wholeheartedly agreed. It could be equated to George W Bu$h's famous "you're with us or you're against us" no way out speak.

I know exactly what you mean by talking about causing harm. Try spending your life telling this to people in the South. Almost all of the people here are taught to never question religion; hence: no reality check. And due to no reality check, religions commit violent atrocities against fellow human beings. e.g.: Crusades, 9/11, & the Holocaust. The ole "my god can beat up your god" complex. Seems more like you found out why and how the harm is being produced by religion & that that is the reason why religion is harmful in itself. Good post & I agree.

Interesting. I think that the majority of all Fundamentalist religions,
either right or left. have done more harm than any spec of good they have done.

I think religion is harmful because it is based in "belief" rather than fact, and people become much more irrational and potentially harmful in the name of belief than in the name of fact. To question someone's facts is typically a small thing, but to question one's beliefs can be a very large thing indeed. I believe this to be true because beliefs are so strongly tied to passion, and facts are tied to evidence, or more facts.

You're precisely right on this point. Religion's immunity from reality lends itself to insanity.

"Religion is ultimately dependent on belief in invisible beings, inaudible voices, intangible entities, undetectable forces, and events and judgments that happen after we die.

It therefore has no reality check."

Death is the reality check, and it drives you up the wall because you can't prove what happens when we die. Deal with it.

I'm sorry that for whatever reason you don't have a relationship with God or a Pastor, or either one; but I do, and I'm tired of being made out to be inferior to people like you because of it. This is what makes people hate atheists.

I agree 100%, as child i had too many questions that religion could not answer, you know the usual "if god loves us then why doesn't he stop wars"? "if god loves us so much and can do anything he wants then why do so many people die of starvation everyday"? then there's the big one "if god is real then why do so many catholic priests abuse kids, what does god think of that?" if i was to leave my thoughts down to religion, i would be an extremely small narrow minded individual, to me religion is another controlling institution that separates us as humans, and that we dont need.
There's a quote by someone whom i forget the name.
"religion is regarded by the common as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful"

I agree with you, and also with hayden_augustus as well. It's tough being an atheist in the south. My own mother doesn't accept me as an atheist. Anything that has no reality check and divides families is a terrible thing.

The danger in your point is that it is as intolerant as the "religions" you feel are so harmful. People should be able to believe what they want. "Live and let live" is my attitude and "whatever gets you though the night" as John Lennon said. The problem with people who espouse religion and those that condemn it is that they BOTH feel the need to evangelize their point of view. Sometimes people just don't want to hear it. Sometime folks just want to be left alone to decide for themselves how they want to live. Whether someone chooses to practice a specific religion, or chooses to be agnostic, or an atheist, that is their own business. We really don't need a know-it-all or a holier-than-thou to look down from on high to tell us that what we believe or don't believe is stupid or wrong.

everybody blames religion. religions are ideas and ideas alone.
people formulate the ideas. people interpret the ideas. people act on the ideas. people enforce the ideas. the real reason ideas or religions are dangerous is because people (our silly human race) are dangerous.

Religions can cause divisions within families. What is interesting is how they deal with it. Either people grow to appreciate that people are entitled to their opinions...or they go nuts.
I claim to 'believe in God'...not a problem when all I have said is that the world seems to have an underlying pattern which responds to our input.
Past that...all bets are off.
That's what I call fundamentalist : not stretching ideas past the basics.

@ Ares again: Oh, and I forgot to mention that I'm NOT an atheist... I just despise religion. (Religion and god are completely different topics, BTW).

I don't need someone calling me flawed. I don't need someone telling me that I should "fear" any God. I don't need someone telling me to stand in line, and I sure as hell don't need someone taking my money, only to find out they've been raping little kids the whole time.

The first monotheistic religion was based upon questioning, just like a physicist questions string theory. There have been many debates, many changes to the structure of Judaism ever since, from how women dress, to how we care for animals to how we give to charity. But the basic idea is that we have built a consensus on what it means to be good, mostly we disagree on what it means to be bad.

Charity, Love, Honor, Faith in a creator who is nameless (to our small ability to reason) , powerful and eternal, gratefullness, and ultimate will to help others are things worth suspending a little disbelief for.

The Native Americans taught me my ancestors are my connection to the Creator.
They taught me about a cyclical relationship to all of creation and the unity that monotheism tries to describe. It's not about one name, it's about a wholeness.
I urge no one to judge "religion," as a concept by Dogma individuals or groups have used for power.

I disagree with the author's conjecture, which states that religion is separate from all other secular ideologies due to a belief in supernatural entities. What about Buddhism? Buddhists don't worship a supernatural deity, they worship the manifestation of absolute enlightenment in mankind, which they refer to as Buddha. No supreme all powerful God there, just a reflection on personal intentions, the boundaries of consciousness and the unconscious, and motivation to value and respect all life because it represents a personal lesson about one's own nature. Buddhists aren't looking for salvation in the afterlife, they are looking for the Way to be more like Buddha while here on earth. With that being said, it is difficult to agree that a belief in a supernatural being is the defining attribute in all religions.

Also, I disagree that believing in a supreme being is harmful because it is not subject to human criticism or analysis. Obviously, Judeo-Christian religions have been subject to criticism by pagans and polytheists alike since their inception. It also has been open to correction and tireless questioning since the Protestant reformation. The simple truth is that a connection to something intangible, non-physical, and unquantifiable cannot be verified by physical devices, techniques, or observations alone.

Even our most sensitive instruments cannot directly record the presence of objects such as dark matter and dark energy which make up 95% of our universe for example. Although we can't directly analyze dark matter, Cosmologists agree that proof of it can inferred and determined by the indirect evidence of it. Therefore, although it is unmeasurable to every scientific instrument known to man, it can still exist in the scientific community. If the presence of a supernatural being cannot be proven with science today, there is no reason to think it can or will never be. People have to open their minds in the search for truth because to accept it, once you find it, often takes a lot of faith.

This article was another unoriginal snooze fest. On top of that many of the assertions made by the author were impossibly simplistic. For instance if you’re the type to claim that the belief in god is the same as say a belief in general relativity or modern medicine then your either whitewashing the issue for personal motivations or simply ignorant of how religion actually works.

Few if any give there hearts (metaphorically) to modern medicine or the theory of general relativity but that’s exactly what most religious individuals strive to do. The cultivation of faith is the personal strengthening of love (for the divine) in the face of doubt. Without doubt faith is impossible or in other words the “reality check” the author failed to locate is herself.

Organized religion causes insanity.

I live a wholly secular life. When religious/spiritual people ask me what is the purpose of life if I don't believe in anything I respond: "I do not need an invisible entity to provide my life with a sense of purpose"...

This headline says all you need to know about religion:

"Death Threat forces removal of Atheist Billboard"

WakeUpPeople, i overwhelmingly agree. Very thoughtful and well put. In Religiolous, one of my favorite films, Bill says that religion is 'the cause and justification of so much violence and destruction in this world'. It has always been that way and it' not getting better but, getting worse. Fanatics are drunk on absurdity and like you said, invisible beings, i don't know if there's any rational sobriety. Well played sir. Keep em' coming.

You forgot one really poisonous religion....political correctness.

here here!! but if only there was a place, like a building or hall, where atheists could meet and solidify themselves as a group and agree on a specific ideology....[kidding]

Please remove the ying/yang symbol from the group. The three religions of Abraham and Eastern spirituality are mutually exclusive. You'd never see a Taoist blowing himself up in a market, shooting an abortion doctor or erecting a wall around Palestinians.