Is organised religion a general enemy of humanity?

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It is as stupid to debate whether or not evolution happens as it is to debate whether or not gravity happens. It is an observed testable demonstrable fact of nature, part of the reality we all experience. Most people who argue against the FACT of evolution do so because they are badly misinformed about this subject. Basically every scientific observation and measurement ever made all support the consistent reality described by science that supports evolution. Evolution is supported by ALL the evidence and contradicted by NONE. How more one sided could this debate possibly be? This makes it even more incredible to me that so many people are in denial of this.

Some accept what they call "microevolution" but then draw a magic line and say that for some unexplained reason microevolution over time does not become macroevolution. This is a bigger error even than denying all evolution outright, because to do so means one accepts the mechanisms and existence of evolution but then denies the evidence of genetics and the fossil record that clearly show we DID evolve. Speciation has been observed in the field and and in the laboratory. And that's not even talking about the evidence of the fossil record which clearly shows life spreading and diversifying over time.

Some ask "Were you there?" and offer their interpretation of the Bible as what they call "eyewitness testimony" to counter all the physical evidence for evolution. Well, yes, because there is HERE. Any physical event in the past leaves traces that persist to the present, and we can study this evidence. Also the Bible is NOT eyewitness testimony. We do not have the word of God Himself (Herself? Itself?) but the words of men who CLAIM they are writing God's words. That is hearsay, not eyewitness testimony, and would be inadmissible in a court of law. If a certain way of interpreting the Bible is contradicted by physical reality, why should truth conflict with truth? Why would God say one thing in His Creation that is contradicted by a certain way of reading His Book?

In courts of law, physical evidence is MORE reliable than eyewitness testimony. I would love to commit a murder and have a jury of creationists at my trial. I could leave my fingerprints at the scene, and samples of my DNA from my hair or from my blood under the victim's fingernails, have the victim's blood on my clothes, kill the victim with a bullet from my gun (that has victim's blood in my bloody fingerprints on the handle), bloody footprints at the scene that match my shoes, victim's blood on my shoes, etc. and then when the jury tries to tell me I am guilty I can smugly ask "Were you there?"

Finally, there is Biblical support for evolution! I quote Dr. GS Hurd from the comments to article about Christian group on MN campus (article at http://www.mndaily.com/2011/11/03/chris ... n-30-years )

No, but it can be to those who want to not only disagree with doctrine but find it right to stomp on toes.

I'm well familiar with the specifics of that separation. Likewise, I'm sure you wouldn't have much trouble attributing political motives to the rise of different protestant sects if you wanted to.

If alien blood did come to earth
And colonising hybrids were indoctrinated
so very long ago....
mythologising the story
is highly probable

Mainstream science or Darwinian theory is 99% correct
yet few fossilised creatures have been found in transitional forms
reptiles becoming birds for example

religion still sucks because it is manipulated by politics and money
all the things it purports to rise above
and the false filth will all perish in the great flood

Is organized religion a general enemy of humanity?

Any belief system that is based on an collection of apocryphal accounts that were part of a thousand-year old oral tradition before they were ever written down, and that were used to justify a patriarchal regime that practices classism, genocide, racism, slavery, and the subjugation of women as second-class citizens as a matter of course is a threat to humanity.

Many people do simply awful things out of sincere religious belief, not using religion as a cover the way that Saddam Hussein may have done, but really because they believe that this is what God wants them to do, going all the way back to Abraham being willing to sacrifice Issac because God told him to do that. Putting one's religion ahead of humanity is a terrible thing.

"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." -- Steven Weinberg, in his Address at the Conference on Cosmic Design, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, D.C. (April 1999)

This, this, this!

Adolf Hitler wasn't religious, and he was obsessed with killing people that were religious like Jews, Catholics, Jehovah's Witness, etc.

No, that's 'cos he was a racist.

He hated Jews for being Jews on racial grounds (I won't mention Islam and what they demand to happen for the Jews - it isn't allowed). Some of the Catholics got in the way of his iron rule, as did the Jehovah's Witnesses who refused to acquiesce to his demands. Actually, I have a smidgeon bit more respect for the JWs in general after I realised what Hitler had done to them. I still don't like them in general (they better send fit ladies to see me next time and not those funny old businessmen) but they deserve credit for their bravery. The fascist anti-Semites are still a major threat to Jews in places like France, Greece, Hungary, and the United States. I'm sorry, but all this negative advertising isn't doing the haters any favours.

Organisations like Hamas, and Al-Qaeda, and other organisations also hate Jews for being Jews. That's a religious thing that also has racial elements.

Hitler would've voted "yes" in your poll Tequilla.

It seems like most of his victims were religious people with whitish looking skin.

Last edited by Venger on 07 Feb 2013, 6:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

He quite liked Islam though:

"You see, it's been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn't we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?" - Adolf Hitler

I'm not going to dig up that famous Jew-hater al-Huseyni again.

Joseph Stalin was an atheist, and he killed way more people than Hitler did but over a longer period of time. Many of them were religious people. Stalin would no doubt vote "yes" in your poll too.

From wiki: "Raised in the Georgian Orthodox faith, Stalin became an atheist. He followed the position adopted by Lenin that religion was an opiate that needed to be removed in order to construct the ideal communist society. His government promoted atheism through special atheistic education in schools, anti-religious propaganda, the antireligious work of public institutions (Society of the Godless), discriminatory laws, and a terror campaign against religious believers. By the late 1930s it had become dangerous to be publicly associated with religion."

Society becoming organized behind dogmatic lines has nothing to do with organized religion though, it has to do with people taking action against other people due to intolerance of difference, and it would happen (and does, even now) regardless of whether or not people believe in religion.
Take the stance against organized religion for example: In today's society, Christianity is seen as a bad religion and Christians are hated because of it, and that view is based entirely on the stigmas, dogmas, and doctrines that "intelligent" society has come up with, which in turn are based on half truths, full lies, and 700 year old events that hold no substance in today's society. The fact that the question of whether or not organized religion is a "threat/enemy to/of humanity" is proof enough of my point (Society becoming organized behind dogmatic lines has nothing to do with organized religion, it has to do with people taking action against other people due to intolerance of difference).

People are the problem, not religion, and people will always become organized against each other, regardless of the reason, if it's not one thing, it'll always be another. And people with the delusion of being more enlightened than those who fight, are 9 times out of 10, the one's starting the new fight after the first one is over, due to some false sense that their way is better because it works for them.

My advice to everyone in the world who talks about this sort of thing: Mind your own business, and "seek not the evils in your neighbors, lest it find purchase in your own house". If you follow that advice, you won't get involved in any dispute between any group, regardless of what it is. If you have a problem with religion, don't complain about it, ignore it instead. You'll find the problem will lose it's power in your life if you don't let it become a problem for you to begin with.

Anywho, that's my two cents worth, I hope that's at least opened someones eyes to reality at least a little.
Have a nice day everyone!

Religion itself does not impose a problem but once you "govern" the followers of said religion to a certain degree, then it creates problems. One should be able to believe in whatever they want. One should not be told "if you believe in this then you must believe in that" or "you must do this or else you are not a true member of the religion".

No, sometimes the very religion itself is the problem, depending in what is in its holy texts.