Can we say organized religion is a positive force in the world with headlines like this?

[Quintessence]

ISIS organizes. The KKK organizes. Are all the positives you listed about organization actually positive if the end result is negative? I'm not sure I see your point here.

That the attribute of being "organized" isn't any sort of culprit here; being organized is a benign or neural attribute. Frankly, I'd say the same thing about the attribute of being a "religion," but others have touched upon that already. Folks are looking too much at masks, and not enough at content. I don't know about you, but if I see indications of valuing pluralism, I call that good (because I value pluralism too) no matter what mask it wears. I couldn't care less if that's found in something called "Christianity" or something called "diversity education" or something called "polytheism." It's the pluralism that is important to me.

 

[Scott C.]

You "see nothing but love" in trying to deny the right of marriage to people who aren't even Mormon?

Yes, absolutely. Suppose I had a gay child. If you think I would not love him or her with all of my heart, you have no idea as to what's in my heart. If you think I would disdain or reject him or her and his or her partner, you have no idea what's in my heart. If you think I would be angry with him or her, you have no idea what's in my heart. Yet, I would not agree that he or she should be able to legally marry, whether they are Mormons or not. And you know what? My gay son or daughter would know very well how much I love him or her. That would not be in doubt. Your belief that an anti-gay marriage stance is based on hate is dead wrong. It's not true for me personally and it's not true for my church. Are there some people in this world who hate gays? Yes. Do I? No. Does my church? No. Is hatred acceptable? No. Is it Christian? No. Is it Mormon? No. You are mistaken.

 

[Scott C.]

The only things an atheist can't do on this list is have "faith that God answers prayers", "tell the difference between divine inspiration and imagined experience" and an atheist would obviously never claim that sexuality (or anything for that matter) was a gift from God. I don't know how these are expected to be taken as advantages "of the religion". These are mostly just things humans can do regardless.

If there were no God, many of my religious practices would at best be a monumental waste of time and energy. As far as the practices that would still have value go, I could do those outside of my faith. But since I believe there is a God, my faith is essential and everything to me.

 

[JoStories]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...s-for-expressing-his-atheism-on-a6900056.html

10 Years prison and 2,000 lashes for being an atheist in Saudi Arabia.

"In 2014 the oil-rich kingdom, under the late Saudi King Abdullah, introduced a series of new laws which defined atheists as terrorists, according to a report released from Human Rights Watch. "

This is intended as a topic for serious debate: Can we make the case that organized religion is positive for society, or does it fail that test?

my answer would be yes and no. Yes, it can be for those that it provides solace and comfort. No, in the case, such as above, where one is forced to follow a faith that does not resonant with the person. A person should be able to follow and practice a faith that resonates and that would include those who choose to follow none.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Yes, absolutely. Suppose I had a gay child. If you think I would not love him or her with all of my heart, you have no idea as to what's in my heart. If you think I would disdain or reject him or her and his or her partner, you have no idea what's in my heart. If you think I would be angry with him or her, you have no idea what's in my heart. Yet, I would not agree that he or she should be able to legally marry, whether they are Mormons or not. And you know what? My gay son or daughter would know very well how much I love him or her. That would not be in doubt. Your belief that an anti-gay marriage stance is based on hate is dead wrong. It's not true for me personally and it's not true for my church. Are there some people in this world who hate gays? Yes. Do I? No. Does my church? No. Is hatred acceptable? No. Is it Christian? No. Is it Mormon? No. You are mistaken.

I'm not sure how you reconcile it with "love", but all of these are hateful acts:

- hand a homophobic landlord the right to evict your hypothetical son under a "no roommates" clause.
- deny your hypothetical gay son the right to participate in parent-teacher meetings for the child they're raising together.
- deny the right for your hypothetical gay son to visit his partner in the hospital, should the hospital feel like barring him.
- when your hypothetical gay son's partner dies without a will, hand his partner's half of their home off to a homophobic family member of his partner instead of him.
- even if his partner dies with his will in order and your hypothetical gay son ends up with the whole house, make sure he has to pay estate taxes on it so he might have to sell the house anyway to pay them.

When you support a same-sex marriage ban, you support all this and more. Effectively, you'd be telling your hypothetical gay son "at all sorts of critical points when things seem their worst, I'm going to make things that much worse. For the rest of your life, I'm going to kick you when you're down." If you're going to call this "loving", then I can only assume you haven't thought through the full consequences of your actions or you have a very twisted view of what love is.

 

[idav]

Yes, absolutely. Suppose I had a gay child. If you think I would not love him or her with all of my heart, you have no idea as to what's in my heart. If you think I would disdain or reject him or her and his or her partner, you have no idea what's in my heart. If you think I would be angry with him or her, you have no idea what's in my heart. Yet, I would not agree that he or she should be able to legally marry, whether they are Mormons or not. And you know what? My gay son or daughter would know very well how much I love him or her. That would not be in doubt. Your belief that an anti-gay marriage stance is based on hate is dead wrong. It's not true for me personally and it's not true for my church. Are there some people in this world who hate gays? Yes. Do I? No. Does my church? No. Is hatred acceptable? No. Is it Christian? No. Is it Mormon? No. You are mistaken.

Thats a very slippery slope, on top of the issues penguin raised. Hate the sin not the sinner doesn't work very well with homosexuality cause homosexuality can't be separated from the person as if it is a choice whether to kill someone. Besides the bible teaches that marriage is ok to avoid sin because "a man having sex with a woman is bad(1 Corinthians". So to just chastise someone and not allow them the same freedom that the bible allow straight guys, isn't fair especially when it is not a matter of choice but a physical thing and there is tons of science behind that.

 

[Scott C.]

I'm not sure how you reconcile it with "love", but all of these are hateful acts:

- hand a homophobic landlord the right to evict your hypothetical son under a "no roommates" clause.
- deny your hypothetical gay son the right to participate in parent-teacher meetings for the child they're raising together.
- deny the right for your hypothetical gay son to visit his partner in the hospital, should the hospital feel like barring him.
- when your hypothetical gay son's partner dies without a will, hand his partner's half of their home off to a homophobic family member of his partner instead of him.
- even if his partner dies with his will in order and your hypothetical gay son ends up with the whole house, make sure he has to pay estate taxes on it so he might have to sell the house anyway to pay them.

I don't believe any of the above should happen and I would fight for my hypothetical son and his partner in each of those cases. But, I don't want to get into a debate on gay marriage. The OP said that many religions hate gays and this makes them bad. My point was simply that my church does not hate gays. They don't. That simple.

 

[Scott C.]

Thats a very slippery slope, on top of the issues penguin raised. Hate the sin not the sinner doesn't work very well with homosexuality cause homosexuality can't be separated from the person as if it is a choice whether to kill someone. Besides the bible teaches that marriage is ok to avoid sin because "a man having sex with a woman is bad(1 Corinthians". So to just chastise someone and not allow them the same freedom that the bible allow straight guys, isn't fair especially when it is not a matter of choice but a physical thing and there is tons of science behind that.

I don't agree with your biblical interpretations. But my point was that neither I nor my church hates homosexuals. There are ways to protect gays in their basic human rights without full blown legalized marriage. I want people to understand that my church's view is not hate based. It's not. I'm certain.

 

[Pudding]

Title question: Can we say organized religion is a positive force in the world with headlines like this?
The organized religion which involve in that headlines is a positive force for its follower; but generally it's a negative force for non-follower.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...s-for-expressing-his-atheism-on-a6900056.html

10 Years prison and 2,000 lashes for being an atheist in Saudi Arabia.

"In 2014 the oil-rich kingdom, under the late Saudi King Abdullah, introduced a series of new laws which defined atheists as terrorists, according to a report released from Human Rights Watch. "

This is intended as a topic for serious debate: Can we make the case that organized religion is positive for society, or does it fail that test?

To some people, they think some organized religion is positive for society; while other people think those organized religion is not positive for society.

Does the organized religion in your question refer to all organized religion?
As in: "Can we make the case that all organized religion is positive for society, or does it fail that test?" ?

It doesn't make sense to generalize all organized religion is all not positive to society just because some/many organized religion is not positive to society.
Just like it doesn't make sense to generalize all people is all not positive to society just because some/many people is not positive to society.

Some organized religion is positive to society, they're positive to society regardless the fact that some/many other organized religion is not positive to society.

What is the criteria to verify whether or not an organized religion is positive to society?
Society is make up by individual people, and different people have different criteria whether or not an organized religion is positive to society.

 

[Quintessence]

Thanks for some interesting perspective on this, @Scott C. It seems that sometimes we're too quick to judge someone else's actions as hateful when limits and boundaries are set. All of us draw lines in the sand for things that we don't accept, but that doesn't have to mean we hate the person for crossing those lines.

 

[idav]

I don't agree with your biblical interpretations.

Yeah but that wasn't an interpretation thats in the bible. Marraige is a way for straight folk to not live in lustful sin. You can think paul was wrong, if thats the case fine.

Besides your not going to tell me you believe sex is always ok, there is no petting, no fondling and no lusting allowed unless married and marriage is the crux of the matter, not sin, otherwise even married people cannot have sex unless its for pro-creation.

But my point was that neither I nor my church hates homosexuals.

One of my main points(other than the bible hates sex in general) was that you can't separate that sin from the sinner and I would behoove anyone to go with the science on this one. Being a homosexual is part of who the person is so not allowing marriage is rejection of the person as how god made them, even when everyone is supposed to be a sinner and jesus himself did not get into it except to say not to even look at people in lust, but was mainly talking of marriage, its amazing how it always goes back to marriage when Jesus talks about lust.

 

[Pudding]

I don't believe any of the above should happen and I would fight for my hypothetical son and his partner in each of those cases. But, I don't want to get into a debate on gay marriage. The OP said that many religions hate gays and this makes them bad. My point was simply that my church does not hate gays. They don't. That simple.

Do your church actively or publicly opposing the legalize of gay's secular civil non-religious marriage ?
How would you fight for your hypothetical son and his partner in each of those cases which those cases happen because they're gay and gay cannot get marry to having marriage's benefits (in that hypothetical situation)?

 

[idav]

I want people to understand that my church's view is not hate based. It's not. I'm certain.

I believe it, it's this living in sin portion I try to understand, that is a whole issue with pauls writings to, like the difference in wanting to do good and physically being able to. I feel like saying homosexuality is always wrong sets a person up for failure cause it isn't like a choice to do something horrible, which is a main difference to me when considering what might be in a persons heart.

 

[Pudding]

There are ways to protect gays in their basic human rights without full blown legalized marriage.

Are there also ways to protect women in their basic human rights from misogyny/sexism without full blown legalized the law which prohibit misogyny/sexism?
Same apply to racism?

Even if there're ways to protect gay's basic human rights without full blown legalized secular non-religious marriage, those alternative ways are often more complicated/hard to achieve and incomplete when compare with simply get marriage to easily having the secular non-religious marriage's secular non-religious benefit.

Why heterosexual people can get marriage(secular non-religious) to having secular non-religious marriage's secular non-religious benefit, and gay people cannot get marriage to having its benefit but have to jump thru those complicated/hard obstacle to getting those incomplete benefit?

Because religion A's God forbid the legalize of secular non-religious gay marriage?
Because religion B's god forbid the legalize of secular non-religious gay marriage?
Because religion C's deity forbid the legalize of secular non-religious gay marriage?
Because those gods say marriage is their property design for heterosexual and not gay's property?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I don't believe any of the above should happen and I would fight for my hypothetical son and his partner in each of those cases.

Really? What are you doing about these sorts of problems? What are you doing to mitigate the harm you're trying to inflict?

But, I don't want to get into a debate on gay marriage. The OP said that many religions hate gays and this makes them bad. My point was simply that my church does not hate gays. They don't. That simple.

And I think you're missing my point. Many religions HARM LGBT people. THAT - among other things - is what makes these religions bad.

Whether you've managed to reconcile this harm with what you call "love" is really beside the point. We can find plenty of abusive spouses who sincerely say they love their victims, too.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

There are ways to protect gays in their basic human rights without full blown legalized marriage.

The fact that there are ways you could mitigate the harm (somewhat) of what you propose is irrelevant unless you're actually doing something to make that mitigation happen.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Thanks for some interesting perspective on this, @Scott C. It seems that sometimes we're too quick to judge someone else's actions as hateful when limits and boundaries are set. All of us draw lines in the sand for things that we don't accept, but that doesn't have to mean we hate the person for crossing those lines.

FWIW, when I describe an action as "hateful", I generally mean something like "consistent with hate." If one person hated another, they might be motivated to inflict the sort of harm on a person that banning same-sex marriage inflicts on same-sex couples. I know full well that people have ways to rationalize the harm they inflict on others; nobody's the villain in their own narrative.

 

[Ken Ewald]

Where did he say Gays Shalt Not Marry is what I want to know.

The entire book of Romans is written t

Answering a post with a Bible verse is exactly what preaching is.

When the word of God is sown Satan comes quickly and steals that seed that was sown and the word becomes unprofitable.

 

[JoStories]

Regarding 1 and 2: in my experience, religion tends to increase, not decrease, anxiety.

I've had several family members die of cancer. Watching their (and my) friends, family and loved ones cope with this, I noticed that usually:

- the non-religious people get angry, sad, and every other negative emotion that happens as you watch someone you care about get sick, go through pain, and die.

- the religious people get just as angry, sad, etc. at what's going on, but also experience shame with themselves at their sadness and anger (since it implies a lack of faith) and spiritual crises trying to reconcile what they're seeing with the loving God they think they're supposed to believe in.

Regarding 4: your charitable dollar goes further when it doesn't have a cut taken off the top to cover church expenses.

That is more correct than you know but very often, it is the family members that increase the anxiety and anger, etc, that makes it all the worse. And having been in too many ICUs to have seen this, it is more often the Abrahamic faiths that suffer in this way.

 

[JoStories]

It was years and years ago, no way I could find the list. But lets use the partial list I included in that same point, reformatted for ease of nitpicking:

The hatred of gay people we see
Beliefs that cause adherents to refuse life saving medical treatment
Distrust of people other religions/general xenophobia
False hope that praying will help your situation
Mistaking the effects of mental illness for divine contact
Rejection of globally accepted scientific principles
Preoccupation with hell and who ends up there
Negative view of human sexuality

I agree with all of your listed items here save one, at least from a patient use POV. I disagree that praying does not help people. This is not to say that praying is something that will get one a million dollars from God, or whatever name for the powers that be one wishes to use, but that sometimes praying be just enough to calm a person and center them. As a Buddhist, I use this, although I call it meditation, and it does help to calm me and center me. I do not expect God to hand me things however. In fact, I don't ask but even if someone does, is it so bad to use a means of dealing with life's stress this way? And btw, while I do agree that the items you have listed are some of the more negative aspects of religions there are a good deal of positive ones.