Is Religion Good or Bad?

[Trip Bapho]

Just as much as religion brings people together it separates them.

(My Experience Only)
I was raised in a Christian family in Texas. My grandfather is certain this world will end in a fight against Muslims. My fiance was born in Saudi Arabia w/ a grandfather who thinks this world will end in a battle against Christians.


Is religion good bc it brings comfort? -Or- Is it bad bc it brings separation?

 

[Thief]

it's bad

it produces a lot of head nodding and not much faith

I believe faith is an item you THOUGHT about first

 

[LuisDantas]

I have come to wonder whether certain movements often considered to be religions truly are.

 

[Firemorphic]

It's nor bad nor good, it is what it is, religion is a neutral word (like secular).

However once you start to get into specifics about organisations, establishments and so forth, things can get more sour. Religion and spirituality is the same (so forget that laughable "spiritual but not religious"), (most) religion is an individualistic thing in essence but when it turns into herds flocking around exclusivist mentalities (or such getting politicized) it becomes non-religion as far as I'm concerned.
The worst aspects you'll find associated with different religions aren't really unique to those religions, it's just one aspect of human nature under another guise, the same mentalities can be found within secular institutions and modern secular politics.

 

[Earthling]

In my opinion religion is like any other endeavor of mankind. There's good and bad aspects of it in general. To me, the most damage religion does of it's own accord, so to speak, is it's transmogrification from the original teachings. Religion always fails in that it distorts it's original teachings, usually through or for popularization. Especially, for example, when a religion becomes a state sponsored religion. Christianity and Taoism are extreme examples of this, but they all fall victim to change.

Religion has often been abused by governments to produce the kind of thinking you mentioned from your and your fiance's grandfathers. If you look carefully do you see that nationalistic influence, reworking religious thought?

 

[Sunstone]

It seems to me that religion is too big, too diverse, and involves far too much to be neatly categorized as either good or bad. Some religious things are good, some are bad, and most are boringly neither good nor bad.

 

[Earthling]

It seems to me that religion is too big, too diverse, and involves far too much to be neatly categorized as either good or bad. Some religious things are good, some are bad, and most are boringly neither good nor bad.

Lets see . . . Erotic Dancing Girls, good or bad? Well, not boringly either one, eh?

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Just as much as religion brings people together it separates them.

(My Experience Only)
I was raised in a Christian family in Texas. My grandfather is certain this world will end in a fight against Muslims. My fiance was born in Saudi Arabia w/ a grandfather who thinks this world will end in a battle against Christians.


Is religion good bc it brings comfort? -Or- Is it bad bc it brings separation?

Good.

 

[Spirit of Light]

Religion in it self is good, but it is the human beings that use it wrong that is the problem for a good religion. When greed take over and one use religion to once own benefit for money or fame, then it is wrong

 

[lukethethird]

Some people think religion is really good while some people think religion sucks, personally I try not to think.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Just as much as religion brings people together it separates them.

(My Experience Only)
I was raised in a Christian family in Texas. My grandfather is certain this world will end in a fight against Muslims. My fiance was born in Saudi Arabia w/ a grandfather who thinks this world will end in a battle against Christians.


Is religion good bc it brings comfort? -Or- Is it bad bc it brings separation?

Suppose that I could answer your question. What would my answer be? I would create some categories in place of 'Religion'. Lets say 5 categories of things that religions are about.

• harmony and fitting people together
• training of the young
• dealing with tragedy
• training the mind and disciplining it
• communicating

Each of these can be good or bad depending. What you may want to think about is that people die all the time. If the 'World ends' as you say in a religious fight, then it will the the survivors who replace us. We take ourselves very seriously, but when you bring up religion you are talking about larger timescales than ours. You are talking about things that can survive for millennia. They can survive massacres. A religion could survive forever. Now pick a religion that you would like to see survive forever. If there is not one, then you probably see religion as a bad thing; because they don't end themselves.

 

[Kapalika]

Is religion good? Depends. My instinct is to say yes, however I don't think that comfort is a good measurement for this.

Satan and Shiva in my view are beyond good and evil, but will ultimately have a function we would probably consider good, and would certainly do so once we have experienced it ourselves.

Religion can be used as a weapon for good or evil, but understand that good and bad, evil and such are human terms that don't always translate into Dharma, in my view. Some practices are considered profane, evil, and disgusting but are no less Dharmic than that which might be considered holy, clean and pure.

A better question would be if religion reduces karmic debt. A "good" religion will reduce Karma, and a "bad" religion increase it.

That's my view anyway.

 

[Augustus]

Just as much as religion brings people together it separates them.

Is religion good bc it brings comfort? -Or- Is it bad bc it brings separation?

Any religion is good when it does good, and bad when it does bad.

 

[syo]

Religion is good, cult is bad.

 

[pearl]

Just as much as religion brings people together it separates them.

This is true. Faith unites religion divides.

 

[Vinayaka]

Religion is neither good nor bad. It varies.

 

[wellwisher]

Religions bring out the dynamic range of being human.

An interesting observation about religion is connected to children development. The brain of a small human child continues to grow fro several years after birth. These early years in child development is when the child is most natural and human learning potential is at a peak. Children can learn very fast.

With all this natural growing going on, small children have an instinctive affinity for fairy tales and the various stories of religion. It is like stories were designed with the natural fast developing child's brain in mind. They are like command lines that the child's brain instinctively seeks and absorbs.

Secular learning is what the child does after the brain growth and learning potential starts to slow down, and the child loses their natural nature in favor of cultural conformity. This is the place where inner conflict begins between the needs of the artificial person of culture, and the natural inner child.

The inner child still recall the command lines in the stories when their little brain were optimized for natural. These same command lines may no work as well, for the slower cultural brain of the artificial man. This creates inner conflict that often projects outward. Religions are a way to deal with this conflict. Less you be as children; natural learning potential.

 

[Trip Bapho]

I have come to wonder whether certain movements often considered to be religions truly are.

Such as?

 

[Trip Bapho]

It seems to me that religion is too big, too diverse, and involves far too much to be neatly categorized as either good or bad. Some religious things are good, some are bad, and most are boringly neither good nor bad.

But as a whole is it good or bad for the planet. When religion is dead & gone.. Will it have left a good or bad footprint?

 

[Trip Bapho]

A better question would be

Better question? Better?