Is religious faith beneficial or harmful?

[9-10ths_Penguin]

And in this you are wrong...that's what I was getting at.

Have a look at the services the Red Cross supplies on a national-

http://www.redcross.org.au/ourservices_acrossaustralia_communityservices_default.htm

and international basis-
Australian Red Cross

They do not duplicate Salvation Army service provision...there is little to no overlap... if "you wanted to help a charity fight homelessness" the Red Cross would not be an appropriate charity choice unless it was "homelessness" as result of a specific disaster or a small role in intellectual disability and elderly housing.

"If the Salvation Army closed up shop" the Red Cross would not be there with existing services for the homeless....but it sure would be inclined towards setting up such services in the face of the major disaster of the Salvation Army closing shop.

Your point "that for every religious charity, there's a secular alternative" is demonstrably false and does not withstand examination.
While there is some overlap between Red Cross and Salvation Army service provision there is a very clear distinction in emphasis and purpose with the Red Cross placing emphasis on "People affected by disaster/emergencies" and the SA placing emphasis on day to day domestic service provision.

There is good cause and solid reason for such distinction...it has to do with enduring/ongoing provision of 'community'...something the churches are very good at providing and secular NGO's struggle to achieve.

Our Services » About Us » salvos.org.au

Here in Canada, the Red Cross does provide day-to-day services for the homeless. Here's a bit about some of their services in the Toronto area:

Toronto Homeless Services- Canadian Red Cross - In Your Community

In Toronto, a large number of homeless shelters are operated by the City of Toronto itself; another secular organization. Other homeless shelters are run by individual charities, some secular, some religious.

I'm sure these services are also offered by secular agencies in Australia; if not the Red Cross, then someone else. You're probably in a better position than I am to identify which agencies those are.

 

[Penumbra]

No...I’m going to stick to my question as qualified and defined in the first place-

As I said and as you quoted-
"I have seen and been refered to secular international aid programs, disaster relief and cause specific charities...but I cannot find or see any secular organization doing day to day domestic aid and support on a scale anything like what the Salvation Army provides."

No, when you assume anothers motives that's called 'projection'. My intent was clearly indicated-
"There is a difference and distinction in the support provided...there are reason for the difference....that's why I made the distinction clear."

That two things are 'distinct' does not necessitate that one or the other is "better".

Again- "there are reason for the difference" and distinction in the types of aid/support programs provided by secular and religious agencies.

It was an invitation to think, consider, discuss what those differences are and why...rather than just prolong the shallow binary opositional atheism "better" than theism viceversa peeing competition.

Comes close to repertition of the claim I first responded to...and I say again- no... there are no "secular charities that rival and exceed the scale of the religious ones" when it comes to "day to day domestic aid and support".

There are different and distinct types of charities and support organizations providing different and distinct services...Some, like the Red Cross, Unicef and Doctors Without Borders provide disater relief and international aid...And some, like the Salvation Army, provide a whole range of day to day domestic aid and support programs. In the latter category there is no secular charity to rival (in scale and program diversity) the Salvation Army alone....let alone all the domestic church agencies combined.

That fact alone deserves "Why is it so"? consideration.

The pretence, by others (desperate to paint a "better" picture) that "The United States government is a secular organization that blows away any religious charity group" or " the Ministry of Community and Social Services provides services..." is indeed "to try to redefine" Government as a " secular charity".

A lame and fruitless illconsidered ploy unworthy of consideration or further comment.

Why are you isolating "day to day domestic aid and support" rather than considering all types of useful charities? The only reason I can see is that you are trying to filter out secular charities that are indeed larger.

And yet, Red Cross and other large secular humanitarian organizations do provide day to day domestic aid and support. They operate in countries all over the world with nearly 100 million volunteers and members.

I don't see what you're basing your argument on, or what your argument really even is.

 

[Wombat]

Why are you isolating "day to day domestic aid and support" rather than considering all types of useful charities? .

I'm not.
To point out the difference and distinction between services provided is not to "isolate" one nor to exclude the consideration of the other.

The predominant role of the Red Cross is in Emergency and Disaster relief- National/international...the predominant role of the Salvation Army is day to day domestic aid.

The only reason I can see is that you are trying to filter out secular charities that are indeed larger. ..

They are being examined and >compared< in relation to the >types< of services provided...not pitted against each other in some purile game of secular beats/better than church or viceversa.

The "only reason I can see" that you/others percieve the distinction between the organizations as "isolating", "excluding" and "filtering" is that you are locked in such a cosmology/game.

And yet, Red Cross and other large secular humanitarian organizations do provide day to day domestic aid and support. They operate in countries all over the world with nearly 100 million volunteers and members..

The International Red Cross, as I have already pointed out, plays a minor role in day to day domestic accomodation provision- intellectual disability, aged care and homeless shelters in Toronto...that is not its major role or predominant service provision. It reflects minor overlap with the Salvation Army that does have its major role and predominant service provision in day to day domestic support.

It aint complex or rocket science and it aint playing one against the other and it aint "isolating,filtering, excluding" and it aint pretending that if one shut down tomorrow the other could automaticaly pick up the slack and fill the gap....because they meet predominantly different needs and provide predominantly different services.

I don't see what you're basing your argument on, or what your argument really even is.

No.......all you see is "isolating,filtering, excluding"....it's called projection.

 

[Penumbra]

I'm not.
To point out the difference and distinction between services provided is not to "isolate" one nor to exclude the consideration of the other.

The predominant role of the Red Cross is in Emergency and Disaster relief- National/international...the predominant role of the Salvation Army is day to day domestic aid.

They are being examined and >compared< in relation to the >types< of services provided...not pitted against each other in some purile game of secular beats/better than church or viceversa.

The "only reason I can see" that you/others percieve the distinction between the organizations as "isolating", "excluding" and "filtering" is that you are locked in such a cosmology/game.

The International Red Cross, as I have already pointed out, plays a minor role in day to day domestic accomodation provision- intellectual disability, aged care and homeless shelters in Toronto...that is not its major role or predominant service provision. It reflects minor overlap with the Salvation Army that does have its major role and predominant service provision in day to day domestic support.

It aint complex or rocket science and it aint playing one against the other and it aint "isolating,filtering, excluding" and it aint pretending that if one shut down tomorrow the other could automaticaly pick up the slack and fill the gap....because they meet predominantly different needs and provide predominantly different services.

No.......all you see is "isolating,filtering, excluding"....it's called projection.

Wombat,

You can try to make this personal if you want, but I'm just providing examples that answer your question. There are several large secular charities doing a variety of work in the world, not to mention the thousands of smaller secular charities, and a lot of this is day to day domestic operations.

The Red Cross does a lot of disaster relief. But, they respond to tens of thousands of disasters every year, and therefore are providing continuous short-term and long-term aid in places all over. In addition, they provide day to day domestic aid in the form of being the largest US provider of blood, continuous disease prevention, and continuous education on humanitarian law.

Unicef, created by the UN, uses income from government and individual donors to provide help to children all over the world. They protect them from violence, work to help with disease, strive to educate, and seek gender equality.

The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation provides considerable assistance to a variety of fields, with an emphasis on education and disease eradication and prevention.

AmeriCares is huge and provides both long-term continuous humanitarian aid, and disaster relief.

For pretty much every humanitarian need there is, there are both religious and secular organizations addressing those.

 

[Wombat]

You can try to make this personal if you want, .

No thanks.
No intention or indication that is what I want.

Perhaps you are picking up the frustration of making repeated clear ‘distinction’ between charity services and having that distinction portrayed as some kind of attempt to “"isolate”, “exclude", "filter” or portray one side as “better”.

Analogy to clarify- There is the Defence Forces- they break down into distinct specialist realms-
They consist of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard.

To identify that the Air Force and the Marines have different objectives and distinct (but sometimes overlapping) roles is not to “"isolate”, “exclude", "filter” or portray one or the other as “better”.

Likewise charities and aid agencies

“but I'm just providing examples that answer your question.”.

No...watch carefully, read carefully...you(like others) are still insisting that there are secular charities out there that perform the same role as the Salvation Army/Churches.


“ There are several large secular charities doing a variety of work in the world, not to mention the thousands of smaller secular charities, and a lot of this is day to day domestic operations.”

That’s right, have never denied it......Now please slow down and take a serious considered look at the detail and distinction in that “variety of work in the world”.....it is not all the same or parallel...there are distinctions.

The Red Cross does a lot of disaster relief. But, they respond to tens of thousands of disasters every year, and therefore are providing continuous short-term and long-term aid in places all over..

Yes. That’s right. That’s what I said two, three and four posts ago...one of the primary roles of the Red Cross is disaster relief.

In addition, they provide day to day domestic aid in the form of being the largest US provider of blood, continuous disease prevention, and continuous education on humanitarian law. .

Now. Please pause and take a look at the distinct types of aid provided that you are designating as “day to day domestic aid”- Blood,Controlling the Spread of Contagious Diseases, education on humanitarian law...the aid the Red Cross provides is predominantly- Material, Medical, Educational and Human Rights and this occurs predominantly in response to disaster.
The Salvation Army and similar religious aid agencies are far far more likely to be attempting to meet material needs (food, clothing, shelter) WHILE engaged in issues of personal crisis (addiction, unemployment, grief) and issues of community.
It is the issue of community that underpins the central distinction between the predominant roles of the Red Cross and the Salvation Army. When you get or give blood through the Red Cross or become the recipient of any other service they provide...you are dealing with an aid agency...you may decide to support or become a member of that agency...but that is quite distinct and different to the community that is a church. There are distinct focus and opportunities availed to communities of faith from communities of faith and the relationships that people form in relation to such communities are different in many regards to those formed with secular organizations.
In short...the groups/agencies are different and distinct and as a consequence their predominant role and focus is different and distinct.

As different and distinct as flying a plane is from sailing a ship.
And all prior projections of- “"isolate”, “exclude", "filter” or portray one or the other as “better” is missing that central point of ‘distinction’.

 

[Wombat]

&#8220;Unicef, created by the UN, uses income from government and individual donors to provide help to children all over the world. They protect them from violence, work to help with disease, strive to educate, and seek gender equality.&#8221;

Yes...and you are still clearly arguing that there are great secular agencies out there doing great work....a point that was never in doubt or in question.

Here is a link to Unicef aid program outlines-

UNICEF works in over 150 countries and territories to promote and protect the rights of children. UNICEF works in five priority areas for children (Survival, Education, HIV/AIDS, Protection & Emergencies), as well as rapidly responding to emergencies and conflicts.
http://www.unicef.org.au/Discover/What-We-Do.aspx


Now here&#8217;s a list of Salvation Army social service programs-

• Chaplaincy
• Child care
• Counselling Service
• Crisis and Supported Accomodation
• Disability Services
• Family Tracing Service
• Moneycare
• Outback Flying Service
• Recovery services
• Red Shield Defence Services
• Refuges
• Regional Support Programs (Illawarra, Bundaberg)
• Rural Chaplaincy
• Suicide Support Groups
• Telephone Counselling service
• Youth services

http://salvos.org.au/contact/social-services-and-programs/

Can you work out/see the distinctions?
The Salvation Army is predominantly &#8220;day to day domestic&#8221; as opposed to the Red Cross international response to issues of-&#8220;Survival, Education, HIV/AIDS, Protection & Emergencies/conflict&#8221;
There are >reasons< for such distinctions in predominant roles.....and those reasons go to the core of the distinction between secular and religious aid agencies.

For pretty much every humanitarian need there is, there are both religious and secular organizations addressing those.

No...there are areas of overlap...just as there are in the Defence Forces...but just because the Navy has some planes does not mean it is the Air Force nor that 'flying' is its predominant focus.
Likewise "humanitarian need"....secular agencies have a predominant focus on national/international disater/conflict/illness.....church agencies have a predominant focus on local, community, day to day domestic need.

And anyone who thinks (as some have expressed) that if the Salvation Army shut down tomorrow the Red Cross could replace and duplicate their services is kidding themselves through ignorance of what distinguishes these agencies.

 

[Mister Emu]

No, but it's part of the environment in which a charity operates, and the environment in which a charity operates is a factor in the magnitude of the net benefit that the charity can create.

Oh, I wasn't arguing against that, I just wanted to make sure we had a mutual understanding that government programs aren't charity.

The magnitude of the benefit may alter, but not the inherent beneficial nature, agreed?

My point was that for every religious charity, there's a secular alternative.

I'm not so sure about that... there may be charities that offer similar aid, but on the same scale? I don't think there is a secular alternative for every religious food pantry or soup kitchen.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Religious people are statistically happier on average than non-religious people.

Just thought I should go back to this, because a lecture I happened to listen to recently speaks to this point. If it's correct, then your claim isn't actually true... or at least, there's more to it.

(BTW - the lecture is "The Roots of Morality: Does Religion Play a Role or Is the Tail Wagging the Dog?" by Luke Galen. It's available for download as the April 14 episode of the Reasonable Doubts podcast. I don't have a direct link, but you can find it through iTunes)

One of the things that Dr. Galen touched on in his lecture was the point I think you're alluding to: there have been studies that show a correlation between regularity of church attendance with scores on various indicators of happiness. However, Dr. Galen points out a problem with these sorts of studies: the "church non-attender" group includes two distinct sub-groups:

- people who just don't care about religion enough to go to church: the apathetic.
- people who care (sometimes deeply) about religion, but don't attend church because of those beliefs: for instance atheists and other explicit "non-believers".

Dr. Galen did his own study to account for this co-mingling of these groups by looking at the happiness of non-believers relative to how often they attend meetings of non-religious groups (he gave CFI as an example). What he found was that people who attended non-religious meetings frequently were just as happy as the people who attended church services frequently.

He hypothesized two potential factors to explain this effect:

- churches and religious groups both give similar social benefit through interaction and the sense of belonging to a community.
- the actual predictor of happiness is certainty of belief about religious subjects, whether for or against, not religious faith specifically.

So... it appears that the very irreligious are just as happy as the very religious, and the mildly religious are comparably less happy than both of them.

Now... I'd like to go back to something else we discussed on before: the effects of religion on other people's happiness. Dr. Galen touched on something else: the different approaches that different groups have toward morality. He mentioned (as I've heard from other sources) that in general, religious and political conservatives tend to base their morality on five different factors:

1. Harm/Care, which is the universal desire to minimize human suffering.
2. Fairness/Reciprocity, which is more or less about a desire to see arguments and disputes handled fairly.
3. Ingroup/Loyalty, which describes the desire to protect group membership (societal) boundaries.
4. Authority/Respect, which concerns the desire to organize society into a hierarchy of social superiors and subordinates, with subordinates showing respect for the superior's superior position.
5. Purity/Sanctity, which concerns the desire to maintain group membership in a pristine, pure, clean or proper state, and correspondingly, to reject from the group that which is dirty, impure, unclean and improper.

Source: Liberal morality versus conservative morality: Understanding the difference can help you avoid arguments - Dealing with Stress and Anxiety Management &#8211; Coping Mechanisms from MentalHelp.net

OTOH, religious and political liberals tend to only base their morality on the first two factors. Dr. Galen called this "the morality of autonomy": "if it's not unfair and it doesn't hurt anyone else, I won't stop you from doing it."

So... getting back to the subject at hand, since there seems to be a trend toward more conservative "group-based" morality among religious people and a trend toward more liberal "autonomy-based" morality among non-religious people, which do you think would be more likely to create an environment conducive to happiness for people who aren't part of the main group?

IOW, which would you rather be: the lone atheist in a community of religious people, or the lone religious person in a community of atheists?

Since religion's effect on happiness of the individual is basically a wash between religiosity and irreligiosity, I think the question of contribution to happiness comes down to religion's affect on the happiness of people "outside the group". I think that in general, irreligion does a better job with this than religion, so on the whole, I think that religion has a net negative effect on people's happiness.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Oh, I wasn't arguing against that, I just wanted to make sure we had a mutual understanding that government programs aren't charity.

The magnitude of the benefit may alter, but not the inherent beneficial nature, agreed?

Well, no. I don't think so. Not unless you think that "zero benefit" is only a change in "magnitude" and not "the inherent beneficial nature". Over the years, many religious institutions have become redundant.

Take the Knights of Columbus: it started out as a way for Catholic workers to get life insurance, because they were barred from the trade unions where most workers got their insurance. When the law changed and unions stopped excluding Catholics, that initial purpose became useless. The KoC had to reinvent itself.

I'm not so sure about that... there may be charities that offer similar aid, but on the same scale? I don't think there is a secular alternative for every religious food pantry or soup kitchen.

In certain cases, no - for instance, the main homeless shelter for youth is affiliated with the Catholic Church (and is, because of the lack of secular alternatives, the only religious charity I support).

I was thinking of the level of the individual donor: if I've decided to help a certain number of homeless people (and excepting isolated cases like Covenant House, which I mentioned above), I can give my money to a religious charity or a secular one and it'll do as much good either way.

 

[Wombat]

IOW, which would you rather be: the lone atheist in a community of religious people, or the lone religious person in a community of atheists?

Setting asside the obvious determinants of specific time and place- i.e. Being "the lone religious person in a community of atheists" in the Soviet Union,Pol Pot's Cambodia or Mao's Cultural Revolution...

Depends on the nature, purpose and role of the hypothetical "community".

If it is an 'Intentional Community', a commune, with the purpose of demonstrating the viability/livability and stick together longjevity of a particular belief system...then the choice would be the religious over the secular.

Intentional Religious communities have a demonstrated advantage in holding together longer in comparison to Intentional secular-

'Why religious communes succeed and secular ones fail'-
http://epiphenom.fieldofscience.com/2009/09/why-religious-communes-succeed-and.html
further-
http://www.uwec.edu/geography/ivogeler/w188/utopian/utopia.htm
http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2011/02/08/three-ways-with-families/
http://ccr.sagepub.com/content/34/1/70.short?rss=1&ssource=mfc

 

[Ella S.]

I don't think there is anything more harmful than irrationality and I think faith is irrational.

Except when I read "faith," I usually see it as a synonym for confirmation bias. When somebody tells me that they have faith in God, for instance, it usually implies that they trust God and believe in him because of everything they think God has done for them. Even if they describe God in a way that's unfalsifiable, they can point to answered prayers, revelations received in prayer, or just generally anything good that happened to them as divine intervention. To them, they have "evidence" of God, but it's not "hard evidence" like what we expect from the sciences, so they condition their belief by calling it faith.

Except there's a reason why their personal experience isn't hard evidence and shouldn't even be convincing to them, and that's because it's a product of confirmation bias. They don't actually have evidence for God at all. They start with wishful thinking, that they can have a personal relationship with God, that everything that happens to them is part of a benevolent plan, that their parents and community have a privileged knowledge of the world, or whatever, and then they selectively interpret the world as conforming to that assumption.

This is the major problem that I have any time that I try to have a discussion with a religious apologist. None of the arguments they give actually matter, because they don't believe any of their own arguments. They started with a belief in God and found the arguments later, maybe from a particularly bookish pastor or maybe when they went to get a theology degree themselves. They don't really care if their arguments are coherent or accurate, but they will defend the arguments however they can and even alter them radically during a debate in order to keep the conclusion the same. The only consistency they have is their conclusion.

That's called rationalization, which is when we try to present something irrational as rational. Formally, it's asserting the consequent, which is a fallacy. I think that's at the heart of most irrationality, though: assertions that lack proper rational justification.

That's not even to say that these beliefs are wrong, necessarily. It's just that faith itself is irrational. And I think most people who use the word "faith" know, on some level, that the things they believe are very different from a belief in, say, the existence of Mt. Rushmore or the three laws of thermodynamics. That's why they use a different word for it. They just don't realize that the reason that belief is different is because it's not based in rationality.

There are exceptions to this, but I think it stands as a general rule in the vast majority of cases. And I don't think this alone necessarily means that any of these beliefs are false, nor do I think that everyone who holds a religious belief arrived at that belief irrationally. I just think that faith, in particular, usually signifies irrationality.

 

[Ella S.]

I don't think there is anything more harmful than irrationality and I think faith is irrational.

Except when I read "faith," I usually see it as a synonym for confirmation bias. When somebody tells me that they have faith in God, for instance, it usually implies that they trust God and believe in him because of everything they think God has done for them. Even if they describe God in a way that's unfalsifiable, they can point to answered prayers, revelations received in prayer, or just generally anything good that happened to them as divine intervention. To them, they have "evidence" of God, but it's not "hard evidence" like what we expect from the sciences, so they condition their belief by calling it faith.

Except there's a reason why their personal experience isn't hard evidence and shouldn't even be convincing to them, and that's because it's a product of confirmation bias. They don't actually have evidence for God at all. They start with wishful thinking, that they can have a personal relationship with God, that everything that happens to them is part of a benevolent plan, that their parents and community have a privileged knowledge of the world, or whatever, and then they selectively interpret the world as conforming to that assumption.

This is the major problem that I have any time that I try to have a discussion with a religious apologist. None of the arguments they give actually matter, because they don't believe any of their own arguments. They started with a belief in God and found the arguments later, maybe from a particularly bookish pastor or maybe when they went to get a theology degree themselves. They don't really care if their arguments are coherent or accurate, but they will defend the arguments however they can and even alter them radically during a debate in order to keep the conclusion the same. The only consistency they have is their conclusion.

That's called rationalization, which is when we try to present something irrational as rational. Formally, it's asserting the consequent, which is a fallacy. I think that's at the heart of most irrationality, though: assertions that lack proper rational justification.

That's not even to say that these beliefs are wrong, necessarily. It's just that faith itself is irrational. And I think most people who use the word "faith" know, on some level, that the things they believe are very different from a belief in, say, the existence of Mt. Rushmore or the three laws of thermodynamics. That's why they use a different word for it. They just don't realize that the reason that belief is different is because it's not based in rationality.

There are exceptions to this, but I think it stands as a general rule in the vast majority of cases. And I don't think this alone necessarily means that any of these beliefs are false, nor do I think that everyone who holds a religious belief arrived at that belief irrationally. I just think that faith, in particular, usually signifies irrationality.

Oh, this thread is over a decade old and the most recent post was spam. Sorry. I only really focus on the content of a message when I post a reply, so I often don't recognize the user who posted it, the time they posted it, etc. Usually, that improves the quality of my responses so I'm not carrying a disagreement with the same user into another thread with them, but every now and then it causes a problem like this.

 

[loverofhumanity]

Do you consider religious faith a net benefit or detriment to human society? This is a question about religious faith in general, not any particular faith. I mean "benefit" in the sense of being good for human society. "Detriment" means being harmful in some way to society. I'll give you a five point scale to get a sense of how firm your opinion is. You can elaborate further on your reasons in following commentary.

Define religious faith more clearly. If by that you mean the acquiring of virtues such as patience, love, tolerance, forgiveness, peace loving, just and fair, respectful, courteous, compassionate, truthful, trustworthy, honest, caring, accepting, kind, generous, thoughtful, helpful, hospitable, humble, pure in heart, sincere….. then it’s a big win/win for humanity.

 

[Copernicus]

Define religious faith more clearly. If by that you mean the acquiring of virtues such as patience, love, tolerance, forgiveness, peace loving, just and fair, respectful, courteous, compassionate, truthful, trustworthy, honest, caring, accepting, kind, generous, thoughtful, helpful, hospitable, humble, pure in heart, sincere….. then it’s a big win/win for humanity.

That is the way someone who looks favorably on religious faith would define it, so that tells us which bucket you identify with in the survey. Basically, it is doctrine-oriented belief in spiritual forces that typically come with a code of conduct (aka "morality") that guides interactions between people and provides them methods for coping with important events in life (childhood, becoming adult, marriage, illness, death, etc.). Obviously, people who are not religious can and do acquire all the virtues you mention to a greater or lesser degree than those who are. It depends on the person, not whether they practice a religious faith.

 

[☆Dreamwind☆]

More harmful then beneficial. It has been that way in every era and populated place on the planet. Spirituality is mostly fine, though it has issues too. Adopting a strict Do-as-my-doctrine-commands-or-I'll-make-you-sorry attitude? Screw that.

It works best when religion is optional for everyone.