What religion is the biggest con?

Hitler once said: “The bigger the lie the more people will believe in it”

Someone once asked me what hurts more, a bee sting or a wasp sting? :wink:

From: phenomenal graffiti

While it is true that religion and “manifest destiny”( Man’s view that God gives them the right to do this or that) is psychologically responsible for a lot of the world’s atrocities, but even without religion there is still human nature, and the absence of religion does not guarantee a “nonpredatory” nirvana for mankind. People will still have racism, and territorialism to spur wars-as well as the senseless violence of man on man because of brain dysfunctionality in psychopaths. One could say that without religion, we would lose a lot of the ORGANIZED aggression of man against man or nation against nation, but because man is a naturally domineering creature to begin with, there will be plenty of alternative motivations for oppression and war.

As for all religion being ignorance…this goes back to subjective metaphysics again, or we claiming what exists and what does not independent of experience. I claim that this is unacceptable, and nature itself induces belief in a God by naturalistic inexorability.

But…this is only my view,
Jay M. Brewer
phenomenal_graffiti@yahoo.com

Morals and conscience are merely tools learnt for social living. Without society, they don’t exist.

Of all of them I think Catholicism followed by general christianity followed by muslim and jewish religions.

Why?
None of the others have its own CAPITOL like catholicism. Built by the followers over centuries.

If you formed a list of the top 100 Most Immoral and Terrible people in the History of the World, and were able to travel back in time to interview them, how many do you think would say they were following their own ideas of morality? The majority, I would guess.
I think the biggest sham is the idea that we are all qualified to make our own decisions about religion, morality, and such, even if we haven’t done anything to deserve the qualification. If everyone could be trusted to follow their hearts when it came to morality, we wouldn’t need laws and such. IF everyone could be trusted to follow their hearts concerning religion, we wouldn’t have Crusades and Scientology.
The study of Morality and Religion is a research and fact-based enterprise like anything else. Saying everybody should follow their own ideas about morality and religion is basically like saying everybody should follow their own ideas about how to fix a car. It’s silly. A few people desire to become experts, and the rest of people rely on those experts because they are busy becoming experts at something else, and don’t have time to do the research nessicary to make informed decisions about Judaism or transmission fluid. Sure, sometimes your mechanic does a bad job or overcharges you. Sure, sometimes a mechanic does such a bad job that people die. That doesn’t mean that car-fixing has to be thrown into the hands of the masses, who don’t know a allen wrench from a monkey wrench.

Before reading this post I was totally in favour of people choosing their own moralities to live by, etc. But now, although I can’t agree with what you have said, for it implies organised religion is necesary, i can think of no good argument against it.

The first aspect of this matter that needs to pointed out is that, although a philosopher may dismiss the veracity of the theological basis of all revealed religions on rational grounds, this should not lead to the inference that all religions are mere “cons”. Indeed to state that all religions are cons means to suggest that those who revealed them were all necessarily crooks with deceitful intentions and that nothing good can be obtained from the ideas and thories of these religions. Although this is certainly the case for many religions and cults, it is important to remember that religions, as known to us now, are based on the interpretations, inventions and biased reports of those who witnessed the rise of these religions and who first spread them. Indeed one only needs to look at the gospels to realise how a religion arose from four books which contradicted each other in various ways and which exhibited differing bias and agendas on behalf of the authors. Therefore the philosopher can attempt to look beyond the mystifications and look for something meaningful. This brings us to the following point: to dismiss all religions as equally deceitful and as equally pointless is both irrational and narrow minded. Indeed to fail to observe the varying degree of plausibility and qualitative difference between religions would mean to surrender reason to the most extreme and idiotic form of relativism. One cannot dismiss and ridicule the claims of the gospels with same degree of certainty as one would with dismiss the claims of modern day sects such as The Raelian Movement or The Panacean Society (which believes that Jesus will come to Bedford and that one can only be saved by being there when he comes !) and the ideas behind tribal cults in Africa or Papua New Guinea. Therefore, whereas one can consider the modern day sects mentioned and many others as the greatest and more cynical cons, and the tribal religions as irrational products of primitive cultures with no intellectual value, the gospels are objectively superior in all aspects, even though their foundations are flawed. Indeed, although the philosopher might dismiss the most transcendent and irrational parts of all religions (such as divine revelations or celestial figures), he can certainly recognise: differing degrees of moral value, differing degrees of plausibility, differing degrees of intellectual endevour and draw different conclusions on the intents of the “revealers” and evaluate their motivations.
Indeed, apart from the rational dismissal of modern day sects as cynical and deceitful products of men intent on exploiting consumerism and human idiocy, one can differentiate between the major religions too. The brutality, racial exclusivity, immorality and anthropomorphic conception of God exhibited by the Torah, the basis of Judaism, cannot be considered to be a con in the same way as the New Testament. Although one can dismiss all the theological claims of the NT, one can recognise its timeless ethical value and can be fascinated by the revolutionary, selfless and apolitical of figure of Jesus.
This kind of search for distinction and comparative method is what needs to guide one in differentiating between religions. Indeed, time and space permitting, a detailed objective analysis of what can be referred to as the “values” and motives of all religions permits to see the extent to which these religions are sheer cons, semi-cons or irrational but valuable messages.

I feel quite a bit of resentment towards religion in this thread. I feel that the majority of religions serve their purpose. They provide people with a reasonable model of the world and they provide their followers with a set of guidelines that can lead to a better, happier life. The problem lies within the organizations that promote a religion in order to attain power and/or money. These organizations often change the meaning of the original teaching so that the religion becomes more palatable or emphasize the punishments depicted within a religion so that the followers can easily be controlled.

Skeptic said:

Now I understand you didn’t intend for this to become a personal comment, but I do feel hurt that you would say that probably because of the fact that I am considering the priesthood. Granted I do have very firm stances but I also hope I have valid reasons to back up my stances, and if I don’t I sure as hell try to find some or change my stance. I certainly hope no one here would consider me to be ignorant and if you think I am acting in such a way please call me out on it!

Now again I call out natural law. About 99.5% of the teachings of the Catholic Chruch adhere to natural law. Ideally one wouldn’t need religion for any other reason than to know God because everyone would act rationally and according to natural law. Being human institutions, religions will be natually flawed. Focusing on Catholicism (because I know the most about it, am the most defensive at it, and saw a few indirect remarks about it) it has been wrong in the past, but it has also shown that it is willing to right those mistakes and change. Don’t attack it because it has a capitol. So the Catholic Church has a lot of wealth. It also does alot with that wealth. What otehr church to you see with missionaries in 6 of the 7 continants of the world? Also in most Catholic Churches, you don’t see them ordained to extravagantly.

Hey Qzx! I mean nothing intentionally or directly derogatory by my statement, but the fact is that religion breeds ignorance. The root of ignorance is ignore and that is what religious adherents do when it comes to the hard truth that their religion is just like every other religion; false. I don’t mean to insinuate that you yourself are unintelligent or ignorant because I have had previous discussions with you and I have found you to be quite intelligent and suprisingly open-minded. The facts are that the majority of religious people give up their specific beliefs on encountering higher learning in college or university. However, the fact does remain that 86% of the world’s population do hold some kind of religious beliefs, so please don’t think that I am calling 86% of the world’s population idiots because that would be ridiculous. I am only saying that, psychologically religion produces a phenomena that encourages believers to choose faith over fact. I have seen the phenomena first-hand many times and that is why I take the position that religious followers tend to choose ignorance.

I’m curious Qzxtvbzr, what is natural law?

Natural law is the way things were meant to work. It is the natural, rational order of things. The rationality that is essential to mans nature and separates him from the animal. Any course of action, can be rationalized and boiled down by logic to see whether it is a rational way to act of not. Kinda like ego vs. id (or super-ego, I’m rusty on freud). Lots of people get the term natural law mixed up with darwin’s stuff. It is simply the rules of bevahior that a rational, thinking man would follow. If an action is rational you do it, if it irrational, then you don’t. Ex: Murder is an irrational action because it serves no good purpose. It doesn’t benefit a good. I’m really trying not to ramble here. I need to condense my thoughts so I’ll repost later. I’m neutoric right now with the debate tournament on Saturday.

EDIT: No need to an appology skep, but alot of people simply don’t have an interest in philosophy/theology. THey are happy with their beliefs and don’t feel a need to challenge them. That is why most people are ignorant of their religions and the true messages. That is also probably the reason people leave when they reach college. They hear one thing they can’t defend and bail ship. A lot of religion is grounded in fact, very little is blind faith. A great doctor of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas, expounds on why we believe what we believe. 1.) Most people don’t understand what theologians say, or 2.) think it’s boring or stupid, or simply don’t care. Haha, maybe what I’m saying is: “religion doesn’t breed ignorant people, people breed ignorant people.”

I wouldn’t agree, Murder can be logical if you kill somebody for food or your own survival. I believe there is no such thing as ‘Natural law’ only the rule of survival. Beyond the laws of physics there are no other laws in this universe, as other laws are man made or interpreted through man’s intellect seeing laws where none exist. In Nature the only constant is the strongest survive!

The case where one must kill to save one’s own life is a completely moral action and falls under natural law. To needlessly kill is irrational and doesn’t serve a purpose to benefit a good. However to kill for survival is a rational action.

So murder was a bad example. I just figured that the word murder conotated a needless killing. Say lust then. It doesn’t serve a rational end and it’s negative effects far outweight and concieveable positive ones.

Things are only ever ment to work as they do work. Otherwise they wouldnt be ment to work that way. The universe does not “malfunction” and have things that were supposed to work not work. This malfunctoining that we might see existing is simply us not looking at the situation correctly.

I’d say any of the existing polytheisms are the biggest duds, narrowing it down to monotheisms, I’d say Islamic or Christianity. Judaism in second place.

I will say that Buddhism(not hinduism) is the most convincing, I think.

I used to think religion a rather benign, misguided attempt at spirituality. But when i look at current major World conflicts: Gaza strip (Judaism vs. Islam) Cashmere (hinduism vs. Islam) I see that it is not so benign, it actually causes great harm. One can go further and point out inanities in legislation brought about by religion. Who was it who said something like the greatest hijacking in history was that of morality by religion. Eventually man will walk out of the cave, realizing that he no longer requires dressed-up fables, teetering old deities, and promises of immortality to do what he should have been doing all along. I think man should be counting on this earth, not some future heaven. loving those around him, not some imaginary being. And exercising his reason towards science and enlightenment, his passions toward art. I won’t tell you which religion(s) i consider the greatest con, by this point you will have already have guessed.

I believe it was Arthur C. Clarke.

I to will rejoice when spirituality has destroyed Religion… The sad part is most people don’t see any different between the two.

There is even a mythical aspect i relish (which is why i prefer the term ‘humanist’ to ‘secular humanist’, i don’t care how you get there, just get there), but the truth is that most people don’t see religion as myth. They actually say things like, “If you don’t believe in God, how do you know the difference between right and wrong.” Morality and religion are two different things. Most (if not all) religions have conned some of us out of the ability to live our own moral lives.