Religion

Overview

This page is a seed article. You can help Issuepedia water it: make a request to expand a given page and/or donate to help give us more writing-hours!

Reference

• Wikipedia
• Media Matters: religion-related media items
• Wikis
  • Religion Wiki(a): "for all religions and none"
  • Wikitheism
  • Christianity:
    • Theopedia: "an encyclopedia of Biblical Christianity"

Achievements

Best

• helps build community between its members, typically strengthening the larger community of which it is a part
• countless majestic cathedrals and works of art
• popularization of a number of generally good memes, including:
  • taboo against killing; the sanctity of (human) life (Judeo-Christianity)
  • taboo against lying (Judeo-Christianity)
  • "turning the other cheek", i.e. taboo against vengefulness (Christianity)
  • taboo against envious or jealous thoughts/behavior (Judeo-Christianity): helps to avoid the temptation to steal and also helps reduce friction between people of different levels of wealth
  • help the poor (Christianity)
  • respect for elders (Confucianism, Judeo-Christianity, others): supports parents in their efforts to impart good values to their children; supports the transmission of community history, so it can be learned from; helps prevent elder abuse
• popularization of memes useful within their cultural context:
  • taboo against stealing; the sanctity of personal property (Judeo-Christianity): some viable cultures don't/didn't have the concept of personal property, at least not to the same extent; results have been mixed

Worst

• The Inquisitions (Catholicism)
• Persecution of homosexuals and others with non-standard gender traits
• The declaration that rock music is the work of the devil (American Christian extremists, late 1950s)
• The burning of Beatles albums in response to John Lennon's off-the-cuff statement that the Beatles "are more popular than Jesus now" (American Christian extremists, 1966)
• Repression of women (most religions, throughout history)
• Repression of scientific progress
  • religion vs. science
• The destruction of countless works of art; examples:
  • The Buddhas of Bamiyan (Taliban - Islam)
• Countless instances of religious violence; examples:
  • the 2006 Mohammed image riots (Islam)
  • The 9/11 attacks are believed to have been planned and carried out by Islamic extremists, for religious reasons
• The Ku Klux Klan claimed to be a Christian organization (what was Christianity's reaction to this?)

Links

Facts & Data

• American Ethnic Geography: maps of United States church membership by county

Religious POV

• Inclusive, Questioning & Explorative
  • beliefnet
  • The Ekklesia Project
• Dogmatic
  • Answers in Genesis: "Upholding the Authority of the Bible from the Very First Verse"
  • Christian Answers: "biblical answers to contemporary questions"
    • Secular Humanism as defined from a Christian perspective
• Extremist
  • Westboro Baptist Church
• Philosophical Issues
  • Problem of evil (Wikipedia)

News

• 2006-06-12 Using Children as 'God's Army'

Criticism of Religion

• 2006-05-24 How do you prove Jesus existed? CNN article about an Italian man who is suing the Catholic Church to prove the existence of Jesus (with reader comments)
• 2006-05-16 Why Religion Must End by Laura Sheahen, Beliefnet (original is much more cluttered)
• 2006-03-05 The Book of Bart: "In the Bestseller 'Misquoting Jesus,' Agnostic Author Bart Ehrman Picks Apart the Gospels That Made a Disbeliever Out of Him"
• The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris: ISBN 0393035158 (hb) ISBN 0393327655 (pb)
• Islam: The Religion of Peace (Believe It Or Else): not sure how rational this site is, but it certainly presents food for thought

Related Articles

• Many religions (notably, most fundamentalist Christian varieties) tend to be pro-life, anti-contraception, and anti-sex-education, and in general have strong opinions about reproductive issues.
• religion vs. science
• prayer in public schools

Related Concepts

• Providentialism is the belief that God is actively directing the affairs of the world, e.g. through the actions of 'chosen people' whom God "provides" for such purposes.
• Blasphemy
• Heresy

Problems with religion

Woozle makes some points

• The chain of reasoning in many religious arguments vanishes into a black box, usually with the inscription "God says" on the outside. Even with churches like the LDS which admit the possibility of individuals communicating directly with God in order to get a better understanding of what God means, you are still either (a) forced to admit belief in God (can't communicate with something you don't believe in), (b) argue solely from existing religious doctrine, or else (c) have the validity of your arguments denied (your argument isn't based on God's word, so your premises may be wrong). In order to take part in the discussion, you have to admit to belief in God -- which is basically conceding the argument. In other words, the whole thing is a circular argument based on the infallibility of God.

• Belief in absolutes (moral absolutism and the infallibility of God) can be used to justify extreme measures. If your faith's doctrine tells you with absolute, unquestionable certainty that what someone is doing is absolutely wrong regardless of circumstance, that removes most or all of the uncertainty and allowance for mistake (perhaps there are extenuating circumstances; perhaps your belief that their actions are wrong is incorrect; and so on) with which most people operate when deciding whether to take action against someone.

• Because of the belief in absolutes (which allows for a great deal of preci and the black box nature of basic religious doctrine, it is extremely easy for someone who is both unscrupulous and power-hungry to manipulate those who have been raised and trained in the validity of such thinking.

• If absolute truth can be had by speaking with God (as allowed by some faiths, but not all):
  • If you believe that God has spoken to you, how do you know that it is really God? (How can you tell the difference between the "real God" and an extremely advanced but non-divine being who isn't entirely honest?)
  • If someone else claims God has spoken to them, how do you know they are not lying (or else deceived, as above)?