Hopefully, I’m allowed to post this but please feel free to delete it if I can’t 
I’ve just posted a blog article on my website (been a long time but then, I’m a lazy sod). The article is called, “Is Religion A Force For Good?”
UK Atheist: Is Religion A Force For Good?
I’m guessing most of you will agree with my conclusion i.e. that it pretty much isn’t but I’d like to know if any of you can see any obvious flaws or omissions with my post.
Thanks
UK Atheist
It is for some people and not for others. Good is relative, all religious organizations have beneficiaries, Catholicism for example is a force for good if you are the Pope.
All human based organizations have those wo reap some good and those who reap misery.
Under Ignorance: A lower standard of evidence for basic claims. If someone is willing to believe in a supernatural, airborne deity that has the power to create universes, solely based on ancient fabricated texts by unknown authors, that lack any form of supporting evidence for their assertions, one must question what other illogical claims this individual might be inclined to accept without substantial evidence. (The person has not learned how to think as they are too focused on ‘what to think.’)
So you’re saying that The Catholic Church can be considered good in the light of all the children their priests have abused (to cite but one aspect of Catholicism)?
Clearly both my article and I were asking if religion is a force for good overall and not in some small aspect.
UK Atheist
Yes. As we create heuristics for common situations, which ultimately benefit us in the manner of more efficient decision making, we may also develop heuristics which facilitate judgements which can have detrimental or harmful consequences. (I.e. cognitive biases, etc.)
When one employs a thought process which allows for open acceptance of unevidenced claims or
assertions which do not comport with demonstrable facts, the barriers to irrational thinking are undoubtedly eroded.
Edit (if you have seen one, you have seen all)
All evidence is interpreted, interpreted within one’s worldview. So whether X is evidence for Y is often a subjective judgement. Claiming that something is “unevidenced” yet overlooking the subjective nature of that claim, is all too common a tactic among atheists.
That why we have peer review in science.
BTW, it hasn’t escaped my attention that (in our other “discussion”) as soon as I switched the conversation away from your questions and posed one of my own, you stopped replying. I just smile though because your behaviour exactly accords with just about every other theist I’ve ever engaged with.
“So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would neither be created nor destroyed… it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?” Professor Stephen Hawking
UK Atheist
Peer review is nothing to do with how one interprets evidence. For example do we use peer review to declare that the many-worlds interpretation of QM is the correct interpretation, the other interpretations being wrong?
No of course not, just as peer review doesn’t tell us whether dark matter is real or apparent.
I don’t stop responding to questions unless I’ve answered the question several times already or I suspect the question is rhetorical, a leading question (like “Have you stopped beating your wife”) I see these kinds of questions a great deal around here.
False equivalence fallacy, as yours are claiming to be god’s moral arbiters.
False fallacy fallacy - you think there must be a fallacy every time you don’t understand what’s said to you.
What a truly pathetic response, even for you. As with every other time you’ve had your irrational rhetoric exposed, you insult the poster, and offer not one word of explanation or evidence to defend your endless gibes about bias, and ignorance.
Just to recap, and as I pointed out, some organisations claim to be the moral arbiters of a perfectly moral deity, others do not, and while it is reasonable to assert all human organizations are fallible, it is also fair to point out that the actions of those who claim a pretence to moral ascendancy, cannot be compared as equivalent to organisations that make no such claims.
Now are you for once going to offer a cogent rational response, or as i suspect, will you forever be playing the man, and not the ball?
I shouldn’t be too harsh, as you’re hamstringed by irrational superstitious dogma, but then again that is a choice you’re making, lest we forget.
Peer review has everything to do with what is accepted into the scientific database of knowledge. Some things are too new to be reviewed in that way but eventually they will be.
Are you so naïve to believe that only one group is proposing dark matter? That other groups aren’t checking (peer reviewing) the work of the other groups around the world?
I’m fairly sure Sheldon amongst others asked you that question several times and you simply avoided it. Care to tell me exactly where you answered it?
UK Atheist
it’s the same old canard @Sherlock-Holmes been using from the start, it’s a false equivalence fallacy, where he cherry picks things science does not have a consensus on or fully understand, and pretends this means all scientific ideas are unreliable.
If we did not have science at all, theism would still be naught but an unevidenced superstition. However if anything thinks vapid superstition and science are remotely comparable, then next time your ill go see a witch doctor, pray, or go see the local bone shaker, but please have the integrity not to trouble a trained professional in medical science.
NO! There you go again. A child was molested by a fucking Catholic Priest and that is a FACT. The evidence is his bleeding ass, the seminal fluid up his ass, The DNA evidence, The crying kid. And the asshohes confession. FACTS. Not a subjective judgment. You don’t get to put your confused bullshit on the same playing field as hard evidence supported by facts. There is nothing subjective about calling something unevidenced when there is no evidence or even nothing considered good evidence that can stand against rational inquiry. If the claim is nonverifiable, it is in fact, unevidenced. It is, in unevidence, whether it happens to be true or not.
That’s a lie, you may have responded, but there are dozens of questions you’ve left unanswered.
Is this meant to be an argument that evidence is never interpreted? because unless it is, then it is absolutely irrelevant to what we were talking about.
Of course it’s subjective this is a well established hypothesis in the social sciences too. Surely you’ve heard of the tests police do, let three people each watch the same recording of a possible crime and then explain their view later?
You rarely get consensus, different people see different things, not because some are prejudiced or biased but because we ARE ALL prejudiced and biased across a vast range of things.
The very claim “X is unevidenced” is an interpretation of X.
Perhaps, but if you persistently appear to misunderstand my answers what motive could there be for to me to continue to want to answer you?
Evidence is a subjective term, but the evidence need not be. Do you agree that objective facts exist, do you also agree that entirely subjective claims exist? Objectivity is a scale, to describe (all) “evidence as interpreted” is facile to the point of duplicity.
So as hypothetical, if someone claimed they had a unicorn, you think that claim is evidence they do in fact have a unicorn? or is that an “unevidenced” claim?
That’s irrelevant, what’s relevant is not how often there is a consensus, but how much (if any) objective evidence that consensus is based on. An overwhelming scientific consensus is indicative of the strength of the evidence, the collective subjective religious beliefs of biblical scholars about whether the claims for supernatural magic in the NT, is not objectively evidenced at all. Both claims may be interrelated, but the interpretations are not equal, again you are using the same false equivalence fallacy you’ve tried to peddle throughout this discourse.
There is no perhaps about it, all anyone need do is click on my profile and go back through my posts of last week or so for the evidence.
That’s a lie, we are talking about you refusing to answer, responding without answering, and again all anyone need do is click on my profile and read through my posts over the last few days to see you;re lying here.
To demonstrate some integrity, and to support your unevidenced assertions, though of course you have done neither, again the evidence is considerable. This poisoning of the well fallacy won’t fly, when all anyone need do is read my posts highlighting your mendacious evasion. I did not take the time to expose that just to be disputatious.
I’d frankly argue that “objective reality” is subjective because it refers to a model constructed inside you own mind. We all talk about it and it has its role but we don’t often stop to think about what is really going on.
You mistake the model in your mind for the outside world, but it is just a model, private to you, all in your mind. Why not get an introduction to philosophy book or something and move on from all this scientism.
But this is so banal, it is merely another form of the familiar argument from authority, that because lots of people share a belief the belief must therefore be true.
There are countless examples of the minority being right UNTIL the point is reached at which the majority discover they were wrong.
Scientific breakthroughs have historically been made by often small groups or individuals who were not accepting of the prevailing views, after all if one is never willing to question dogma one will never make breakthroughs, by their very definition they involve taking a different view to the popular one.
Consider but one example - FM radio and the viability thereof.
Seriously how much longer are we willing to put up with this dishonest bullshit. Comparing a police line up or witness testimony to the scientific method, testing, and independent verification. One dip-fuck dumbshit comment after another. The guy is not serious he is a troll. He just alters shit to see if he can get anyone’s goat, and he is currently running his shit in 4 different threads, if not more., And it’s the same exact shit in every thread. Misrepresent the comments, exaggerate, and fabricate. It’s a bunch of bullshit, and it is not worth responding to. What is worth responding to is the obvious manipulation. he’s just playing a fucking game of disagreeing and nothing more. He does not believe a fucking thing he is saying. He will not take a solid position. The only comment worth making is the comment on his actions.