Ive been given the argument that religion is needed because it brings people hope and purpose. But many fail to remember the horrors and hurt done by religions. any thoughts?
Just that I prefer a decent grasp of reality to comforting lies. Believing what is comfortable rather than what is true is certainly a choice and I wouldn’t try to deny someone that choice but would advise them against it. One reason being, that I experienced that particular abstraction, and it works while it works, but when it doesn’t work, man that BITES. I would not wish that pain on my worst enemy.
yes! I have found that logic and reality don’t care about personal opinions. Touching an object WILL cause it to move, whether or not you want it to.
When anthropomorphized, logic may not care about personal opinions. However, reality is subject to them. For example, the current reality of life in the U.S. is a slave to the opinions of all sorts of (fill in choice of adjective here) people. 
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Absolutely. However, i was meaning more on a metaphysical scale, like the laws of motion and thermodynamics
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One could of course fulfil Godwin’s law, and point out that for a while Hitler and the Nazis did this for many people. However I think my usual response to this rather vapid claim, is that this subjective assertion does not evidence the religion at all, and one can have hope and purpose, as an atheist, I know this is true because I have hopes, and I have purpose and I am an atheist.
Exactly, it’s a little like the old adage that money doesn’t make you happy, well neither does poverty of course, though I usually can’t resist agreeing and say it just buys you stuff…now it’s the stuff that makes you happy.
Another reason is that religions often come with pernicious dogma and doctrine, so if someone’s hope and purpose comes at the expense of others, then they can fuck right off. 
Sometimes the dogma comes at your expense, too. It’s both carrot and stick. It provides structure and “meaning” (explanations that don’t hold up, lol) but it also exerts control. The preoccupation with sexual behavior is no accident, for example – if they can get you to cede authenticity in something as deeply personal as your sexuality then they can control most anything in your life. Some sects enforce the 10% tithe (usually on gross, not net). We were expected to attend services three times per week. There’s usually significant scrutiny of relationships, entertainments, reading materials. If you’re not home schooled (it wasn’t a “thing” yet when I was growing up) you still are expected to be familiar with YEC apologetics and be able to hold your own in discussion of doctrinal matters. You aren’t encouraged – and may be actively discouraged – from keeping up with current events and all matters secular, or to be curious about anything not religious. Everything is centered around church socially and “intellectually”.
All of this is a time, attention and money sink and leaves one ill-equipped to function rationally in the adult world.
And all that is before it even teaches you to be an asshole to others.
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the hope and purpose religions promise to bring comes from the point they are trying to make. However, the horrors and hurt are done by the people.
Did God slaughter those Muslims? Did Yahweh kill a person just because he pointed out the corruption and hypocrisy of the religious leaders around him? Did some deity disown me because I’m not what they want me to be?
No, my father, a completely normal human born of this world through millions of years of evolution, threatened to stab me with scissors if I don’t leave the house. His sense of survival, community, and possibly his bloodline felt threatened because he perceived that I “lied” to him and to myself by “claiming” something that I am not. In this case, a transgender woman.
What passage of his favorite book told him to pick up those scissors and threaten your own daughter (or son, if you prefer) with it?
Is that really the only passage you’re going to follow?
Religion has no power to do anything. It’s only a bunch of people trying to judge how others should live because they can’t accept other perspectives. It doesn’t matter what book or teaching you follow. It doesn’t matter if you don’t follow ANY teaching at all.
Those extremists would still pick up a gun to shoot their targets in the name of something else.
The hypocrites would still stone the activist to death because their lies were exposed.
My father would probably still slap me and bring those scissors to my neck if he were atheist.
Sometimes when you point out to the religious some harm of religion (let’s say for the sake of argument, pedophile priests) they will say that isn’t religion’s fault, it’s the fault of people mis-practicing the religion.
As you point out so well, they are correct in a sense. No one HAS to be an asshole in order to be a Christian (or whatever).
But mostly it’s a way to wiggle out of organizational responsibility.
I’d argue that your father was encouraged and supported in his assholery by other assholes and that the ideology of his religion leaned heavily into assholery. If you have to squint at the ideology and remind yourself of things like love and tolerance and humility and compassion, then maybe your ideology has already abandoned those concepts and emphasized others.
And if your ideology is capable of swinging either way, then maybe it’s poorly constructed.
As to whether an atheist could have felt justified in behaving as your father did, it is certainly possible, but in the case of atheism, which isn’t an ideology but an up-or-down answer to a single question, there’s no ideology to fault. You would have to fault the person’s (lack of) character and virtue, and it would be entirely on them because they couldn’t hide behind “god told me to do it”.
I have been thinking about religion and harm for many decades, as I work in the medical feld and I see the direct results when religion influences the standards of care . . . with an example being the child of a Jehovah’s Witness who dies from need of a blood transfusion.
I think that a distinction needs to be made between organized religion and spirituality (and spirituality should not be confused with “spiritism”).
I consider myself to be an intensely spiritual person, and my spiritual outlook on life has little or nothing to do with God, rituals, the supernatural, or a belief in an afterlife beyond the consequences of this life that persist after we die.
So, I have come to the idea that organized religion evolved as a cynical tool to exploit human spirituality as a mechanism to manipulate the masses to do horrible things for the greater glory of God.
How would you define spirituality then for purposes of these comparisons? How does one have a spiritual outlook on life without a religious outlook? I ask, in part, because some forms of declared spirituality amount to a “religion of one” – just heterodox and/or unobservant enough to disqualify one for membership in a religious group but still the same basic beliefs and practices (or as some will have it, “spiritual but not religious”).
You seem to exclude deities, rituals, and belief in the supernatural or an afterlife, not just membership in an organized religion. I think this is a reasonable criteria but then I wonder if what you are left with is just a person who is thoughtfully self-aware and perhaps has regard for healthy interdependence between themselves, others, and the rest of nature. A philosophical person perhaps, or an empathic person or a humble person. But I wonder if spiritual is the best word, since it connotes to many people, more than I think you’re trying to convey. That is, if I understand you correctly.
There’s a decent book called The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality by Andre Compte-Sponville that talks about the pursuit of the “great virtues” for their own sake, but his use of “Spirituality” in the title always confused me. Maybe it’s just my thing, IDK.
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I concede that spirituality is a difficult term to define, because if you ask 20 people you will probably get 20 different definitions . . . and in this sense, spirituality is like pornography. We have extreme difficulty defining it legalistically, yet we all know what it is when we see it (if we can temporarily disregard cultural, religious, and social nuances that muddy the waters).
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I think we’re looking at this from the wrong angle. By blaming religion for all of these selected evils, we ignore the fact that religion is an artificial construct. We give it credibility and validation by treating it like a force of nature. It’s a force on man.
Relatedness is a psychological need to belong and be a part of a group. Rather than promote autonomy, most people will forfeit their autonomy to gain acceptance or approval…regardless of how illogical the premise may be.
I think the question that needs to be addressed is regarding the harm humans do to each other in the name of maintaining social acceptance within a society or ideology.
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I don’t disagree, but at the other extreme I’ve seen the religious absolve religious organizations from responsibility by claiming this or that bad deed was done by people who were bad examples of the religion. Even when it’s clearly way more than a “few bad apples” they persist with this (e.g., the pedophile priest thing in the RCC is clearly a massive systemic entrenched problem).
I don’t blame religion for 100% of the problems in the world and at times I see it as more of a catalyst or accelerant than the actual problem, but neither do I think there’s no value in calling it out for what it’s responsible for and contributing to. Not least, the contributions of Christian nationalists to the current clusterfuck in the US.
Also I don’t think the only alternative to the need for relatedness as you put it (others have called it belonging, refuge, etc) is to be autonomous. I think it’s a balance. Less the need for group membership than a recognition that there’s an important place for cooperation and healthy interdependence and that’s not incompatible with personal autonomy and responsibility and healthy boundaries.
One thing I noticed in fundamentalism was the erosion of, and often complete absence, of boundaries. In fact the concept of personal boundaries was something you have to explain to those people as if to a five year old. It is outside their repertoire that you should have boundaries that others should respect, that you can actually say “no” appropriately without being “rebellious”. THAT is where autonomy is lacking and it is what religion is very good at taking away from people.
Mike Royko wrote a column in Chicago for years. He had a cynical and sarcastic bite to most of his stuff. I remember one classic where he was arguing with a friend about gun control. His friend posited that guns don’t kill people do, thereby they shouldn’t be considered bad or regulated. Royko’s counter to that was, by using the same logic, drugs should be unregulated, as drugs don’t addict, people do.
This whole thread is a testament to that premise.
Whether they use the shield of religion, national interest, the greatest good for the greatest number…or my fucking dog told me to do it…it still revolves back to people in groups doing bad shit because the groupthink is all powerful.
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There be monsters….or assholes, if you will.
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It’s always good to remind ourselves the religion is far from the only excuse for groupthink 
Indeed. Religion is just the grease trap for humanity. History is full of groupthink driving the bus straight into the wall. Trump and his cult come to mind, but he’s just one example. Nixon’s administration was a prime example of how dissenting would have cost you a career…ironic that compliance and obedience cost them more…
Pearl Harbor became a reality through arrogance and hubris of military leaders ignoring warnings of what was coming… The Bay of Pigs was another example of conform or be castigated. Schlesinger commented on the flaws in the CIA plan, but he was eventually forced to edit his statements to remain within the administration… Even though he was correct in his assessment, he still pulled back and complied rather than leave the group.
Technology is not immune either. Both shuttle disasters revolve back to groupthink over riding voiced concerns and warnings from experts.
Acceptance and validation will always trump reason and logic. Just don’t get on the B Ship…
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I really wish those people would quit falling for it and drinking from the Kool-Aid pitcher. Muslims are some of the worst people to debate with. They’re quick to start in with threats. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. After all, their religion was partially responsible for what happened during and after 9/11.
Unlike Christians, Muslims have a unique difference. As it’s been explained to me, in Islam there are no bad Muslims. If you believe you get a pass from your sect. Any other sect, or infidels do not get such a pass. This may account for the lack of reformation within that faith.
From what I’ve seen in the Muslims I’ve worked with they don’t gain understanding from the Koran, they rout memorize verses and wait for the Imam to tell them what it means.
This might account for their lack of depth in a philosophical debate.