Name three good things about religion.

[Hermit]

...I observe that religion very frequently, if not the vast majority of the time, offers solace, comfort and happiness to it's adherents.

Guess who agrees with you on that point? Here's a hint: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."

[John_fi_Skye]

...I observe that religion very frequently, if not the vast majority of the time, offers solace, comfort and happiness to it's adherents.

Guess who agrees with you on that point? Here's a hint: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Mendelian genetics.

[Hermit]

Mendelian genetics.

And even Gregor Mendel was - to put it mildly - "not scrupulously honest".

...it would be almost impossible to get results quite as good as his. Chance variations, and the difficulties of experimentation should have introduced greater errors. As well, Mendel reported on seven traits of peas. It just happens that peas have seven pairs of chromosomes, and the genes Mendel worked on happened to be arranged one on each pair of chromosomes. The odds of this happening are very small. Had the genes for two of the traits been on the same chromosome, Mendel would have got conflicting results, and might not have seen the general pattern. So, did Mendel cheat? Probably not, but he may have got lucky and seen the pattern emerging from a few experiments. He may then only have reported on the results of other experiments that supported his ideas, assuming (as we all do from time to time) that experimental error was responsible for the unexplained results. So, Mendel may not have been scrupulously honest...

http://www.hsc.on.ca/moffatt/bio3a/gene ... endel.html

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Mendelian genetics.

And even Gregor Mendel was - to put it mildly - "not scrupulously honest".

...it would be almost impossible to get results quite as good as his. Chance variations, and the difficulties of experimentation should have introduced greater errors. As well, Mendel reported on seven traits of peas. It just happens that peas have seven pairs of chromosomes, and the genes Mendel worked on happened to be arranged one on each pair of chromosomes. The odds of this happening are very small. Had the genes for two of the traits been on the same chromosome, Mendel would have got conflicting results, and might not have seen the general pattern. So, did Mendel cheat? Probably not, but he may have got lucky and seen the pattern emerging from a few experiments. He may then only have reported on the results of other experiments that supported his ideas, assuming (as we all do from time to time) that experimental error was responsible for the unexplained results. So, Mendel may not have been scrupulously honest...

http://www.hsc.on.ca/moffatt/bio3a/gene ... endel.html

Meh, "data smoothing". God said it was okay.

[Seth]

Happiness
Solace
Comfort

Wait... are you a believer Seth?

Nope. But I observe that religion very frequently, if not the vast majority of the time, offers solace, comfort and happiness to it's adherents. This is true of virtually all religions, and it's the reason that religion continues to exist and is adhered to to one degree or another by some 80 percent of the population of the planet.

If religion were as universally evil and useless as Atheists like Dawkins like to claim it is, it wouldn't exist. And yet it does exist, and it persists, century after century, for as many thousands of years as the written records of mankind exist, including 34,000 year old cave paintings in France.

Religion has great social utility. It's a glue that binds groups together in common belief and purpose. It offers members support and comfort, community and solace, and both physical and spiritual relief and pleasure. It's the predecessor to every system of government that exists today because it was in fact the very first form of government, going right back to tribal shamans who exercised power and control over their tribes using religion...for the betterment and survival of the tribe.

Religion is not a bad thing for society, it's a good thing, and most of the bad things that have occurred in society worldwide, especially in the last century, are the direct result of atheism and the lack of religion. A hundred million people have been murdered by atheist tyrants and despots who were determined to stamp out religion, and they universally failed to do so, no matter how many millions they sent to the gulags or the killing fields, and as soon as they were defeated, religion came back stronger than ever, as in Russia today, which upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union had a renaissance in religious belief of huge proportions.

And given the evidence of what happens when a society rejects religion, I strongly support religion in society because it generally advances peace and stability. There are exceptions of course, but the exceptions don't disprove the rule.

I suspect the twentieth century death toll had more to with technological advances in warfare and the industrial population boom, than atheism and lack of religion. I'm sure Richard the Lionheart and Saladin could have racked up some impressive casualty statistics with twentieth century hardware and million-man armies.

But they didn't. QED.

[Hermit]

Happiness
Solace
Comfort

Wait... are you a believer Seth?

Nope. But I observe that religion very frequently, if not the vast majority of the time, offers solace, comfort and happiness to it's adherents. This is true of virtually all religions, and it's the reason that religion continues to exist and is adhered to to one degree or another by some 80 percent of the population of the planet.

If religion were as universally evil and useless as Atheists like Dawkins like to claim it is, it wouldn't exist. And yet it does exist, and it persists, century after century, for as many thousands of years as the written records of mankind exist, including 34,000 year old cave paintings in France.

Religion has great social utility. It's a glue that binds groups together in common belief and purpose. It offers members support and comfort, community and solace, and both physical and spiritual relief and pleasure. It's the predecessor to every system of government that exists today because it was in fact the very first form of government, going right back to tribal shamans who exercised power and control over their tribes using religion...for the betterment and survival of the tribe.

Religion is not a bad thing for society, it's a good thing, and most of the bad things that have occurred in society worldwide, especially in the last century, are the direct result of atheism and the lack of religion. A hundred million people have been murdered by atheist tyrants and despots who were determined to stamp out religion, and they universally failed to do so, no matter how many millions they sent to the gulags or the killing fields, and as soon as they were defeated, religion came back stronger than ever, as in Russia today, which upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union had a renaissance in religious belief of huge proportions.

And given the evidence of what happens when a society rejects religion, I strongly support religion in society because it generally advances peace and stability. There are exceptions of course, but the exceptions don't disprove the rule.

I suspect the twentieth century death toll had more to with technological advances in warfare and the industrial population boom, than atheism and lack of religion. I'm sure Richard the Lionheart and Saladin could have racked up some impressive casualty statistics with twentieth century hardware and million-man armies.

But they didn't. QED.

Correct. They didn't have machine guns, dive bombers, tanks, nerve gas and so on. QED indeed. Thanks for agreeing with Seabass.

[Seth]

...I observe that religion very frequently, if not the vast majority of the time, offers solace, comfort and happiness to it's adherents.

Guess who agrees with you on that point? Here's a hint: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."

And what's wrong with opium, pray tell? If that's what people need to make it through the day without hurting others, what business is it of yours?

The problem with your claim is that it's false, and it actually goes to prove my point that Atheists are evil, cruel people who like to interfere with the lives of others and don't care what sorrow, pain or hopelessness they impose on others so long as their insane ideology prevails.

The quote by Marx, in context, is not a support for religion but a condemnation of it:

The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

The unreason is strong in this horseshit. "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness." Crap. It's rationalization for tyranny and oppression of a different sort is all. Marx wishes to substitute the opium of religion for the cruel oppression of reality...Marxist reality. Marx's delusion that his theories will lead to "real happiness" is so much insane bushwa, as demonstrated by the hundred million dead in the most horrific, evil and cruel ways imaginable at the hands of his ideology and in the name of Atheism and the abolition of religion.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

"in the name of Atheism"?

[maiforpeace]

...I observe that religion very frequently, if not the vast majority of the time, offers solace, comfort and happiness to it's adherents.

Guess who agrees with you on that point? Here's a hint: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."

And what's wrong with opium, pray tell? If that's what people need to make it through the day without hurting others, what business is it of yours?

No offense to my friends who like to drink and do drugs, but I wholeheartedly agree with this. Why is it OK to be in a drunken stupor, but not in a religious one?

[Svartalf]

"in the name of Atheism"?

Did you just take the name of Great Atheismo in Vain?

[Seth]

Correct. They didn't have machine guns, dive bombers, tanks, nerve gas and so on. QED indeed. Thanks for agreeing with Seabass.

Speculation.

The facts are quite different, and the death toll of a hundred million people tortured and murdered in the most horrific ways and their blood lies on the hands of Atheists, who mostly killed them deliberately, individually, slowly, and painfully in places like the Road of Bones and the Killing Fields and the fields of China where they starved, were beaten to death, or were worked to death with malice aforethought and genocidal intention. That's something that neither Saladin nor Richard did to the populations of the nations they conquered. They sought conversion, not extermination, and they warred primarily on other soldiers, not on the civilian populace.

Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot sought extermination of the religious, and they were Atheists who killed in the name of atheism and at the command of Karl Marx, a man more evil than Hitler in whose name ten times the number of victims of Hitler have been murdered.

[Seth]

"in the name of Atheism"?

Did you just take the name of Great Atheismo in Vain?

What leads you to the idiotic belief that religion requires a deity? Are you really that ignorant of the distinction between religion and theism?

Marxism is absolutely a religion. No question about it at all.

[Audley Strange]

...I observe that religion very frequently, if not the vast majority of the time, offers solace, comfort and happiness to it's adherents.

Guess who agrees with you on that point? Here's a hint: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."

And what's wrong with opium, pray tell? If that's what people need to make it through the day without hurting others, what business is it of yours?

No offense to my friends who like to drink and do drugs, but I wholeheartedly agree with this. Why is it OK to be in a drunken stupor, but not in a religious one?

It depends doesn't it. Should we tolerate those who become self righteous violent drunks who demand that only someone who is a dipsomaniac is allowed to run the country, that we force-feed children alcohol, that consider tee-totallers worthy of contempt?

What people do to themselves is their business, when they demand it of others then the problems arise.

[amused]

Stalin installed himself as God of Russia, so his was a very religious reign.

The last hundred years are far different than the 34,000 that preceded. I concede that religion had utility up until now, but I think we are entering a transition period where the balance is swinging away from religion being cohesive and useful, toward religion being divisive and crippling.