OK theists, here's your chance!

Been a lot of bitching lately about "negative" stories of xians. Lots of people have told you that you should be posting the positive things. Funny that it is an atheist that is giving you your chance, but such is life.

Post the positive things that religion has done in our world. One caveat: I don't want to hear about individual anecdotes of a church "feeding the hungry" in your town, or raising money for a charity, etc. Cause guess what? I do those things, too, and I am not a theist.

ON EDIT: I don't mean to eliminate all anecdotal evidence. I just want it to be uniquely a religious example. A christian going to a food shelter and helping cook is not a plus for religion; a church setting up a food shelter when nothing has been done by anyone else to feed the poor in the are would be a plus for religion in my eyes. Hope that makes the distinction clear. I REALLY am not trying to limit things to the point where there is nothing.

What has religion done to make this a better world?

Oh, yeah, a second caveat: don't get pissed off if I, or others, challenge you about the example you give and how it has made the world a better place. I promise that I will not post a counter-example that has nothing to do with your example as a way to "even the scales." Though I may post a counter-example if it DIRECTLY refutes your claim.

ON EDIT: I set these limits because I know how I will respond to a "my church group served soup on Thanksgiving." I don't want to people to say I was just baiting people into a flamewar. The point is that it should be something unique to religion. Sorry for not going into this just waiting to move the goalposts on you.

Go nuts (pun not intended).

You're telling believers to post something good that has been done by "religion" but you are not permitting people to post anything that non-believers also do. Seems to me that you have created rules that do not permit them to post anything.

How would you feel if someone asked you to post good things that non-believers have done, but did not permit you to post anything that believers have also done? It seems absurd to me.

(And what is the point of this whole "good things/bad things believers/non-believers have done" exercise anyway? I think it should be fairly obvious to any fair observer that there are plenty of good things and bad things that believers and non-believers have done. It does not prove that either group as a whole is better or worse than the other, or that either group as a whole is right.)

My point was that it should be something that is uniquely due to religion. One group of people that are part of the same church getting together to feed the homeless is not a checkmark in the column of religion for me, just as me and my family feeding the homeless is a checkmark in the column of atheism. That is good people doing good things. How is that limiting? I am just asking for something that religion has uniquely done. I think post #3 gets to that point below and I will respond with my thoughts there in a second.

What is the point? People have been bitching in the past week that all people do is bash religion and give negative examples. Several non-theists said that those people should be posting the positive things to get the word out. Nobody has done so. I thought I would give the opportunity; I just wanted to set the boundaries (as I saw them since I was the OP) beforehand so that when I said I didn't think that counted, I wouldn't be accused of just baiting people so I could flame them.

chiding and derision.

so, in that way, its keeping you from doing that to something else. So, yeah, that's a positive thing.

:hippie:

I sincerely wanted to give a voice to people and my first response is an attack on me. Nice job. Even if I felt derision for religion, you think this response of yours is going to cause me to ease up or is it going to increase that derision? I think you can figure that one out.

As I responded to Skinner, the reason for my caveats is that I wanted to give people a voice but didn't want to be accused of baiting people into a flamewar. As a result, I gave what my requirements were for the examples. Since I am the OP, I can do that; the best part is that I made the rules clear before hand.

I was just responding in kind...although I was being tongue in cheek, hence the hippie emoticon.

I want people to post what religion has done. I knew that I would have objections to certain posts so I made that clear ahead of time to not make it look like I was trolling. Still I get bitched at. I guess I should have just reved up and got ready to move the goalposts at a moments notice. I know that happens all too often in here, but I didn't want to be one of them.

Clearly the hippie emoticon wasn't enough since both I (who I will admit over reacts at times) and Trotsky (who is generally pretty level-headed until goaded) both didn't get it.

We have to fight to:

* preserve our right to NOT believe
* keep church and state separate
* have policies based on science and real data, rather than on what a god wants us to do
* counter bigoted attitudes by religionists

So yeah, it's given us a lot to do.

Here is why religion is important.....it gives rules to live your life by. Now, I know we have laws, but some people only respond to the "heavenly" threat. This is why churches were created in the first place, to control societies mores. Most "rules" in religion are common sense solutions to common problems.....like don't steal, murder, and such. But the more arcane ones like not coveting is just to stop the stealing, murdering and so on. Even the put no other God before me, says to not put the love of "anything", even money before your love of the ruler of the universe.

There are many people who would do many unspeakable things if they didn't fear the wrath of God. Religion is okay, but those who run the churches are what's causing the problems. You see, they have put themselves above God, and twisting the good that religion is supposed to create, to give out some sort of weird message.

Do I like religions, not especially, but some people need that society, and as long as they live the life of a good and just person, I don't care what religion they subscribe to.

zalinda

I hope this sub-thread develops for this is what I see as being one of the biggest positives to religion. I am atheist and my wife is agnostic. We attend a UU church because my son (10 next week) was having a lot of problems. He is very intelligent, but he is not emotionally advanced for his years. As a result, he has been thinking a lot about the nature of human life and the inevitability of death. His thinking has led him to conclusions like "I don't want to love anyone because I will be so sad when they die." Having something to discuss about the purpose of life with people that aren't his parents (because, at 10, he also believes that his parents are morons) has done wonders for him.

I think this relates to the "do good because god says so" bit?

what religious people can post, whether your meant it that way or not. But here goes:

Religion kept my Native American people together as a people and preserved our culture. Even when our own faiths were outlawed, we kept practicing them and passed down the love of Creator and Mother Earth and all Her children through the generations. With it came all the language and the oral history.

and I think a very good example. I grew up in North Dakota and feel horrible for what I have seen been done to Native Americans.

And my restrictions were just to let people know how I would respond ahead of time.

Churches which often were the centerpoint of social life and the strongest shelter in a community. They were the gathering point of resources which allowed communities to survive temporary emergencies and individual or temporary scarcities.

but I think I have explained that above. Hey, if a church has done something in a region/area/country that no other group has done, then I think it is game to be included in here. I used the soup kitchen example because the church group there may well have been working right next to atheists, so it is hardly a check mark for religion.

The only positive thing I can say, given the general misdirection, is that "religion" is not something people decide, one day, to 'join,' like the Moose lodge. It is not, for most, a matter of calculation that can be viewed as an optional activity or a social assembly.
The reason religions exist at all is that they fill a fundamental human need.

When I say "fundamental," I can allow for the fact that this need, while being fundamental, is not universal.

I have a 40% red-green color blindness. In the past, this was viewed as a negative, a loss. Now, the current issue of Discover magazine reports on color blind people as highly prized in the military. Why is this?

Well, it seems that those who are the victims of substantial color blindness, although we envy those who inhabit such a vivid and varied world, are not so easily fooled by camouflage.
What?! Yep, that's right. Color blind people can spot a predator, even though trying to disappear in his surroundings, far easier than those who are gifted with better vision. This facility probably had its uses in the far more day-to-day dangerous life of developing humans, leading to its preservation in the genetic influence as a powerful survival tool.
Thus it could well be that this less than universal need to acknowledge and pay obeisance to a supernatural being is also a powerful survival tool--or not.
However it turns out, people do not turn to religion lightly or from feeble mindedness or as a substitute for character. They choose this part of their lives because it provides them with an answer, a solution or a fulfillment of their needs.

The real problem comes from the urge to treat non-believers as, somehow, less than human or anti-human. Non believers must be the enemy, satan, monsters, on and on, usually cloaked in the trappings of their belief systems.
This brings up the other human frailty: non believers do the same thing, seeing believers as weak, irresponsible, or addicted to magic and fairy creatures. Both are wrong.
There are many things that believers and non believers have to teach each other, if ever we are willing to drop our xenophobic attitudes long enough to see the other fellow as human, powerful, and deserving of our respect, as well as being willing to forgo the self righteous bs that we, ourselves, are always right and the other guy wrong.

Do people who believe in good luck and think they're on a lucky streak actually perform better? Sometimes they do. You see it in sports, someone's love life, finances, etc.

If we accept that some people perform better and have better outcomes for their efforts because they operated on belief, faith, and expectation of positive outcomes, then we can accept that religious belief, faith, and expectations also provide positive outcomes.

the great medieval cathedrals of Europe would not have been built were it not for the power of the established church from around the 1100's onwards. These buildings required huge financial resources, organisation of skilled labour on a vast scale and concerted effort over hundreds of years. In turn, that gave rise to the craft guilds, encouraged the decorative arts and advanced a lot of our understanding of structures. Similar considerations apply to any of the world's iconic religous structures created by religously driven cultures such as the Incas as one example. Greek temples? Buddhist shrines? Islamic mosques and the beautiful imagery on them? Brunelleschi's Duomo? Chartres? Winchester Cathedral? These were not the result of secular societies.

It is incontrovertible that religions have made enormous contributions to our culture as a whole. I respect what has been achieved architecturally because I conserve historic buildings for a living. After spending over 20 years in practice I never cease to marvel at the wonderful cultural artefacts religion has handed down to us. Whether a secular society would have created such a wonderful, architectural and artistic, legacy is a very interesting question indeed. My own view is that the impetus to do that would almost certainly have been lacking in a secular world.

amen

edit - spelling

and I am not talking about in the sense that people can then do whatever they want because they are forgiven. I mean that people screw up, in all ways, big and small. Some of the screw-ups don't really hurt anyone, but are highly embarassing (so you can't tell anyone, even those closest to you), and stay with a person, keeping them from achieving their full potential. Believing that God knows everything you have done, and forgives you, and loves you anyway allows a person to bury mistakes, let the past be the past, and move on.

This was one reason that I left atheism after being raised as one, and converted.

you've done it. I am supposed to be taking a break from DU to recover my brain. My mind opened up too far and it fell out. But I can't resist defending this issue. And I want to see the star some nice person sent me.

So here is my response.

"In the October International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine, they report that those who attend weekly religious services have healthier immune systems than those who don't.

"It's the first study ever published. . . that has found an association between religious activity and immune functioning," says Dr. Harold Koenig, director of Duke's Center for the Study of Religion/Spirituality and Health.

The study measured blood levels of interleukin 6 (IL-6) and other substances that regulate immune and inflammatory responses. High levels of interleukin 6 are found in patients with AIDS, Alzheimer's disease, osteoporosis, diabetes, and depression, among other things.
In the study, those who attended weekly religious services were about half as likely as nonattenders to have elevated IL-6.
And immune systems aren't the only thing that function better when people regularly practice their faith.

To influence political discussion of the role of religion in public life, the Heritage Foundation recently compiled all the studies it could find on religion's link to health and social stability. The amount of research conducted over many years, and the overwhelmingly beneficial impact traced to religion, were amazing.

For example:
* Regular church attendance is the most critical factor in marital stability, regardless of denomination or doctrinal teaching on divorce. A 1993 survey of 3,300 men found that those who switch partners most are those with no religious convictions. Similarly, the rate of cohabitation before marriage is seven times higher among people who seldom or never attend religious services, a significant finding since couples who live together before marriage experience higher rates of divorce.
* Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have found cardiovascular disease significantly reduced by a lifetime of church attendance. Numerous other studies confirm that churchgoers live longer, with lower rates of cirrhosis, emphysema, and arteriosclerosis.
* Blood pressure is reduced an average of 5 mm of pressure by regular church attendance, 6 mm for people over 55. "Given that reducing blood pressure by 2 to 4 mm also reduces the mortality rate by 10 to 20 percent for any given population, a reduction of 5 mm is a very significant public-health achievement," says Patrick Fagan, who wrote the Heritage Foundation report.
* Religious involvement greatly decreases drug use, delinquency, and premarital sex, and increases self-control for all age groups. In a 1985 study of girls, 9 to 17, less than 10 percent of those who attended religious services weekly reported drug or alcohol use, compared to 38 percent overall.
Even economics may be affected by religious practice. Of youth who grew up in poverty in the 1970s and '80s, those who attended church weekly had significantly higher family incomes as adults-an average $12,600 higher than their nonchurchgoing peers.
The data based on the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, showed a positive impact from religion on children who grew up both in intact families and broken homes"


Now, I am not quite certain whether you want personal testimony or not, but faith has been the number one most important element in my life since childhood. First, the cultural power of the church service (I am Episcopalian) pervaded my childhood and has ever since. I play sacred music all the time and use it to inspire my creativity, and to quiet me when I need to be quieted. The vows I took have kept me from straying in marriage. My faith was a "language" with which I could speak to my father, even when he had no mind left. My rosary kept my sanity over 11 days of his death bed. And prayer provides me a last resort sanctuary when I am alone, abandoned, and afraid.

But that's just me.

and something in me tells me they are spurious. I have not studied them closely enough to posit my own third factor, but perhaps others here have. If not, it is an interesting find. Does it apply to the UU church I attend even though I am an atheist and there is no dogma? (that is a serious question, not sarcasm.)

I take everything from the Heritage Foundation with a grain of salt.

Your personal story is fine. If I still believed in god, I am sure I would have switched from Catholic to Episcopalian because you sure seem to be the more reasonable and tolerant interpretation.

having grown up UU, because there is no collective spiritual practice going on there, IMHO.

I have no qualms about saying there is nothing religious, but there is clearly a spiritual journey being explored. I just went to a weekend skiing/retreat with some people from my fellowship and another, and I have not felt that connected to people outside my family in a long time. No religious ceremonies involved, just talking and doing things together. There were clearly spiritual moments during the discussion--not to mention during the absolutely beautiful snowfall that happened regularly.

When I attend certain retreats, certain choir practices or performances, even just the occasional pot luck supper or dinner club, sometimes you get that connection. I personally have no other venue FOR that level of connection.

Although, oddly, sometimes I feel it here on DU..in between some of the crazy stuff.

And how was it a retreat rather than just a skiing trip? What activities made it different?

Just curious.

Would I call this a retreat in the sense of the retreats I went on while at the Catholic seminary? No.
Would I call this spiritual in the sense of the supernatural? No.

I do mean that I had many discussion with people, including a UU minister that was also a former attendee at a Catholic seminary, about why we are on earth, how we should treat people, what causes the evil in the world, just to mention the highlights. Also, I just think it is spiritual to go cross-country skiing when it is snowing those huge, beautiful snowflakes. It makes me remember that I am just another part of nature and that nature is a beautiful thing.

"while at the Catholic seminary"?

Now I know there is a story to be told and I hope some day you will tell it to me. In email if you want. But seminarian to atheist is a unique path.

I wouldn't use them to prove anything, myself, but this was data compiled by them, not produced in research. They just went looking. Some of the research folks look pretty upstanding.

that you took the time to make that post. The statistics you cite are powerful testimony. But it is your personal story that brought tears to my eyes as I identified with every word. You said it better that I ever could.

Kudos to you, and Happy St. Valentine's Day!:hi:

"What has religion done to make this a better world?"

It has given a uniting cultural force that transcends nations.This helps bind together nations that might otherwise be at war, though it doesn't prevent interreligious warfare. It also creates a common focus for a large section of humanity that creates a universal culture. It certainly has inspired artists to create many of the greatest works of art ever created.

I think your original argument as stated in the OP is completely disingenous. Your implication is that there is nothing good that religion does that is unique to religion. This seems to me a rather pointless argument, as good that is done is still good regardless of who does it, and doing good is only part of the purpose of religion.

I have edited the OP twice, I have bent myself into pretzels in responses to show my intent, and I have discussed what I believe to be legitimate positives to religioin in this thread. And still I get claims of being "disingenous."

I would agree that it has inspired art, but I do not think those artists would have done nothing without religion.

I do not know that the "unifying force" you talk about is more often good than bad, but that is a discussion for another time/thread.

The great masterpieces of art in many cultures are works of religious worship. Something about contemplating the divine brings the greatest qualities of depth of expression out in artists in many different times and places.

but is the artist inseperable from the art? What I mean to say is, without religion would Bach, Mozart, Da Vinci, et. al. have been just sitting around twiddling their thumbs or would they possibly have turned to nature, other people, etc. for inspiration? Don't you kind of minimize the human talent in all of this, e.g. without religion there is no creativity or inspiration.

before and I've actually been doing a lot of thinking about it. (I teach art history) So for a minute I'm jumping on your wagon and assuming that the God stuff is a giant hoax just for argument. Does nature inspire genius? A still life? A portrait? I just don't think so. The level of passion exhibited in religious art, even if it were delusional, is real. In my opinion, and being an artist, hopefully I am entitled to one... I can get interested in a portrait, fascinated by the technical problems of a still life. But the kind of passion that keeps me painting or designing until 3 in the morning when my body gives out..that comes from another well. For me, it is faith. Now, I'll listen politely if you tell me it is a delusion, but damn, it is one HELL of a useful delusion for artists and musicians.

Inspiration comes from passion.

I'm not saying "without religion there is no creativity or inspiration" but I am saying it takes it to an entirely different level, and that passion has come down to us over the generations, frozen in these creations. It is an amazing thing.

and I say this as an art teacher.

although I have broadened my content bases a bit since 1972. I certified nationally in '99. Good program and Florida, particularly, makes it worth the work, with about 8K in bonuses yearly for 10 years.

why this is so important to you? Are you secure in your atheism or are you, in reality, still looking?

Not trying to intrude, but you seem to be searching.

I am searching for nothing. I am happy, content, and sure of my atheistic viewpoint. To me the surety of there being no god is as clear as the sun rising in the east this morning.

I made this post because I was sick of all the theists bitching about "bashing" going on and never responding to the prompts that they post their own positive indications of their religion. So I wanted to give them an outlet. I listed my two caveats because I knew how I would react to certain things and didn't want to look like I was trolling.

This isn't important to me at all. I don't care about religion that much. Just trying to stop the bitching and see what people have to say about their religion.

One thing I like about the UU church (if it counts as a church) is that it doesn't pretend to have all the answers. Any church that says they have all the answers isn't asking all the questions. That's for sure.

I admire your attempt to quiet things down, and so far it hasn't gotten too ugly.

Here is an Amazon link to a book which probably highlights the talking points of the benefits of the Christian church, specifically, better than anything else.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0895260387/sr=8-1/qid=1139944054/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-3636988-9475101?%5Fencoding=UTF8

Haven't read it; can't vouch for it. Obviouslly it is not neutral. But I did read a few reviews of it that said it appeared even-handed. I might put in on reserve in the library.

Of course I mostly think of the arts that have progressed because of religious subjects. The first great works of all cultures (I'm pretty sure) were done for religious causes (at least to some degree). However, I think that's been pointed out already.

Anyway, I think someone else said this, too, but I might have a different viewpoint. Religion provides a medium in which wisdom and culture can be kept and allowed to grow. It's amazing to think that the practices I have participated in were being done over thousands of years ago. Of course, they changed over time, but the real idea and the meaning remains the same. That provides a link between a person living a day-to-day life, working in corporate America and their roots, their culture and their identity.

Well, that's looking at it from a mostly secular standpoint, but I think there's infinitely more when you get into the spiritual aspects.

Another thing is that religion can keep our mindsets in the right place. A person can placate their anger by turning thoughts to the philosophical aspects of religion. Religion can give us a source of clear thoughts. For instance, when I start screaming at my computer, if I step back and look at the big picture I can use my energy in a much better way. That is very much due to religion.

By the way, do you think someone could immolate themself without some form of meditation? The Vietnam protests of the Buddhist monks were obviously centered around religion, and would probably never have happened if not for that very thing.

That's all I can think of right now, but I think you posed a pretty interesting question. I hope my answers were appropriate.

By the way, do you think someone could immolate themself without some form of meditation? The Vietnam protests of the Buddhist monks were obviously centered around religion, and would probably never have happened if not for that very thing.

I still think buddism is more spiritual practice then religion.

Buddhism does count as a religion, regardless of how much it differs from the Judeo-Christian religions. That's my opinion, anyway.

what it does personally, but I'll try.

To me, it's all about connection, connection to the infinite, connection to other people whom I never would have met otherwise, and connection to do together what one person cannot do alone. When it works, there's an indescribable energy in the air.

An example is the Lutheran-Episcopal relief center in Mississippi that I volunteered at in January with people from my church. I'm sure secular groups were doing the same thing, but here were 150 people from all over the country, sleeping on cots in a gym, with four toilets and four showers for each gender, eating mediocre food, and putting in 8 hours of concentrated work, some of it filthy and dangerous. Yet I didn't see one person lose their temper, and the ease with which all these people mingled with one another was astounding. The director of the center is an Episcopal priest, and we had Evening Prayer every night, except on the Feast of the Epiphany, when we had Eucharist, and we began each morning with a brief meeting after breakfast, concluding with the director saying, "Let us go forth in peace, alleluia, alleluia" and the volunteers giving the standard response, "In the name of the Lord, alleluia, alleluia."

At the end of the week, as we were waiting to fly home, I compared notes with my fellow volunteers. We all agreed that there was something indescribably special about the experience, to the extent that it had crowded out all our usual worries and concerns, and we marveled at the way everyone had gotten along. Several people are planning to go again on their own, although I am unable to for various reasons.

My church does a lot of typical churchly outreach activities, like feeding the hungry and working on Habitat for Humanity, but every church seems to have a unique project or two, and one that we're doing is reaching out to the Muslim immigrants, not to convert them (which is impossible anyway), but to help them adjust to life in the United States. We sponsor a Boy Scout and Girl Scout troop for Somali youth, although it doesn't meet at the church because the parents objected, and send volunteers to tutor Somali kids in English and other subjects. We hope to forestall the kinds of problems that they've had in France, where there's a huge social gulf between ethnic French and North African immigrants.

Most refugees of all types who come to this country are sponsored by churches, and in my experience, while they are invited to come once and be introduced to the congregation, they are never required to attend services. It's been fine if they just want to come to coffee hour.

My previous parish sponsored a social club for people with mental illness, especially those who have recently been hospitalized. It was open evenings and weekend afternoons, and provided a safe place to hang out for people who often lived on the streets or in welfare hotels.

Another church in the same city sponsored a free "day care" center for people with Alzheimer's disease, so that their caregivers could have some time to themselves.

Now it's possible that secular groups are doing many of these same things, but I can't think of any that do as many things as the typical large urban church.