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Re: Do you believe in God?
True enough, but modern churches do generally advocate living a good, upstanding life, doing right by fellow man, being honest, forgiving others, getting and staying married. A belief doesn't have to be true to influence people to do good things.
There are some examples of harm done by organized religion, of course, like the guy who demonstrates at soldier's funerals.. can't think of his name just now, or the radical Islamists who want to go out and slay infidels for Allah, or the fundamentalists who make young girls marry a polygamist against their will.
But, the balance seems to me to be in favor of churches in general.
Except lots of people are able to be just as happy or happier, do all the same things and not have to rely on social delusion to do it. Christian divorce rates exceed atheist divorce rates, you know. Belief in an imaginary friend doesn't stop Christians from doing anything.
Only if you define "harm" very narrowly. I think it's harmful to believe anything that is not factually true. There are tons of examples of theists of all stripes who do bad things, or allow bad things to be done, because of their beliefs. It's not just killing others.
True enough, but modern churches do generally advocate living a good, upstanding life, doing right by fellow man, being honest, forgiving others, getting and staying married. A belief doesn't have to be true to influence people to do good things.
There are some examples of harm done by organized religion, of course, like the guy who demonstrates at soldier's funerals.. can't think of his name just now, or the radical Islamists who want to go out and slay infidels for Allah, or the fundamentalists who make young girls marry a polygamist against their will.
But, the balance seems to me to be in favor of churches in general.