Why religion is good for us

Theodore Dalrymple, an atheist, argues belief in God makes you a better person, both morally and practically.

Its amazing hearing an ATHEIST say this!!

 

This guy doesn't know very much about philosophy.

"The secular person believes that compassion is due to the victim by virtue of what he has suffered; the religious person believes that compassion is due to everyone, by virtue of his humanity." - This is such an absurd statement that it is insulting to ever moral human, no matter what their faith.

There is secular pacifism, there is secular humanism, there are secular laws based on moral and virtue alone (such as animal abuse).
Just as there is religious violence.

Taking morality to such a black and white level is to take all of the humanity; and most of the variables out of the equation.

The generalizations made by this fellow make absolutely no sense:
"The secularist divides humanity into two: the victims and the victimisers. The religious person sees mankind as fundamentally one."
So, any atheist or agnostic sees only two types of people; there is no room for ambiguity.
If that were true, that would be rather unfortunate.
However, this fellow is dividing people into "secular" and "religious" and making just as sweeping of generalizations about those two groups of people.

 

Rubbish. The author makes several claims about the beliefs and attitudes of religious people and secularists that do not seem to me to be representative of either group. He assumes that secularists cannot avoid the naturalistic fallacy, a silly assumption. He also claims that belief in original sin, apparently regardless of whether such a thing exists, is a good thing. I can't imagine why, and the author provides no argument.

I feel that most secularists would disagree with everything that this author says secularists believe. Overall a silly article with no real arguments.

 

I just read that article, and you will have to excuse me, I threw up in my mouth a little.....

 

i don't think its so much good or bad as encouraging people to not want to screw things up for each other (and by doing so, themselves as well), that is good, and beliefs can, and do contribute to that, although some, especially dominant monotheisms, seem to also encourage denial of the actual mechanism by which we do.

 

Say you need a crutch to walk and I don't.

What does that make you?

 

What a ridiculous article.

All of the things that he explains are easy enough to understand without any reference to the bible. The idea of innocents and sinners is a biblical one and he uses it as a criticism of using logic instead of belief in a higher power but never explains why he thinks that atheism requires that

There's also a little hint of what he thinks about victims of domestic abuse saying that often they bear some responsiility for their choice of partner and staying in abusive relationships (at least he didn't add burning his dinner, looking at other men etc) which again shows an incredibly small understanding of the problems faced by victims of domestic abuse

 

Yes especially coming from an athiest huh?? (I think he is lying when he says he is one)

 

Something a bit more empirical: The Majority of charitable organizations across the Globe are religion based. Which is something that can easily be measured.

On the flip side the majority of countries that are a shithole have no seperation between church and state, also something easy to measure


Anything else thats not empirical is too subjective

 

there is no one size fits all that is good for all of us.
what is good for each of us is as diverse as the many layers of existence we are surrounded by.