I saw the post "14 good reasons society needs religion", and have this response to it. Since it was originally posted in lots of Christian forums, there are lots of references to Christianity. I traced the post to this website.
(1) Religion helps to regulate our conduct and behaviour in society by
providing a set of morals and value-system for human existence.
I would argue that simply living with other people in any society
forces all involved to adopt a system of values, a set of compromises,
agreements, and social obligations, in order to maintain peace in the
society. All religions provide is a different form of these social
contracts.
Our values are human values. Religions always try to take credit for
the values that most human societies have in common, when in fact, they
are so universal that they predate and transscend religious values.
Christianity, for example, was easily adopted by the Romans, primarily
because it's values were perceived as being very similar to what most
Romans already beleived.
(2) Religion guides our actions in life, putting a check on criminal
tendency in human nature.
It has never been established as a fact, that human nature tends
towards criminal behavior. Of course, when a religion declares which
things are crimes and which aren't this can be a whole different ball
game. Take for example religions which actively persecute other
religions (like Christians who Persecuted Jews for centuries). When
your religion condones terrible actions against unbelievers, is it only
approving what would be crimes in otherwise more secular societies. Of
course, it works the other way, too. When a religion can declare
certain things to be crimes, which would otherwise not be crimes in
secular societies, more criminals can easily be created by the adoption
of laws based on these religions.
(3) A true religion will ensure peaceful co-existence,love and harmony
among human beings.
This is an interesting statement, because if this is true, then we have
never really seen any true religions. All of the world's major
religions have struggled against each other for dominance over socieity
for millenia. No religion can claim to ensure peace, love, and harmony,
because religions are practiced by people, and people make mistakes.
When a religion condemns groups of people (such as unbelievers or
homosexuals), and even asks that they be executed or physically
punished, it is not calling for peace, but tyrrany.
(4) Religion keeps our feet firmly planted on the ground even when our
heads are up in clouds because of fast-moving technology resulting in
hectic and stressful lifestyle.
Does this statement even make rational sense? If one's head is in the
clouds, it's generally understood that the person's thoughts are
wandering, that they are not focused, that they are daydreaming. How
does religion keep a person's feet planted (and planted in what?
Reality? Morality? Just what are one's feet kept firmly planted in?)
when a person's thoughts are elsewhere?
This statement also seems to blame modern technology for creating
stress, even though the opposite is actually the case. Machines and
computers save people lots of time, work, and effort, allowing us more
liesure time. You don't get fat sitting in front of a TV or computer
because it's stressful work. You get fat because it's liesure.
(5) A true religion gives you a clear conscience while performing an
action or taking a difficult decision,like resorting to arms in
self-defence or in war.
More likely, it gives you a clear conscience when murdering unbelievers
and their children, blowing up abortion clinics and shooting doctors
who provide abortions. It gives you a clear conscience when taking
civil rights away from groups of people like atheists, gays, and Jews.
It gave Nazis clear conscience when they persecuted and murdered
millions of Jews, and gives Americans a clear conscience when killing
Muslims, while calling them "rag-heads".
(6) Religion ensures balance in a life where negative social influences
can be increasingly disruptive,immoral and corruptive for the mind.
But what if the negative social influence is caused by religion? There
are plenty of cases where religious movements cause chaos and havoc in
otherwise peaceful places. When Christianity became the official
religion of the Roman Empire, it wasn't long before the Christians in
power began to persecute pagans and threaten them with violence and
death if they didn't convert. The City of Alexandria, Egypt was laid to
ruin merely because the pagans refused to turn over Jews to the
Christians, who wanted to persecute them. Modern day Americans, in
Pontotoc, Mississippi, created turmoil in their town when a single
family complained that their children were being indoctrinated into
Christian Fundamentalism in their public school. The court agreed that
the local schools were indoctrinating kids into a specific religious
sect, and found in favor of the family. The whole community rose up and
persecuted this family, got their employers to fire the parents, and
basically turned their lives into a living hell, all with a clear
conscience. Think of how many religious people have murdered
unbelievers with a clear conscience over the centuries.
(7) As a science of self-improvement,religion offers a therapeutic and
success-oriented lifestyle,a victorious way of life.
If this is true, we should be able to see results. There are no studies
that show that people from one particular religion generally live
better than people of other religions (or no religions). If anything,
studies have shown that the diet, environment, and exercise are the
factors which lead to healthy living.
(8) Religion prevents deterioration of the mind due to dehumanization
and desensitization caused by highly mechanized modern living, thus
providing stability.
This is totally false. If anything, religion has a longer track record
of dehumanizing people (such as the way that Christians dehumanized
Jews and muslims, and the way Hindus and Muslims dehumanize each
other), and desensitizing people (Christianity practically invented
most forms of torture during the inquisition) to treating others poorly
-- especially treating unbelievers, women, and gay people as
second-class citizens.
(9) True religion is the manifestation of mercy - God's mercy for His
Creation and man's mercy towards his fellow-beings and
environment(Creation).
How does mercy manifest itself in the stoning to death of people for
being unbelievers, or for being gay? How does mercy play into the call
to slaughter people of an opposing religion? History is full of
examples of religious people murdering others, and intimidating
witnesses who appealed to secular authorities for justice. Most
recently, Gudjarat, India, where survivors of a religious massacre were
threatened and intimidated to the point that they refused to testify to
the authorities out of fear of their lives. Most importantly, how does
Mercy manifest itself when one decides to bomb an abortion clinic?
(10) Religion prevents us from being carried away by the tides of the
times, because a true religion has an eternal value-system.
This is fairly true, as far as I can see it. But my spin on this is
that religions tend to keep people thinking in a medieval or even a
bronze-age mode of thinking, where people are not concerned with modern
concepts like civil rights, fairness, or cooperation. Religious,
bronze-age mentality has no compromise, does not accept that
unbelievers have the same rights, and that women are weak, an
therefore, property. This is an eternal value system, as it has been
with us for centuries, and as far as I can tell, it's long overdue for
an upgrade to a 21st century values system.
(11) True religion protects the human rights of everyone and prevents
their violation.
Again -- it's not been shown hisorically. If Christianity were "the
true religion", then Jews' rights were not violated when Christians
tortured them during the inquisition. organized religions have
traditionally opposed human rights activism, from giving women the same
rights as men, to giving black people the same rights as whites, and to
giving Jews the same rights as Christians. Time and time again, it has
been religious people who fought to prevent human rights from being
equally spread.
(12) True religion ensures social justice,equality and security for all
its adherents.
Well, if your religion controlls the society, and has control of the
law enforcement, you do not perceive injustice, when people who are
unbelievers are hurt by your religion.
(13) True religion ensures a happy, holy, healthy mind in a healthy
body.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/interfaith-dialogues/14931-14-bad-justifications-for-religion.html
Religion has nothing to do with mental illness. the causes of mental
illness are complex, and no religion can effectively prevent the
biological, social, and circumstantial factors that cause mental
illness from occuring. That having been said, social pressures can
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=14931
often cause mental problems for people. Religions use social pressure
to persuade people to give into the will of the faith, religious
leaders often condemn critics, unbelievers, or people who they think
are not faithful enough. The pressure to be accepted into the group or
to be accepted into the inner circle of the faith is often too great
for people to bear, and the result can often be mental illness. One can
easily see that there are very few atheists in mental hospitals, and
studies have been done of religion in mental hospitals. Nearly all the
patients are religious. Mental illnesses often manifest themselves in
perceptions of supernatural things -- hearing voices that the patient
thinks are gods, devils, or spirits, believing themselves to be the
messiah, or the antichrist, etc.
(14) True religion provides for good governance of society and good
care of its citizens.
There is not one case in history of this ever happening. Every single
time a religious society allowed their religion to dictate the
governance of society, the result has been injustice, wars, purges,
pogroms, and persecutions. Case and Point -- the Holy Roman Empire,
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