In your opinion, is/was Religion a necessary evil?

Necessary.

The truth is, you, as a person, are smart. Probably ranked in the top 20% of people.

There's lots more people in that lower 80%.

Secular Society has the capacity to form morality. But religion has the capacity to attach a threat to that morality that the bulk of a society can easily understand.

Read Leviticus. It's not really a religious text, it's an early health code for a small group of people, with attached threats of death and damnation. But it's not delivered that way.

And the truth is, we're still not that much more advanced.

I honestly don't know, since virtually all cultures had some form of a religion, there is no basis to compare..no culture that became without a religion. Was it necessary? apparently it was. Was it an evil? well that depends on man really. Like any sort of power, be it religion, politics, master of the household...it depends upon those holding the power. Religion served many purposes such as binding together a society, establishing traditions, inspiring art.. I would not call it an evil in and of itself, no.

I agree with your views, lord kitteh.

I also think religion was necessary during the past to bring stability and order to the society, and to bring the people under a common moral structure and a common cause.

I mean, just read about the situation of the Arab society during and after the establishment of Islam. The difference is simply extraordianary.

However, at the 21st Century, religion has become simply a casualty. As religions remain constant and stagnant, they can't keep up with changing norms and moral standards, and so are incompatible to the peace and progress of the modern society.

We don't need a book anymore to tell us what's right and what's wrong, nor is there any book which can direct us to that path flawlessly. So we're better off being our own Guardian Angels.

Is religion evil?

Yes governments can be evil and wage war, but does that mean all government is evil?

yes some religions have done evil but so have some humans does that make humans evil?

Now a the argument for a secular society is valid. but if clung to as a belief rather than an idea it then becomes a new religion in itself.

_()_

While adversity may open some people's eyes to the suffering of others (it doesn't always), leading to, in your words, "emotional maturity," if there were a god that created everything, and was in charge of how everything works, it could have created us with an inborn sense of empathy. In fact, if there really were an all-powerful, all-loving god, suffering would not exist. I know, I know. There's a bible story that explain that humans are responsible for suffering, but unless humans are as powerful as the god in the story, the god would have had to have created the capacity for suffering in order for anyone to experience it. So, it still comes back to the god of the story being responsible for everything, and making some really psychopathic choices. In any event, discussions of why a god might do anything are premature since no evidence has ever been presented that proves that such an entity actually exists. It's "putting the cart before the horse." Nothing real requires faith. .

I do not believe that religion is a necessary evil. Being spiritual, and learning all the gifts that being a human and living on this earth have to offer, is the most important thing to me. Religion just offers rules and guidelines, and in some cases, threats. They have names for thier deities, and folklore to go along with, but all still beating around the bush about whats really important.

It was a way of controlling and manipulating the masses just as it is today!!

But there was and is nothing good about it at all!!

Sadly whilst many Americans claim that America is a shining Christian, moral nation blessed by God they could not be more wrong.

The higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion!!

The US is the world’s only prosperous democracy where murder rates are still high!!

Rates for gonorrhea in adolescents in the US are 300 times higher than in less devout democratic countries. America also has uniquely high adolescent and adult syphilis rates, and adolescent abortions!!

All the lesser devout nations developed countries are the least dysfunctional!!!

George W Bush started FIVE wars in less than eight years stating each time that it was his "God Given Duty"!!

Not his duty to the electors!!

Not his duty to America!!

Just his duty to keep slaughtering heathens for his god!!

Many people quietly gain considerable spend from their faith. All they wish to do is to practice in private.

The "evil" is Fundamentalism in all it's forms. When some groups/individuals refuse to accept ANY alternatives to their POV.

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i believe in God and i think that morals are subjective to every person, every person has morals we suit them, os you say the people in powerful religious positions tried using religion for gain, i think every single person would use their own morals for gain. With God its His morals and His law and that is objective and unchangable and only meant for us to gain eternal life.

Religion, like anything with structure and power, will always fall to corruption. Faith, on the other hand, I will always see as a good thing.