Talk:Criticism of religion/Archive 2

Poverty, Corruption and Hindu Religion.

 * Is there any relation between Poverty, corruption, Hunger and attrocities on women and children in India with Hindu Religion?
 * vkvora 17:38, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Not in the religious texts, but in the politics and greed of the people in power. It is written that during the age of Kali Yuga (of which we have been in since 3000 BC (approx), religious priciples have been slowly degraded in the 4 castes. Ergo, the Brahmins are no longer respected by the Ksaitra's (administrator class) and righteous rule for the people has broken down. It was for warned that the result of this breakdown of morality would be the lower classes suffering at the hands of the ruling classes.

Removed section
''Proof for this is the very clear sixth commandment in Jewish, Christian and Muslim religions concerning murder. These three religions have clashed so many times in the past, with a profane number of deaths. This violence continues in the present day, particularly in the Middle East, a key centre for these religions. The''

This is getting involve in too much details in specific religious doctrine. Furthermore it is highly misleading because while Islam does "respect" the sixth commandment, there are also other verses in the Koran that clearly commands muslims (during the time of the prophet Muhammand) to kill infidels.

The fact that the violence continues to the present day is irrelevant to the section. Ohanian 23:45, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

NPOV tag added
I re-added the NPOV tag. Reasoning:

- Style is essentially a directed speech; it reads like a transcript from an atheistic college professor's lecture.

- Many POV-type words and statements. Examples include: "arbitrary restrictions" "elevating to moral status lots of ancient and ill-informed rules" "Terrorist atrocities such as 9/11 and the 2005 London bombings          are sometimes carried out by those with very strong religious           convictions" (While this may be true it does not really carry           any weight - Terrorist atrocities are also sometimes carried           out by people who dislike Western Society. This doesn't make a           valid criticism of non-Western societies.)

- This is not an article useful for researching what criticisms for religion are available, and why; too few references and sources, too many ambiguous statements and unexplained generalizations.--CredoFromStart 19:37, 4 October 2006 (UTC) (I added signature belatedly... left it out the first time by accident. Original entry was October 1st)


 * Nonsense. It is fact that the 9/11 bombers were religious fanatics, not a point of view. And it is fact that many religions have arbitrary restrictions (no pizza allowed on Tuesdays) and adhere to rules written down hundreds of years ago. To put in explicit examples would not be wise since that would be singling out particular religions for criticism. But yes OK, the article could be improved. Poujeaux 12:45, 2 October 2006 (UTC)


 * The NPOV criticism I have comes from what can be called point of view wording. "Arbitrary" is a word that would indicate that there is no real reasoning; I'd argue that people who beleive in a religion would not call them arbitrary. "Ill-informed" is another example. As far as the fact that 9/11 terrorist bombers were religious fanatics - it is fact; I won't dispute that. The point of view part comes in in saying that because some people use religious fanaticism as a basis for terrorism, religion in general is to be criticised. It is akin to saying that because some people use the internet to get child pornography, internet usage as a whole is to be criticised.--CredoFromStart 19:37, 4 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Religion A says its OK to eat cows but you cant eat pigs. Religion B says you can eat pigs but not cows. Thats arbitrary. And yes, availability of child porn is a valid criticism of the internet. Poujeaux 14:57, 11 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Although I would be the first to admit that I am very critical of religion in general, I'm not sure I entirely agree. Anthropologists such as Marvin Harris have made coherent arguments in favour of the view that religious dietary restrictions may reflect specific physical conditions in the religion's historic environment. While these restrictions may not make sense in today's context, they may have had strong survival value in the past... and therefore could not necessarily be considered arbitrary.


 * The same could go for the idea of "ancient and ill-informed ideas". Perhaps this (and similar) statements should be re-worded to express their lack of relevance (as perceived by critics of religion) to modern life; that might better suit the spirit of NPOV. - FlyingOrca 21:30, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

proto section
Monopoly on virtue

Another criticism of religion is that it promotes the idea that virtuous behaviour comes from obeying religious regulations. This has the unfortunate effect of implying that people who do not follow religious regulations are therefore (by logical deduction) behaving immorally.

An example of this would be the idea that women who "do not cover themselves up modestly" have tendencies for immorality and therefore does not have a good character.

Virtue comes from religion
One can understand the concept of dilution. Chinese wispers, the message gets changed as it is handed down. This happens allot in religions. Politics changes religions from what is right to what is expedient to one person or one group of people's political objective. If you read the books of many religions you will see that some things are common accross all denominations. These commonalities are likely to contain the true message, as it is less likely that one corruption will spread through all denominations. Of course people take virtuous principles for granted, as society promotes them and we are surrounded by them constantly as we grow up. Without religion, these virtues wouldn't have gained support accross society. That is why Chritians can't relate to Muslim virtues of promoting shyness in women. Shyness is seen as a virtue for women in many religions, indeed if you think about it, in general women are more shy than men concerning their bodies. There is something to be said about people in general who cover up their exterior. You can't see their front cover, so you will judge them more for what they say and how they act. Religion is against selfishness, a politic that often gets in the way of 'logical virtue'. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.4.59.203 (talk) 01:49, 6 December 2006 (UTC).

Elton John
Ban religion, says Elton John

Sat Nov 11, 4:27 PM ET

LONDON (AFP) - Religion should be outlawed because it lacks compassion and promotes hatred of homosexuals, gay pop star Elton John said in an interview.

The singer was speaking in a special "gay edition" of The Observer newspaper's Music Monthly Magazine, where he shared his views on subjects ranging from being a music icon to Prime Minister Tony Blair's stance on the Iraq war.

At a time when religion is the subject of fierce debate in Britain over the right to wear the Muslim veil and other faith symbols, John complained there was a general lack of leadership from spiritual leaders.

"I think religion has always tried to turn hatred towards gay people. From my point of view, I would ban religion completely," he was quoted as saying.

"Organized religion doesn't seem to work. It turns people into really hateful lemmings and it's not really compassionate. The world is near escalating to World War Three and where are the leaders of each religion?

"Why aren't they having a conclave? Why aren't they coming together? I said this after 9/11 and people thought I was nuts. Instead of more violence why isn't there a meeting of religious leaders?" he said.

"It's like the peace movement in the Sixties. Musicians got through to people by getting out there and doing peace concerts but we don't seem to do them anymore.

"If John Lennon were alive today, he'd be leading it with a vengeance."


 * Thank you for posting this, I have added the original source of the interview to the article. --Merzul 02:06, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

"Elton John critizes religion out of frustration because there are many in religion that are ignorant, and those people are the one's who give religion a bad name"

The Riddle of Epicurus
If God is willing to prevent evil, but he is not able? Then he is not omnipotent.

If he is able, but he is not willing? Then he is malevolent (wishing to harm people).

If he is both able and willing? Then why does evil still exists?

If he is not able and not willing? Then why call him a God?
 * Yes, yes, but this is more an argument against the existence of God. I have added a section that could mention this. Since the problem of evil is probably the main objection people have, you can add something about it. --Merzul 02:04, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Solution to the riddle
In your past life you did something evil. This evil is done to you in the next life. Cause and effect. Perfectly fair, why would God want to stop suffering you deserve.

If you watched the matrix, you will know the concept of breaking free from the bondage of sensual enjoyments (like sex, food, etc). People have the habbit of getting addicted to things which then control them eg; drugs, gambling, illicit sex, food, etc God wants people to be able to control themselves, and know their true spiritual self. That means getting over the illusion of one's body being one's self. One's soul is trapped inside a body, and becomes illusioned that the body is its true home. One forgets that each of us is a part (one small peice of the jigsaw) of God. More likly these days, people want to believe themselves to be independent of God, self sufficient. People run away from best practice believeing themselves to know best. This leads to sin obviously. Because of pastlives, all sins balance out in the end. Therefore, God will only intervene when an individual is devoted to knowing God. Sometimes, a devotee of God will prefer for God not to intervene, wishing to suffer for past sins rather than recieve special treatment.

The answer is that God is able to do what ever he pleases, what ever is best on a grand scale. We are not able to comprehend the complexity, so we find it hard to take suffering when we don't know what we did to deserve it. God gives us free will. That is why evil exists. God wants us to work out a path back to relating to God. Suffering sometimes brings us to reexamine ourselves, to reflect and sometimes look for help from God. Other times we react negatively to suffering because we blame God, when it is our own karma coming back to get us, even from a previous life. People often fear what they do not understand. That negative approach always leads to insecurity, in all areas of our life, including our relationships. If you blame God for your sufferings because you do not comprehend what it is your being got at for, really what your saying is you fear being responsible for your sins, and you'd rather blame God for your suffering.

A C Grayling
http://www.acgrayling.com/secular.html


 * Yes, A. C. Grayling seems notable enough to be cited in the article, although I hadn't heard of him before. Thanks for posting this. --Merzul 02:09, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Major reorganization
I have tried to turn this list of criticism into more of an article, splitting it into 3 main areas of criticism. Now, my moving stuff around and putting similar material closer to each other should highlight some overlap in the criticisms. Thus, some criticism could be removed and responses to the criticism can be added. I also added a stub-section of what is probably one of the most significant criticisms, namely of the content of religion. While this is often religion-dependent, the fact is that most critics of religion focus on the semitic religions and the God concept of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, so the stub section I added I think is quite important. So, what else... well, one problem, the title "Religion is obsolete" I admit is not very NPOV, but then... what part of the article is? :) At least we are seeing some references being added!!! --Merzul 02:00, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Name of section: I corrected it to implausible claims, which isn't the best title, but I don't know what else to call it. It's this objection: "Religion is bad because it teaches things that almost certainly aren't true". Another suggestion was to call it "unverifiable claims", but that's a bit narrower as that covers lack of evidence, but some critics claim there is substantial positive evidence to reject religion. --Merzul 20:31, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Critisism should be scientific not irrational
The following phrase quoted by a supposed scholar does not stand the test of logic, and is in my opinion poor critism.

"Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable"

Logic can only be reasonably applied to things that we know of and can quantify or describe or research using our senses. Religion (theology) is a branch of philosphophy that deals with what is outside our physical domain. By logic, 'the improbable' suggests a statistical improbability. As the spiritual domain can't be measured, it is impossible to quantify the likelyhood of its existence, and therefore one cannot logically assert that faith in spiritual deities is either illogical or improbable. Granted, one can't logically assert that spiritual deities exist from a scientific standpoint. We can however point indirectly to evidence of a divine creator. Take the mathematical symetry behind the physics of the universe, something that is quite non random, and definitly an intricate design. The presence of an eternal God is quite consistent with our own earthly logic. Everybody knows that you don't get something from nothing. So therefore it is logical that the material world(s) could well have been instigated by God. If not, then logically how can one ascertain where abouts matter came from, and how it came to be formed with such mathematical precision.

I suggest that a better definition of faith: Faith is the belief in the existence of something indefinable (or beyond human measurement) by use of logical theoretical reasoning (much the same as theoritical physics).

Someone's faith is not necessarily illogical. Many scientific hypotheses assert assumptions that have not been tested scientifically, however they are logical extensions of our existing knowlege or material derived logic.

In short, I think it most un-scientific to assert that something is improbable when you can't even measure its presence. As humans we should be happy to accept that our powers of perception are somewhat limited to that which we can measure.

Some people may have faith or belief that they can't or haven't fully thought through or researched. Such faith would be better described as baseless. Those whose faith is bounded by logical extension of their world, then that person has discovered metaphysics.


 * This page is for recording attested and documented criticisms of Christianity, whether they are justifiable or not. Some criticisms of religion are irrational, but that does not make them automatically not worth mentioning. Your definition of faith is not adequate, since very few people who have a religious faith make any reference to logical theoretical reasoning. Ming the Merciless 10:29, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Causes followers to hurt others
This should be merged with religious war  Another criticism of religion is that it is commonly used as a justification for war and other atrocities. The followers of a religious doctrine try to make life miserable for those of other belief structures because they think they are doing god's duty. When religions people say that their religion is peaceful what they really mean to is to be peaceful only toward those of the same belief. In fact religious people are encouraged to see people of other faiths as inferior and to hurt them whenever possible. Because of this religion is analogous to racism, in that people are treated based on their belief structure instead of skin color and both ways are equally wrong.

I wish to point out that a lot of the points above has already been mention in various sections of the article. The only new bit is


 * Used as an excuse for violence in order to advance (some) political aims.

Even this has been mentioned in religious war
 * 220.239.110.225 07:23, 10 December 2006 (UTC)