Originally posted by Ripsnort
You'd have alot of poor people worse off than they are now if no religion existed.
If you look at the brutal history of many religions, (and I am thinking of christianity during the middle ages), it is much harder to make the claim that people are better off. It is true that people in religious organisations today do a lot of good in the world, but why can't those same people get together to help others without associating themselves with organisations that have the kind of history that religions do. It would be like going out and getting a group of people together who are going to help the poor ... then calling it the nazi party.
I have heard your statement many times before, and I think one of the main assumptions behind it is that the only way people will help others is if they are religious, which flat out isn't true. People can be moral, upstanding members of their community whether they follow a religion or not. Religious people think they have the market cornered on what is good behaviour, but if they would step back for 2 seconds they would see that usually the opposite is true. What is the reaction of most religious people when they find out that someone doesn't believe in their religion? Even if that person is a law-abiding person who has never done anything to harm anyone. "So and so just moved in next door, and he is a muslim/hindu/different form of christian/athiest/whatever!!1!!1!"
All religion adds is insecurity and intolerance ... and the current argument that I see over and over is that Islam is the evil religion because its followers express their intolerance with violence. On the other hand christianity which (generally) expresses its intolerance in less violent ways, is somehow the good religion?
