Does organised religion cause more bad than good?

I think it does too.....

"religion is the opiate of the masses" said Karl Marx, and he understood why most folk needed that drug to get through each day.

But i've been clean for some time now, and can tell you, the drugs don't work...they just make you worse.

Organised religion will only ever cause a problem if people are inolerant of it, or those in said religion are intolerant of others.

As most organised religions are all about tolerance I would have to say an emphatic no. It's those outside of organised religion that cause the problem.

As has been said, what harm should come of it? Most morals laid down by religion are morals that everyone should abide by, anyway.

The only problem is the fact that this religion thinks they have it over this other religion, and to prove it, a few fanatics do something drastic.

~Ciao Lipton

Chris, using fanaticisim to debase the entire scale of organised religion is like using a Ku Klux Klan Wizard's point of view to represent the opinion of the western world.

Get some perspective.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=organised

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=organized

Organised is a most acceptable variant. Save some face of your own, mate.

Plus, I'm ENGLISH. English people spell ENGLISH English.

"As has been said, what harm should come of it? Most morals laid down by religion are morals that everyone should abide by, anyway.

The only problem is the fact that this religion thinks they have it over this other religion, and to prove it, a few fanatics do something drastic.

~Ciao Lipton"

Chris, Lip is talking about religion as a whole, you're not. Sort it out before you burst a vessel that could be important.

A few fanatics can easily be thousands in the face of organised religion around the world which comproses of BILLIONS. I would label fanatics 'the few' myself.

And few can be more than two or three, the brave fighter pilots of the Battle of Britain are referred to as The Few. There were thousands of them, too. Perspective, Chris, perspective.

I thought you went to go pee.

Again, I'm ENGLISH, I spell ENGLISH. You're not JPM so please don't try and elevate yourself to a plateau you can't compete with.

Few: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=few

A small number of persons or things: “For many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14).

If you can't see the perspective in that then I give up.

D Day: What does what matter? I used an The Few as an example of perspective, you use D Day to show you heard of D Day. Way to go.

Your balls, Chris, your balls. Present them...

I'll have a civilised conversation with you when you gain a degree of civility.

Back to the topic now, perhaps?

It's easy to remember that even though the hijackers of 9/11 were from the middle east not every one from the middle east is going to hijack a plane and fly into the Chrysler building. It would be racist to think otherwise, right?

Why is this ideal not applied to religion in exactly the same way?

Are all Catholic Priests child abusers?

Is the Pope a Nazi because he was in the Hitler Youth?

Is your neighbour going to blow up a bus because he is Islamic?

The obvious answer to all three questions is no, but does that stop suspicion?

Two questions:

With the premise that 'it only takes one idiot to spoil a party', do the actions of fanatical groups and rogue Priests tar the judgement on all organised religions by those outside of them?

If the media was to remove any and all stories concerning religion, would people's opinion of religion change over time?

Can we restore the respect in here, why is it that guys always feel like ball licking solves everything.

That was crude and uncalled for, dont get personal, that's not an intellectual debate, that's an episode of Jerry Springer, and we're all better than that. Correct me if I'm mistaken, boys.

Dont make me spank you (not that I wouldnt gladly do it...).

I'm not going to back down from a baseless personal attack now am I? And it's not like I returned to it after the conversation was set back on course. Chris just wants to continue comparing penis size, unfortunately now he has envy and feels the need to break up the interesting discussion we were having.

But then when one is challenged intellectually and doesn't realise the extent, freedom and range (not forgetting origin) of the english language they really do require correction, even if they choose to ignore it. We can only give directions to the light switch, the person has to use it all by themself.

Anyways... K, you can spank me later, but how about just answering my two questions for now?

You both deserve spankings, tsk, tsk, boys today.

Answering two questions, lets see:

"With the premise that 'it only takes one idiot to spoil a party', do the actions of fanatical groups and rogue Priests tar the judgement on all organised religions by those outside of them?

Obviously, people will base their judgements with the best of the best and the worst of the worst of all actions commited. People who are against certain religions or groups will obviously target the actions that are negative and use them to base their judgements on, but this is wrong and judgemental, simply because there are individuals beyond the group, and if you lose sight of the trees looking at the forest, you'll easily get confused, just like vis versa. It is important to consider the large with the small, and the group versus the individual, although there are general concensus' that you can pull from the joint mentality of most groups, religious or not.

"If the media was to remove any and all stories concerning religion, would people's opinion of religion change over time?"

I'm sure. It would take a long time, and it wouldnt change my opinion, but if you stop feeding fuel to a fire, will it eventually go out?

Nice point Mike.

I bet, back in the day when the Roman emperor introduced the Catholic faith, hence the Roman Catholic title we use now, most folk would have reacted in much the same way as anyone of todays time to a new religion.

Hence, to me, a cult becomes a religion when it reaches a solid peak of followers, and has been around for a century or more. Thus I need to destroy scientology before i die you see.

You can start with Tom Cruise.

I agree with Kevin, most religions dont cause problems but there is always someone in any case religious or not that causes something bad to happen.
Im a christian and I believe that some christians can cause problems because some of them think that they are the only right church and no other church is better them, then religion isn't about worshiping anymore its a competition and with people like that there will always be problems. But alot some non religious base a whole religion on an act of one person which is totally wrong.
~Charity~

Thank you, Bret for that. I've been unable to reach the net for some time, now.

Anyway, yes, Bret got my point. I don't know WHY you didn't, Chris.

~Ciao Lipton