Is religion a crutch?

reply to post by hudsonhawk69

So what if religion is a crutch? Is it more harmful that sex, drugs, alcohol or any of the other human vices?

Yes

Sex is hardly destructive... It's how we make more people. Drugs, including illicit drugs, have many useful effects on humanity. Alcohol, I would say this one is more destructive than not but it still pales in comparison with the mal-effect that religion has on humanity.

I would risk getting an STD or having a "bad trip" over the very probable risk of going to war for a cause I truly cannot comprehend and may not even exist. STD's and Cocaine did not take down the World Trade Center.

LINK Religion, especially in the west and middle east, has been very destructive and has even been a part of the cause of things like rape, alcoholism and drug use, and child abuse.

As an aside. I cannot leave out the idea that peoples' nationalistic beliefs in their government or any other subgroup can definitely be considered religious. We have holidays (holy days) for stuff like the creation of our government for crying out loud.

EDIT:

Religion is a crutch, an excuse, and sometimes a way to control people. Religion is a lot of things.

Also, I wish more religious people were like the Amish people. They don't try to make me follow their rules, they just keep to themselves unless they are utilizing their incredible craftsmanship to sell to outsiders. I think there exists a small subgroup of Christians that are truly non violent and do not promote child abuse, war, or imposing morality on society.... but these people are few and far between.

Originally posted by Taupin DescipleThe one's you're talking about and the one's who grab the headlines are the ones who give true Christians a bad name. But since they do grab the headlines so much, people think it's the norm.

It's not.

And there are some huge reasons why this is like this.

I'm one of the few Christians I know who is leaning more to "the good side" (for whatever that's worth) of Christianity. Among known Christians, we talk about this and that charity case, and what we still need to meet our goals for aid, but we rarely point out a charity and say "Hey, we're doing this!" I know for a fact that there's members of our movement that don't want to receive outside money for what we do...but apparently WE are being more open about our charity cases than we used to be. Part of that is because our good deeds aren't supposed to be shouted from the rooftops because we're supposed to be worried about our intent as well as what we do.

Originally posted by WHOS READY
if it wasn't for the 'elites' giving us religion they wouldn't have the control over us!!

Usually the "elites" are proven usurpers of a religion. They don't usually start one on their own--although it does happen.

just like the other ages have had religious figures given to the slaves!!

Before Christ's time, the Romans, and earlier, the Greeks, were into adopting the slave's own beliefs as their own, and with slaves in the US, the religion that was "forced upon" (debatable how much force for the religion SPECIFICALLY) the slaves was the existing religion of their masters. It wasn't coined out of thin air just for the slave's subjugation in either case. For the former, the reasons the Pharisaical leaders were born out of disturbed reaction to Hellenized Jews (Sadducees)--those who's belief system was corrupted, and were focused on breaking up the changed direction their faith was overall heading into. The high priests were extremely Hellenized--those are the people who are considered to be the natural leaders of the Jewish faith.

religion keeps people in a stupid pathetic state of mind, divided and conquered!!

Not what the Australian Skeptics magazine found out a few years aback. Generally speaking, the more "conservative" a Christian is, the less likely they are to believe in new ideas and products. Which prevents from quickly believing in superstitious drivel unless it has been relatively "proven" to them for an extended period of time, then when stuck with superstitious drivel, extensive proof has to be given that the superstition is false. They don't change their minds until there's a need to. This can be both good and bad.

what you think to this?-

I don't see any historical facts in your accusations, therefore, your points aren't applicable, for me. Please, bring sources for your contention.

this human with a supposed name of jesus tried giving us great spiritual teachings, the 'elites' new where these teachings would lead, so they killed him.

They killed Him because He was directly challenging the self-appointed leaders (Phairisees)--some of which are documented as joining Him, by the way--because their by-tehn established reformation back to the old ways missed the intent of the OT Law.!

jesus is pronounced heyzeus in south america, it comes from 2 or 3 greek words that translate to son of zeus..

Jesus late 12c. (O.E. simply used hælend "savior"), from Gk. Iesous, which is an attempt to render into Greek the Aramaic proper name Jeshua (Heb. Yeshua) "Jah is salvation," a common Jewish personal name, the later form of Heb. Yehoshua (see Joshua). As an oath, attested from late 14c. For Jesus H. Christ (1924), see I.H.S. First record of Jesus freak is from 1970. Jesu, common in M.E., is from the Old French objective case.

Jesus is a transliteration of Iesous, which in turn is a transliteration of Yeshua--which we now translate (not transliterate) as Johsua. My documentation is from Etymology Online which is a secular source for any given word's history. Besides, it's not practical to go to the Spanish for the English translation because a lot of partial translations in English are generally older. Remember, Spain was predominantly full of conservative Christians, they were slower to change their mode of operation than their English counterparts: Starting point: English vs. Spanish

alberto rivera told how the vatican created islam. islam = mal si = bad yes in spanish..lol.

. Link that. I want to take a good look at that.

when the roman empire[1st reich] collapsed it went underground and became the vatican

Other way around. Christians were attempting a subversion of Roman powers since Christ's time.

2012 is a time for growing up, evolving and stepping up to the next level!!

Ah, now I expose myself as being a bit more "conservative". There's plain not enough evidence for me to come to this conclusion.

can enough people wake up, stand on their own 2 feet and tip the balance?? i hope so!!

The problem with people waking up is that they're not going to just unify because they "woke up". Division will happen.