Religious belief is a deteriment to social development

[Morality Games]

Quote by: HelioPrime That might not even be the best term, since a powerful pope could have secular goals of worldly power and conquest and at the same time be considered a humanist pope because of his concern over art and lore that other clergy reject.

Didn't people (like me) take the time out of their day to explain why this was an asinine point in the past? I think it had something to do with "a few men from a long time ago" versus "millions of people active today".

Anyway, the term better represents atheists, because they are completely concerned with secular, human-orientated projects. Humanism for any pope, even a worldly one, must necessarily be second-tier in importance.

[HelioPrime]

Quote by: Morality Games Didn't people (like me) take the time out of their day to explain why this was an asinine point in the past? I think it had something to do with "a few men from a long time ago" versus "millions of people active today". Anyway, the term better represents atheists, because they are completely concerned with secular, human-orientated projects. Humanism for any pope, even a worldly one, must necessarily be second-tier in importance.

Then why is is when today I call America a democracy I get attacked by the libertarian crowd? Like you pointed out, today the majority of Americans would call our country a democracy. So then the strict libertarians are wrong. American is a democracy.

Sorry to go off the OP. Just bugs me that select people can jump around rules and claim anything they'd like because being an atheist gives them some kind of freedom.

[WakeTFU]

Quote by: sdbest This paper "Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies" concludes that "The U.S. is ... the least efficient western nation in terms of converting wealth into cultural and physical health. Understanding the reasons for this failure is urgent, and doing so requires considering the degree to which cause versus effect is responsible for the observed correlations between social conditions and religiosity versus secularism." In other words, religion appears to hurt societies. Could this be true? I think so.

the reason is laziness, not religion. Although it is scary to think that beleif in an afterlife may excuse you for doing what you should do in this one, hardly anyone thinks this way and it'd be foolish to blame religion for the current state of affairs...Blame yourself and get to work

[Hurt]

Quote by: WakeTFU the reason is laziness, not religion. Although it is scary to think that beleif in an afterlife may excuse you for doing what you should do in this one, hardly anyone thinks this way and it'd be foolish to blame religion for the current state of affairs...Blame yourself and get to work

I'd say it could be both - some people use religion to justify laziness.