Religion does more harm than good.

None of the three points made in the last posts' conclusion proves religions do more harm than good. The first point: It has not been proven that, like states, religion uses force in a net negative fashion. While religion is used as a justification, it does not mean it is net negative or even negative at all. Replace 'religion' with 'freedom' and you come to the same point. I attempted to prove above that people do act on 'faith' all the time. No one contemplates every action they make. They take a leap of 'faith' in most of their actions. It was never argued that people who ascribe to a different philosophy is 'less moral'. In the last point, it was never argued non religious organizations do positive things. What was argued was that religions promote succesful family formation and reproduction. I will spend the rest of my post to display some of the mountain of evidence proving this final point. http://www.washingtonpost.com... "Fertility correlates strongly with religious conviction. In the United States, fully 47 percent of people who attend church weekly say that their ideal family size is three or more children. By contrast, only 27 percent of those who seldom attend church want that many kids." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... "It turns out that the European countries have generally lower fertility than could be expected from their socioeconomic standing. In the Arab countries, culture and religion tend to have strong positive effects on fertility. Across cultures, Catholicism has a fertility-increasing effect but it--like the effect of all religions except Islam--is diminishing over time. In contrast, the effect of culture (as measured by a regional variable) on the level of national fertility has been increasing at the expense of socioeconomic effects." http://papers.ssrn.com... "Since the onset of democracy in 1975, both total fertility and Mass attendance rates in Spain have dropped dramatically." "Even if rates of church participation have decreased dramatically,religiosity has acquired a more relevant meaning than before in terms of its implications for demographic behavior. Second, individuals in small denominations such as Muslims and Conservative protestants within an, otherwise, homogeneous religious landscape are likely committed to their pronatalist affiliation and have more children on average." http://www.oeaw.ac.at... "Secularisation was a necessary condition for the rise in individualisation as it brought about a release of the norms and restrictions that originated in rules and rites set by the churches. As secularisation continues the Christian churches are less and less capable of influencing people's behaviour (van de Kaa 1999: 42) and religion can, as a consequence, be disregarded." During the recent decades secularisation has been a topic of debate among researchers of sociology of religion. Where Europe is concerned, the decline in the influence of the churches is rarely disputed, unlike the decline in religiosity not bound to an institution" We found that in most of the countries affiliated people have higher fertility ideals, higher odds of intending to have another child and a higher number of expected children than non-affiliated persons." http://www.demographic-research.org... "This substantially positive effect of religious beliefs on fertility must have something to do with the role of religion in guiding human behavior in terms of the issues of sexuality, cohabitation, marriage, and the function of family. In general, a number of religious doctrines are linked to delayed sexual debut and entry into cohabitation, and more positive attitudes toward entering marital unions and having children (Bearman and Bruckner 2001; Lehrer 2004; Marchena and Waite 2001). As stated earlier in this article, Catholicism encourages large family size and is strongly against abortion. The Mormon theology emphasizes the central role of the family in the religious community. Both Protestants and Mormons have incentives to marry early and are oriented to home-based activities. As a result, deeming such religious beliefs important in daily life makes people more likely to internalize their church teachings and thus to favor a large family size. This perhaps explains why religiosity is influential in terms of both male and female fertility. In sum, religion is a very important institution spreading behavioral norms and providing social support for people. My analyses reveal that the fertility gap among religious groups is decreasing, whereas religiosity, especially religious beliefs, demonstrates a significantly positive effect on fertility. Women do not exhibit a substantially greater likelihood of being influenced by either religious denomination or by religiosity than men. Thus, religion does not seem to be a factor that differentiates male and female fertility among the U.S. religious population." http://www.amazon.com... "Although most parts of Europe and North America saw a substantial decline in fertility from the later nineteenth century, the extent and pace of decline varied between and within countries. Many observers have seen religion as a major reason for these differences, but the link between religion and levels of fertility has often been explained in a crude and over-generalised way. This collection of case-studies reveals a much more complex and varied picture. Religion was indeed a key factor, but it did not operate in any neatly predictable way." etc.etc. etc. Total Fertility Rates http://en.wikipedia.org... US 2.1 (basically replacement. Note white Americans is 1.83. Most of the growth is with Hispanics.) Australia 1.81 UK 1.85 I don't see much reason to cheer these numbers.