Organized Religion is Harmful and Corrupt

Alrighty! I'll just go straight down and do a line by line analysis. First: Because my opponent does attack or address the observations I have made, I urge the judges to remember that the round should be based on the idea that if I prove in even one instance that organized religion is not "bad", I win :)- I never said the idea of jihad was a misconception. I only said that what the terrorists do with the jihad is a misinterpretation of the Quran and the idea of jihad. It seems the only offense you derive from the idea that organized religion is bad is from the idea that people are being harmed, but remember, this has nothing to do with all organized religion being bad. Even the Islamic Supreme Council, which I quoted in the previous attack denounces what the terrorists are doing. It would be like assuming the KKK is representative of the whole of Christianity. It would be like assuming, because pit bulls are aggressive, all dogs are aggressive. Just because one isolated incidence of a mainstream religion is doing something bad does not imply that the whole is bad as well. Therefore, I win that organized religion is not bad.- Thanks for the Concession!! That was exactly my point. Because innocents are being harmed, the terrorists who fight "in the name of Islam" are not doing so since their actions do not fall under the sharia. Therefore, your argument that organized religion is harmful does not stand, since war and isolation does not directly derive from any mainstream religion (part of the definition of organized religion). - Jihad has more than one definition yes. They technically all mean the same thing, but in apply differently in some aspects of society (Social, political, military, etc.). People decide that a word means something different because they want it to be that way. This doesn't necessarily imply that they are correct. Think about the US constitution. The Supreme Court debates the true meaning of the document every day, yes? Does this mean that the US Constitution is bad and untrustworthy when it has built up this nation from the very foundation? I think not. Same applies to the Sharia (Islamic law) and the Commandments (Christian law). Religion can change, that is true, but that does not correlate to organized religion being "bad". - So? Matthew was written later yes, but this has 1) nothing to do with the argument I was making (taken out of context) and 2) nothing to do with organized religion being bad- Red Herring Logical Fallacy, which is the attacking of an argument that I did not present to make it seem like the opponent knows what he/she is doing. Old Testament is violent yes, but I promise you that if you open up any history textbook, there will be many many more gruesome scenes and wars. Neither implies that the Old Testament is in a sense wrong. Also, this, again, does not have anything to do with organized religion being corrupt or harmful. In fact, an article by the Huffington Post on April 10th, 2012 finds that, "“Encyclopedia of Wars,” authors Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod document the history of recorded warfare, and from their list of 1763 wars only 123 have been classified to involve a religious cause, accounting for less than 7 percent of all wars and less than 2 percent of all people killed in warfare." Therefore your claim that religion causes divide is of very little importance as issues such as politics, economy, etc. have caused more blood to be shed.- Is the expansion of the Roman Empire bad for some reason? Martin Luther did do that, and it indeed was because people were being robbed. This, however, occurred exactly 500 years ago. In this day and age, such corruption does not occur. As a Christian, I know that offerings and tithing is voluntary and does not constitute one's salvation as I proved in my previous argument. Hell is not a man-made construct to those believing in a religion. We believe that God gave us the Word to warn us about hell and encourage our ascending to heaven. You may believe that hell is man made as many other agnostics do, but this does not imply that it is false. Your beliefs are not necessarily 100% true, and this round cannot be based on 100% of your beliefs.- Funny thing is, I'm in AP World History right now, and Dr. Strayer, in his book "Ways of the World" explains that the reason Constantine removed tax exemptions from churches was because he himself was Christian. This was before there was separation of church and state. That exists now so you gain no offense from that. You also don't link that into anything about organized religion being bad. - I would recommend you do your research before claiming that a fundamental part of Christianity is incorrect. Matthew 28:19, which I quoted before, says "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Sounds like Trinity is pretty clearly defined in the Bible right?- Again, it is YOUR belief that religion is made by man. The religious people believe it is given by God. Therefore, your belief has not more truth to it than my or anyone else's beliefs.- You are partially correct in saying that man wrote the holy books. Both the Islamic and Christian religions believe that the people who wrote these books were powered by God and the Holy Spirit. Most of the books in the New Testament are either written by disciples of Jesus or were letters sent by missionaries.- I'm not sure I completely understand your question? I am going to assume you are saying, "because I believe that God/Heaven is not real, how can anyone else's claims be substantiated?" Well, why do you believe that God/Heaven is not real? Don't have the empirics? I encourage you to read through "I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist" by Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek. This book gives all the convincing you need to prove that Christianity is real and is the one true faith, but anyhow, everybody's beliefs hold weight to them, they don't have to have any weight to you. The only time this is not true is when a belief has been proven to be true. Then a person's belief can have weight, or not. The book I recommend to you not only proves to you the reality of Christianity, but explains why other belief systems are false. This hopefully, does not offend you since, in my belief, all the above was said based on data and research.***Judges***: I ask that you examine my opponent's previous attacks. Not once does he/she mention "organized religion". He/she in fact simply goes on an attack on the Christian and Islamic faiths. These attacks were both non-topical and unnecessary to his/her success in this debate round. I hope this factors in as part of your voting. The key problem with my opponent's arguments is his/her Red Herring logical fallacy. He/She attacks arguments that I did not even bring up. He/she cherry picked one or two lines from my arguments and made it seem like that was all I was saying. I ask that my judges look at the core message of this debate, which is whether organized religion is "bad" due to corruption and harmfulness which I clearly prove to be false.