Religion and faith is not beneficial to the well being of society and humanity.

Let us review Pros resolution. He is claiming that religion and faith are not beneficial to the well being of humanity and society. Religion - the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, esp. a personal God or gods. (2) The belief in a God or group of Gods[1]Faith - strong belief or trust in someone or something [1]So when we break this down. Essentially he is saying that the belief in a higher power is not beneficial toward the well being of humanity. This is not limited to strictly Christianity or any set religion, but he is saying any major religions can cause the contentions he mentioned in his opening round. I am an atheist and I can see where Religion can cause harm to people, but saying it is not beneficial to humanity at all is a long step. Remember we are not weighing whether or not religion has caused more harm than good, or whether it has caused more good than harm. This is a debate about whether it is beneficial to humanity or has been beneficial to humanity. I am going to start with offering rebuttals to his contentions and then offering some contentions of my own. Religious inspired violence.This is and always has been the case. That religion can act as a catalyst for hate and war. Regardless that is irrelevant to the debate. Since we are not weighing whether or not there is more harm caused by religion than good, bringing up the violent acts that religion has caused is a non sequitur. None of the violence done in the name of religion cancels out the good that is done in return. Another major question is whether or not violence would have still happened if there where no religion. Almost any major conflict that one can name, has mostly been a fight over land and territory. While religion has been a catalyst in some of these situations, even without the influence of religion there is a high probability that it would have still occurred.Political Oppression( Such as same sex marriage )This is taking the beliefs of some and applying it to all. Granted the debate over whether or not gay people should be married, can be made outside of religious intent. We have mostly evolved past the severe tyranny that religion had over the masses at prior periods in time. There are still a lot of Christians that support same sex marriage as well[2]. I know a few gay people whom go to my old church and they are accepted and firmly believe they are going to heaven. They even had their marriage in the church. The question is often brought up because of Sodom and Gomorrah, and how it was destroyed. If you broke the bible down back to Greek and Hebrew some of the verses have an entirely different meaning. While there was same sex marriage occurring in the cities that were destroyed, there was also adultery, types of pornography, open sex, corruption within the government, and even their treatment toward messengers from the lord. It even says in the bible specifically that ten holy men could not even be found in the city. They were destroyed for their transgressions and people automatically link homosexuality as the main cause of that because of verses taken out of context. View [3] for more information.EducationThis is only some less educated and persistent Christians that force this. Even the Roman Catholic Church has changed its doctrine and a majority of the church including arch bishops and even recent popes accept evolution as a fact. They have just changed to more of a theistic evolution belief. That is accepting the fact that God guided evolution. Even the Arch Bishop of Canterbury debated Richard Dawkins on a piece of this information as well[5]. If the video does not show up in my sources, look at the top right of the page. What my adversary is doing, is taking the harm religion has caused and focusing on that. He however has not mentioned some of the good religion has done. Contentions(1) It gives people faith and hope to live. When people whom may be having a bad life or are going through bad times it gives them hope to live. In specific regards to when a loved one dies, they can live their life with the hope of seeing them again. (2) Charity in the name of religion is also one that stands out. People who believe in Christ often will give up their life to go minister and help other people in rural areas. Anywhere from Africa to Afghanistan, where most people would be scared to testify. Religion serves as a way to serve people whom are in poverty because of how some religious people perceive the message of Christ or their religious books. (3) We founded America on Christian principles. (4) If you ignore some of the stupid parts of the bible, there are good messages as well. The golden rule and so forth. [1] http://www.merriam-webster.com...[2] http://www.gaychristian.net...[3] http://www.str.org...[4] http://en.wikipedia.org...[5] http://www.youtube.com...