# Does religion do more harm than good?

Does religion do more harm than good? It is a general question spanning various religions, not just e.g. only Christianity or only Abrahamic religions.
This question needs some kind of aggregation of the harm and the good, making it challenging. To support an itemization of the debate, the debaters are allowed to post single items of harm and good, and the aggregation is left for the reader to do.
Search terms: arguments against religion.

## Religion does more harm than good
### Pro

* Pro Religion leads to religious wars.
** Objection Most religious books do not advocate for bloodshed in the name of a higher power.
*** Objection It is not important for this argument whether or not religious books explicitly advocate that. It is the religious virtues such as 'strong faith', implicit sense of superiority, top-down-command structures, built strong personal convictions, and so on that facilitate this violence.
*** Objection The Old Testament of the Bible does advocate for or commend bloodshed in many parts such as Exodus 22:17-19, Leviticus 24:10-16,, Deuteronomy 17:2-5 and Deuteronomy 17:12 NLT.
* Pro Religion stifles scientific progress by (a) outright prohibiting some theories and (b) stifling curiosity by providing pseudo-answers and the principle that belief in them without evidence or questioning is a virtue.
** Objection What even is the purpose of these findings? Think of it this way: Magnets attract because of electrons in them, but why do electrons attract? Because of smaller things inside of them(I'm simplifying here, but ifykyk) This will cause infinite regression, therefore there has to be a break in that change of explanations, therefore God exists. Secondly, because God is the final explanation anyway, there isn't a purpose of explaining anyway. Secondly, Islam, which is the true religion btw, already has answers in the Qur'an. For example, the Big Bang Theory is already in there and it was written 1400 years ago. Islam promotes looking for evidence in belief and is all about finding a reason to believe. It disproves other religions using science, so religions, namely Islam, do not stifle scientific reasoning.
** Objection The stifling of scientific progress is overstated. Religions provided monks who did the clerical record keeping services from which science benefited. It provided universities as places of learning.
** Objection Could a strong belief in technological progress not be considered a religious practice in itself?
** Objection Many scientists were religious: in them, religion did not stifle curiosity.
** Objection While nominally, religion rests on faith, e.g. Christianity produced a lot of theology, investigating abstract arguments for existence of God. That would not happen if it stifled all curiosity and made everyone satisfied with faith.
* Pro Religion leads to violence even without wars, e.g. pogroms.
* Pro Religion all too often stifles moral progress by its moral conservatism, whereas moral philosophy develops by investigation of new arguments and ideas.
** Objection Not all religion is morally conservative. For instance, Christian Protestantism presented a development of Christianity, leading to changes in practice.
* Pro Reliance on prayer delays meaningful intervention to address problems.
** Objection In Islam, we have a saying: "Tie up your camels and put your faith in God." In reality, we have no control over most things in our life, and prayer is there to bridge that gap.
** Objection Not all religions require prayer. For instance, Buddhists often meditate and practice inner reflection to understand problems. They seek Nirvana, a form of tranquility that could also mean tranquility from problems.
* Pro Many religions treat women unfairly.
** Objection Not Islam. Women are giving different rights and responsibilities than men due to their different nature. Some say this is inequality, but in reality, the job of women is much easier, but the status of a mother is the greatest status someone can have in a family.
*** Objection Men and women are not inherently different in nature. Gender socialization is the only difference between men and women, as human beings do not have great sexual dimorphism. Religion oppresses women.
* Pro Many religions treat homosexuality as immoral.
* Pro Religions slow down improving the conditions in the world for humans by providing hope for infinitely long better afterlife.
** Objection Significant technological progress was achieved during Middle Ages in Europe. The prevention of technological progress is overstated. Technological progress continues in the U.S. despite its being largely religious.
** Objection One theory states that the spirit of Protestantism contributed to capitalist work ethic. This particular branch of religion thus contributed to what many cherish.
*** Objection That is a double-edged sword: the dying species are not amused.
* Pro Religion may be dangerous for the biosphere since the faith in God makes the believers trust all problems can be overcome if God wills it.
* Pro Some religions are against contraception, contributing to population growth that leads to destruction of "God's creation".
* Pro By religious texts containing obvious contradictions and absurdities, they create the habit and expectation of intellectual dishonesty.
** Objection Not Islam. While other religions have tons of contradictions in their books, Islam has none and also talks about scientific phenomenon.
* Pro most religions say that love gives money value

### Con

* Con Religion promotes civil non-transgression and appreciation of human life as sacred.
** Objection Modern secular societies do not show high rates of transgression despite lack of faith. It is the Christian United States that has a high homicide rate, and so does Orthodox Russia.
*** Objection This needs a careful investigation of correlations and causes. The above is anecdotal.
* Con Religion promotes charity.
** Objection Modern secular societies show that charity, schools and hospitals can be funded without religion, by social democratic policies of the state and by secular charitable organizations.
* Con Historically, it was organized religion that brought schools, hospitals and orphanages.
** Objection A non religious institution would have moved to provide those things that had religion not existed
** Objection Fair enough. However, in modern times, the same or better services are provided by the social democratic state without the need to tell untruth to children and without the need to teach them that they should not think and should accept claims without proof or evidence. The mathematics teaching in particular teaches children how to prove things.
* Con Religion provides places of refuge for childless people.
** Objection Religion cannot successfully explain why good people who love God are childless. Why would God want a good people who want a child to experience infertility?
** Objection Several religions actively discriminate against those who don't or cannot have children
* Con Religion provides life with meaning.
** Objection People in secular societies find meaning without faith.
* Con Religion stops endless deliberative processes of the mind by replacing them with belief and ready-made answers.
** Objection That's a good point and it probably helps some people. However, atheists do not seem to suffer from widespread psychological difficulties resulting from interminable mental processes.
*** Objection It does seem that atheists do not suffer from a need of answers, but that may come from one's inherent satisfactory outlook on life itself.
* Con Religion provides an analog of psychotherapy by confession.
** Objection People in secular societies have access to psychotherapy.
*** Objection Although they have access to psychotherapy, the release of feeling in the act of confessing to a higher power present in most religions is much more fulfilling than either confessing to yourself or to another fellow human being.
* Con Religion provides some basic code (text) to go by.
** Objection Instead of relying on religious texts inciting to violence, people in modern secular societies have access to texts stating principles of morality, developed by centuries of philosophy.
*** Objection They have access to all texts, those that expound sound moral principles and those that expound objectionable ones. And they only have their frail human reason to select between them.
**** Objection The believers in Old Testament also have to use their "frail human reason" to resolve the glaring contradictions: on one hand, you ought not murder, on the other hand, you can when so commanded by God. In the end, the believers need to use their conscience. The difference in philosophical texts is that they contain some of the best, and admittedly also some of the worst, that human thought has to offer. The menu is much better for an inquisitive mind to choose from, to consider arguments and counterarguments.
* Con Religion has inspired great art.
* Con Historically, religion codified survival practices that kept adherents alive, such as kosher food practices. For example, modern science now knows that bad pork can be particularly dangerously due to its genetic similarity to humans.