Instigator / Pro
4
1500
rating
8
debates
31.25%
won
Topic
#5604
Religion is of no use to society
Status
Finished
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
Winner & statistics
After 1 vote and with 3 points ahead, the winner is...
Mall
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 4
- Time for argument
- Three days
- Max argument characters
- 10,000
- Voting period
- One month
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
Contender / Con
7
1420
rating
395
debates
43.8%
won
Description
No information
Round 1
I think the institution of religion was a great idea in a pre industrial society since-
1) It helped people understand the world around them, and deal with the uncertainty of not knowing, for example religion answered big questions on how the world works
2) Religion gave people a way to deal with emotional distress, by giving them false hope that a benevolent invisible diety will take care of all their misfortunes and forgive them for all their wrongdoings
3)It gave them a sense of belonging, to a particular group, since in the olden days most of the times the most important thing that held society together was religion
But in the modern society we have way better alternatives to religion such as-
1) science can correctly and objectively answer questions about the nature of reality, and these answers are provable and objective unlike religion in which we need to "have faith" , which basically boils down to believing whatever a person(like a priest, scripture etc)assumes is true.
2) We have psychiatry and medicine to help with things like depression
3) The sense of belonging is often exploited by politicians to get what they want and do horrible things in the name of religion.
Hence I think that although religion was usefull in a pre modern society, we have far outgrown it for it to be of any use, in a similar fashion as chemistry is superior to alchemy in every imaginable way
As far as saying religion is or of no use is decided by the individual person.
There is no general objective declaration or dictation of that.
Even atheists that are religious, if these individuals choose to involve themselves in religion, that's what it is.
Besides that, religion will always be a part of our psyche and humanity. Unless a.i. or something inorganic overtakes mankind depleting the evolution of yesterday.
Religion when broken down to its bare bones is a belief system, set of beliefs, system of beliefs and practices.
Which is found in every area of life including the government.
That's why there's really no separation of church (religion) and state.
There's separation of certain churches or church religions.
The secular religion takes dominance and is the forerunner.
So not only does religion have a use but it's an integral sector of the societal fabric.
Round 2
Rebuttal
As far as saying religion is or of no use is decided by the individual person.
This is true for an individual, but not a society as a whole, there is an objective loss to society due to religion, as I highlighted in my previous argument.
Even atheists that are religious, if these individuals chose to involve themselves in religion, that's what it is
This is just absurd, atheism is the disbelief in religion, then how can it be called a religion itself?
Religion will always be part of our psyche and humanity
Humans are social animals and hence obviously need a sort of belonging to one another, but why does it have to be religion?
People chose to believe in religion as it answered difficult questions, when there was no way to get a verifiable and objective answer, but today that is not the case.
Religion when broken down to its bare bones is a belief system, a set of beliefs and practices
Yes, but that doesn't make it true, some people still believe the earth is flat that doesn't make it true.
That's why there is no separation of church(religion) and state
That is completely delusional, can you please elaborate how that is not the case?
It's an integral sector of societal fabric
There are many atheistic societies
Conclusion
Con made a rather obvious attempt to move the goalpost without providing any objective rebuttal to the points I made in my previous argument.
"This is true for an individual, but not a society as a whole, there is an objective loss to society due to religion, as I highlighted in my previous argument."
Individuals make up a society. A whole society so of course it's a society as a whole. Not meaning deciding for all but individually deciding in all.
Do you follow?
It's up to the individual to decide whether religion is useful. That is the only valid stance. You're coming along saying outright it is not useful.
Which contradicts what you just said about society as a whole. Your stance is communicating to decide for society as a whole that religion is useless.
"This is just absurd, atheism is the disbelief in religion, then how can it be called a religion itself?"
Well to keep it simple it all depends on what definition you use. If you define atheism as a lack of belief you say lack of a religion. If you define it as a belief in a lack thereof , it's another religion along with other belief systems.
Bottomline is, atheists have beliefs just as the rest of society because having beliefs is an integral facet of society and humanity.
"Humans are social animals and hence obviously need a sort of belonging to one another, but why does it have to be religion? "
We have beliefs because we don't know everything. There are somethings we can only believe in or have faith in concerning the present moment.
"People chose to believe in religion as it answered difficult questions, when there was no way to get a verifiable and objective answer, but today that is not the case."
Well the theory of evolution appears to answer questions sufficient for those with questions so they buy into believing evolution.
Also there is no verifiable way to disprove what religious folks believe in currently or else religions would not exist at all.
That is the ones that only have no way to be disproven.
"Yes, but that doesn't make it true, some people still believe the earth is flat that doesn't make it true."
Well I'm not arguing about what is true or false.
If something has been proven fact and presented to a person that has held a belief about said thing, that person can no longer hold a belief honestly about said subject. At that point, the person can just accept it as knowledge or reject it and remain in delusion.
Beliefs can only exist in the realm of a lack of knowledge.
"That is completely delusional, can you please elaborate how that is not the case?"
Remember what I said about definitions and what religion is down to its bare bones and you said yes to it.
"Religion when broken down to its bare bones is a belief system, a set of beliefs and practices"
So the government is who? A body of people. Do not these people have beliefs? Do not these people use a system of some democracy to execute elections based on who? The people that vote for what? What they believe in and vote for those that believe in what they do and to see that go into legislation, into law to regulate the people's actions and practices.
Remember that religion is a belief system that governs a way of life. People live their lives or lifestyles according to their religion. A voting citizen and elected government official, elected politician is no different in believing in the same thing, believing in policies to run society, a country, a land of people, etc.
"There are many atheistic societies"
They have faiths in a lot of things, plenty of it like everybody.
"Conclusion
Con made a rather obvious attempt to move the goalpost without providing any objective rebuttal to the points I made in my previous argument."
The actual conclusion is , it's erroneous and invalid to decide for an entire society that religion is utterly of no use. Therefore the opposing side's stance is rebutted.
Round 3
Forfeited
I rest my case .
Round 4
Forfeited
Case closed
