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[Abernathy]

More than 300 Catholic priests in the U.S. accused of sexually abusing children and the church covered it up. Is organized religion overall helpful or harmful to society?

A new grand jury report says that internal documents from six Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania show that more than 300 "predator priests" have been credibly accused of sexually abusing more than 1,000 child victims.

"We believe that the real number of children whose records were lost or who were afraid ever to come forward is in the thousands," the grand jury report says.

"Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all. For decades. Monsignors, auxiliary bishops, bishops, archbishops, cardinals have mostly been protected; many, including some named in this report, have been promoted." https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/14/us/pennsylvania-catholic-church-grand-jury/index.html

The above is the most recent example of religion causing harm, but it seems that organized religion is really just a big business/industry and often more interested in protecting itself than helping society. Religion has been a source of violence, discrimination and hate. It indoctrinates with fear and guilt. Religion encourages pathological mental compartmentalization. Millions of people don't believe in evolution or believe the Earth is only 6000 years old. Creationism and other religious ideas can impede the progress of humanity.

I believe society would be better off if everybody made their decisions based on reason instead of a religious belief.

[jimwalton]

I think the Catholic Church should be shut down as a corrupt and depraved institution. It may be beyond help. Catholics need to abandon ship and find another port of call.

I would not conclude, however, that Christianity is harmful, nor that organized religion is just big business. You are ignoring the other branches of Christianity (millions of Christians and millions of churches) that are noble, full of integrity, and helpful. The Protestant Reformation, 500 years ago, assessed that the Catholic Church had gone corrupt and detached from it. We're still detached, and for a reason.

> Religion has been a source of violence, discrimination and hate.

Some, but not true of the vast majority. There are always wackos in every movement, and a movement is not to be evaluated by its wackos.

> It indoctrinates with fear and guilt.

The Bible was written in an honor/shame society, very different from our "guilt upon guilt" culture. Fear and guilt are more an expression of the "enlightened" West rather than the intent of the biblical writers.

> Religion encourages pathological mental compartmentalization.

Whaaaaaa??????? This analysis sound like pathological mental compartmentalization to me.

> Millions of people don't believe in evolution or believe the Earth is only 6000 years old.

Looking at the earth as 6000 years old is more an expression of our "enlightened" West rather than the intent of the biblical writers. Such an idea was not prevalent before the Enlightenment. Now, thanks to archaeology, we are coming to understand more of the ancient worldviews than could have previously been known, and we understand Genesis 1-2 more as telling us how God ordered the cosmos to function rather than how it was materially created. The young earth and 6-day creation ideas are fading, thankfully.

> I believe society would be better off if everybody made their decisions based on reason instead of a religious belief.

You are mistaken in assuming that reason and religious belief were in opposition or contradiction. Belief in God is both reasonable and rational, and there are many good evidences of his existence. Dividing reason from faith was a philosophy perpetrated by Hume and further stretched by Kierkegaard, but these are not necessarily "the way things are." I think they are false ideas that can be refuted. There is no intrinsic conflict between religion and reason.

[Nikon Richey]

Sexual abuse happens in every institution - govermental, educational, economic, sports, religious - every day and is rarely addressed and talked about due to cover ups by high officals. You may want to look up sexual abuses in universities and you'll see it's far more common than church sexual scandals. But would you also be quick to dismiss these institutions as doing more harm than good to society solely based on instances of sexual abuse?

Every system is exploited. You will find no system or human institution that is flawfree. Good and bad things come out of virtually anything from religion, democracy, capitalism, to electricity, internet and even science. They are what people use them for. There are bad people everywhere and they will always find a way to bastardize even the holiest of causes.

No matter how 'divine' a religion started out to be, it is its people who take it forward. And people are flawed, and those flaws reflect with religion. Many of mankind's greatest triumphs and achievements have been in the name of religion along with the revolutionary thoughts of some of the best intellects. Religion continues to do many great amazing works behind the scenes that are rarely, if ever, get publicized. Several instances of perceived religious harm does not outweigh all countless positive religious contributions to society. Ideologies that are not conducive and harmful to society and human survival eventually die out on their own like communism. There's a reason why religion persists up to this day. It's necessary and amazingly beneficial to human existence. Its perceived negative effects are minuscule compared to its positive influences.

[Literamus]

We can't ignore that religious people have positioned themselves in opposition to reason and science to a degree that at least is not insignificant. The more Christianity is politicized in America the more it will posture itself against reason in favor of partisan gain.

That doesn't argue against your case against OP, just calling into question your claim that mainstream religion itself doesn't perpetrate that divide.

[jimwalton]

> We can't ignore that religious people have positioned themselves in opposition to reason and science to a degree that at least is not insignificant.

I agree that there is a subgroup that has positioned themselves against reason and science, but I'm not at all convinced it's a majority. In my networks, I find very little evidence of people with that perspective, but I know those mindsets exist. It's difficult to know without reliable statistical data, but such data is elusive.

> The more Christianity is politicized in America the more it will posture itself against reason in favor of partisan gain.

The politicization of Christianity in America took on a new status back in the late 1970s and 80s, then it waned, and now for some reason it's back. I agree that the politicization of Christianity is a negative that can only work to our disadvantage. At the same time political interest and involvement is a positive effort that doesn't have to be (a) politicization or (b) against reason. We are not to erroneously conclude that political concern, involvement and leverage is equivalent to the politicization of Christianity, which is a different animal altogether.

[Literamus]

I'm still with you but it's concerning to me that religion seems to be the deciding factor for many people choosing party affiliation. It is especially concerning when Big Oil and those with corporatist ideologies are using religion to attack the green energy movement, positioning religion against science when the two don't need to even act on one other, much less be at odds.

I've never even heard a scientist concern himself with speaking on religion unless asked directly, but the boogeyman in a lot of circles is Big Science and its anti god agenda. Science serves the Left. Science wants to murder babies, play god with the environment, indoctrinate school kids against creation, worship the endeavors of humanity. Science is certainly not above scrutiny, but scrutiny requires good faith. Treating it as a monolithic evil is harming many things, even that ability to scrutinize.

I do agree that the most ignorant and fervent detractors of Science, the monolith, are a minority. But many others still do view it as oppositional to conservatism and Christianity. We should be working to strip science of its agenda when it has one, not assigning agendas to it. That's the only way it will continue to serve us objectively, which is its purpose.

Those are ways that string pullers politicize religion in the minds of the religious, but it can politicize itself as well. It's uncomfortable for me to watch Christianity continue to lobby for religious favoritism in the name of religious freedom and as far as I can tell, this war on Christians is being perpetuated by the religion itself. It goes all the way back to the doctrine that Christians will be persecuted and are fundamentally outnumbered. That is just not the case in this country, but it still attempts to nudge itself into legislation every day.

All of that is to demonstrate religion's role as a partisan tool and as a political entity. It goes beyond the political action of its members into politicization of itself.

[jimwalton]

> but it's concerning to me

Oh, it's of concern to me, too, but it doesn't seem to be within my orbit to do anything about it. I know Christians who are Republican and some who are Democrat, some who are conservative and some who are liberal. Christianity really doesn't define political party or political position, but people try to make it so ("How can you call yourself a Christian and be Democrat?"). it is especially concerning that Big Business tries to manipulate people using religion. The whole thing just too easily goes way far away from what Jesus intended, and people don't even see it. Sad.

> I've never even heard a scientist concern himself with speaking on religion unless asked directly

I put on a conference a few years back and had Stephen Schaffner as one of my speakers (Ph.D. in particle physics from Yale, now working with Harvard/MIT/Broad Institute in genetics). We also know Francis Collins is a strong believer. There are many others.

> but the boogeyman in a lot of circles is Big Science and its anti god agenda.

I don't know if this is down South or what. I'm in the North, so the Christians around me are big on science. We live in a city with a lot of colleges. Many Christian science professors, many Christian science majors. I never see the "science is the devil" or "science serves the left." It's not in any of my networks.

> Treating it as a monolithic evil is harming many things, even that ability to scrutinize.

I agree. Science isn't the enemy.

> It's uncomfortable for me to watch Christianity continue to lobby for religious favoritism in the name of religious freedom and as far as I can tell

I haven't seen that, but we can talk about it you have some specific examples that you want to discuss. I know we lobby for religious freedom. It's been quite oppressive for many decades, and is getting worse lately.

> this war on Christians is being perpetuated by the religion itself.

Not by what I see.

Some items from the news:

* 2011: InterVarsity Christian Fellowship is excluded from college campuses because they have a policy that their leaders follow Christian principles. The universities claim that they should allow people of other religions or of no religion to be in their leadership positions.
* 2012: A Christian baker in Colorado is sued for living according to their Christian principles and declining to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple.
* 2013: Christian bakers in Oregon are sued to refusing to bake a cake for a lesbian couple. The owners were subjected to mobs outside their establishment, threats to their vendors, and death threats to their children.
* 2016: The US Commission on Civil Rights, in a report or religious liberty, argued that Bible-believing Christians use the phrase "religious liberty" as a code phrase for "discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy or any form of intolerance."
* 2017: The SPLC labelled Christian churches and ministries as hate groups. Said Former SPLC spokesman and senior fellow Mark Potok in 2007: "Sometimes the press will describe us as monitoring hate groups. I want to say plainly that our aim in life is to destroy these groups, completely destroy them."
* Dec, 2017: A fire chief in Atlanta wrote a book for his church from his home on his own time about marriage being for one man and one woman. He was fired.
* Feb 2018: University of Central Oklahoma refused to allow Christian speaker Ken Ham to speak at their school.
* Feb 14, 2018: Joy Behar said Christians are "mentally ill" because they claim Jesus talks to them.
* Feb 25, 2018: The 4th church in less than a month was defaced by Satanic and anti-christian graffiti
* Feb 26, 2018: A Christian student organization at Harvard University was placed on probation for relieving a bi-sexual woman of her leadership position, saying the group "gives hate a platform."
* Mar 1, 2018: Actor Chris Pratt tweeted prayers to comedian Kevin Smith, and atheists lashed out at him, criticizing him to keep his religion to himself, and also saying it’s inappropriate to solicit prayers online.
* Mar 1, 2018: The Freedom from Religion Foundation accosted governmental officials for having Billy Graham lie in state at the Capitol building.
* Apr 4, 2018: Geo. Washington Univ. offers a seminar on "Fighting Christian Privilege" in the country.

I don't see that the war is being perpetuated by Christians themselves.

> It goes all the way back to the doctrine that Christians will be persecuted and are fundamentally outnumbered.

There isn't much physical persecution (if any at all) going on in America, but there is a lot of intellectual persecution. Even on this forum Christians are often treated like idiots. I couldn't tell you how many times I get sworn at, called names, and treated like an imbecile just because I'm a Christian, and an evangelical at that. Around the world, however, Christians are being murdered at an alarming rate.

> That is just not the case in this country, but it still attempts to nudge itself into legislation every day.

It depends how you define "Christian." People who SAY they are Christian (self-identify) is about 69%. But people who are living the Christian life, meaning that are probably the genuine Christians and not Christians in name only, is about 17%. Big difference.