[CamperBob2]

Don't get me wrong, there was a lot of bad with religion but modern faith in places like the UK or the Nordics seems to be a net benefit IMO...

Even in light of what the Christian Nationalist movement is striving towards in the US, and in light of the ugly persistence of fundamentalism in places like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan?

[jimkleiber]

I wonder if it's like any technology and trade offs between helping/hurting people. If religions help 95% of people be more loving and 5% be more hateful, would it be a net benefit? Does it depend what those 5% do with the hate or the 95% with the love? What if the percentages were different?

Obviously an overly simplistic thought experiment, yet I wonder if we have any way, that isn't arbitrary, to say if a tool is net beneficial.

Side note...I've often played with the idea in the past of what I called the case for moral superposition: nothing is good or bad, everything is good AND bad, but thinking makes it good OR bad.

[mordae]

It's more like 50/50, though. So in practice it mostly just amplifies authoritarians telling us to either submit or go to hell. The other (loving) half gets so non confrontational we never hear of them again.

[jimkleiber]

I think the "loving" half is often not fully loving but other-loving and self-hating.

"I feel annoyed that this person is doing this thing. But if I say something, they may feel angry, so I won't say something... And then will fight against myself instead."

[watwut]

Religious people are not more loving then the rest.

[em-bee]

If a religion be the cause of hatred and disharmony, it would be better for it not to exist

Any religion which is not a cause of love and unity is no religion.