Mother Teresa did not fight against poverty, she fought FOR it. Please review Christopher Hitchens's comments for what is a more objective take. As for the others, remember that they are doing it because they've been threatened with damnation; it's not out of the goodness of their heart.

@Matias I didn’t say that all religion is bad. My grandparents were the best people I have ever known and at least some of that was related to their deep religious beliefs. But if people are using their religion to justify evil, replacing it with some other “good” religion is not a solution.

@Matias I was really going for “here’s a stupid f—cking response to a stupid f—cking comment.”

I agree, the most christian Christians I've ever seen lack much structure to their belief.

I would ask is it not black and white thinking believing as many Atheists do that religion is evil period? Ignoring the fact that any movement, creed or yes belief has a myriad of effects some good, some bad. Ignoring willfully all of the human achievements that without belief in something greater would not be? I see no apology for religion in this quote. I see a recognition that simple answers like all religion is bad does nothing to actually help humans move forward. It simply demonizes the people who through their personal faith find the will to do good works and emboldens the extremists within any religion by giving them another excuse to feel attacked. The best way to defeat bad religion is not to attack it rather it is too establish why people give it power through membership, through money and time and work to change that through education, firm resistance to its actions through political and social change and the will to not play there game. The game of all evil and petty forces, the game of attack, ridicule, hate, contempt, simple answers, assumptions.

@Quarm The entire theory is just promoting false ideas. I do not believe "all religion is bad" that's an ugly, religious strawman of atheists. There is no good or bad religion. There is religion. It is an idea, a concept. Those things are not inherently good or evil.

That is the black and white thinking. I want religion to go away, not because I view it as evil, but as an outdated concept. It needs no refreshing, it needs no renaissance of good intentions, it needs to die. We've lived under false pretenses of cosmic power and lies about heaven and hell for too damn long.

@Xuande Do you think humans can live and prosper without belief? Of which religion in any form is simply a construct to harness the power of said belief. I am curious as I cannot see humanity ever not needing something separate from pure reason to give a sense of meaning to their lives. What would you imagine could or would replace religion?

@Quarm Why do we need to replace religion? You can have belief in things without it. You can have faith in things without it. It is not mandatory, we can and have survived without it. It is a predisposition of superstition that we need to move on from.

If you cannot find beauty, meaning, etc, without religion, then you're not looking hard enough.

@Xuande I agree with the finding meaning in relation to the individual. I feel we need to replace religion as an institution as it cannot help but encourage ignorance and fear as it stands now in the world. You are right we can have belief without it. What groups need though is focus and purpose,. And to me that focus and purpose needs to be grounded in reason combined with a sense of ethics that are distilled from human values. Religions need the "other" to maintain there power. We need a religion were there is no other within humanity.

@Quarm your question is based on falsehood, we don't think religion is evil, evil is subjective, "evil" people really believe they are doing good, all because they adhere to a set of rules based on a fiction, a plan set forth by the earliest of oligarchs to subjugate the ignorant into supporting them for free, those in on the scam began to become accustomed to control and kept adding to the story, embellishing over the years, until the mythos became so widely accepted and broke in many subsets to adapt to the peoples and areas they wanted to maintain their hold over. You aren't even aware of your indoctrination by the cult, the evangelists make their millions off you, you think they believe a word of it? It's the oldest enterprise in existence. You hold onto it so dearly because you have been taught dependence upon it, that free will guides you to sin and that the things we want are sins. Complete ignorance, if it could be unequivocally disproved to you, would you lose the will to live? Would you commit crime after crime because it's not a sin anymore? I doubt it. You tell me why you need it? Why people should need it instead of just teaching consideration for others, law is law because it prevents the break down of a society, its a logical decision and will continue to be so. When your rules based in nothing tell other people whats wrong when in reality it causes no harm, its a divisive source of conflict, the attempt to coerce others to your way, the first conflict, and basis of all others, religion started violence. Ending religion will end almost all violence, because the only thing left to fight over is resources, when we learn not to divide ourselves with false beliefs there would be more focus on real problems, and they may be solvable at that point.

@Matias the literal definition of fiction is "false", or if you prefer, "made up" in literary lingo. There is entertaining fiction, done with high quality that some people consider good, but it's still just made up shit.

It's a kind of psychotherapy that so many of us need. It's like lieing on the couch and talking to our therapist and trying to rationalise what happened and get past it. I must admit some people don't want to get past it and spend all their time venting instead.

It comes down to whether you believe in passively accepting religions, even though you don't follow them, or actively opposing and challenging religions, their bogus history, absurd theology, and appalling practices. I favour the latter.

@David1955 okay., that’s one way of looking at it.

@Matias You are confusing fields of discourse. 'Human dignity' and 'human rights' are societal concepts that mean whatever we agree, as a society, they should mean. Having decided what we want to call 'human rights', of course we can provide evidence for whether or not someone's rihts have been violated . My personal philosophy of life is not 'fictitious'. That would mean that I am telling lies about it. My personal philosophy is a 'lifestyle choice', for which I may give reasons and supply evidence - for example if I were vegan, it may be based purely on emotion - I may be a socialist because seeing poor people upsets me. You say you are a nihilist but you give me no reasons why I should believe that. I think, in fact, it is unlikely.

Whose definition?

“there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion”

[en.wikipedia.org]

@Matias I think 'abstract concept' is perhaps a better way to describe justice or human dignity, and fictional character a better way to describe Hamlet. By lumping them all together as 'figments of our imagination' your argument becomes too simplistic. You say you don't like philosophy and prefer science, and I can see your point if you are thinking of the 'continental' approach to philosophy. But the English analytical approach to philosophy is much closer to scientific method.

@skado Wikipedia is not the only authority. The majority of dictionaries define religion as 'belief in and worship of a superhuman or supernatural power'.

@CeliaVL
Providing an adequate understanding of a subject as complex as religion isn’t something any dictionary is sufficient for. Even so, most dictionaries I’ve seen give more than one definition, some of which don’t include any mention of “supernatural”, or exclusively require “superhuman”. So to insist that only one definition is the “right” one is every bit as narrow and dogmatic as any religious fanaticism.

1   a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
2   a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion.
3   the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices: a world council of religions.
4   the life or state of a monk, nun, etc.: to enter religion.
5   the practice of religious beliefs; ritual observance of faith.
6   something one believes in and follows devotedly; a point or matter of ethics or conscience: to make a religion of fighting prejudice.
7   religions, Archaic.religious rites: painted priests performing religions deep into the night.
8   Archaic.strict faithfulness; devotion: a religion to one's vow.

—Idioms
1 get religion, Informal.
a to acquire a deep conviction of the validity of religious beliefs and practices.
b to resolve to mend one's errant ways: The company got religion and stopped making dangerous products.

Origin: 1150–1200; Middle English religioun (< Old French religion) < Latin religiōn- (stem of religiō) conscientiousness, piety, equivalent to relig(āre) to tie, fasten (re- re- + ligāre to bind, tie; cf. ligament) + -iōn- -ion; cf. rely

[dictionary.com]

Wikipedia is no “authority” at all, as far as I’m concerned, but it is one reference to some extant ideas. I'm happy to look at any reference you'd like to provide.

@skado I don't mind how you define it - I still don't think any good is likely to come if it. The point about atheism is that we simply don't don't need that stuff.

@Matias regardless that science is purely descriptive. Meaning is forthcoming from those mere facts and many people find this enough. The fact that we live in an uncaring universe devoid of purpose means that we are free to build our own meanings.That is what science means.

I am not sure what constitutes 'bad atheism'. I think Jonathan Sacks is a well meaning man (for a religious believer), but like many well-meaning believers - woolly-minded.

@Matias I don 't think it is condescending. I believe it to be true. I am well aware of who he is. I am from the UK and I have an MA in theology. I think there are a number of people at the head of the various religions followed in the UK who have similar views. They are sufficiently intelligent to find it hard to reconcile their rationality with 'standard' religion' and end up with a kind of 'humanist religion' where you don't have to believe anything very much but just perform the rites and cultural activities. This certainly applies to the C of E.

@Matias I do not equate religion with fascism, I merely suggested a thought experiment with the text. If that is a little difficult I am sorry.

@Matias Okay, but do you not have a perspective of your own to offer.

He's comparing apples to oranges, bad science tends to be corrected. It's we there's reproducibility and peer review. Science eventually gravitates to a hypothesis that fits the evidence.
Religion is not reproducible and does not welcome skepticism. It creates "evidence" that leads where it wants.

Possibly consider religion as a technology to misdirect. I am not aware of any radical leaders who espouse subversive actions getting their hands dirty!

@Geoffrey51 I have a FB friend who boasts that her pastor used the church bus to proudly escort his parishoners to the polls to vote for Trump. When Bush W was running, I had lunch with a pastor and his wife who actively got his parishoners to vote for W. The evangelistic movement is very powerful and it is a known fact that W embraced this religion for the first time to ensure his election. Recently Trump came out with: The reason they are persecuting me is because I am a Christian.

@think-beyond what I meant was that they won’t be blowing themselves up they’ll leave that to their ‘people’

Science is pure but human use of it is not. Eugenics, War, poorly researched and tested drugs.... One could argue that religion operates in a similar vein in that people use it for both good and bad results. For me it is all about the results. My greatest problem with religion is its encouragement of ignorance and its obsession with tradition over logic and new information. I have a similar issue with scientists who cling to chosen theory and ideas in the face of new information and theories.