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Does religion create unity or conflict?

baccheion

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Just wondering. I've always thought of religion as a means to unite people, and to help prevent people from acting "wrongly," but usually when I see religion applied to the masses, I see other things happening as well. Like someone using and twisting the ideals of a religion to suit their own selfish ends, or using religion to suffocate the people, or using religion (and people's faith in it) as a means to justify a BS war or the killing of many innocent people. So where do you stand, does it unite or does it create more conflict than it does good in the world?
 

Totenkindly

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I think religions can be so different that they can't be generalized that easily.

For example, I'd love to see someone try to use the B'Hai faith to become a world dictator; the faith just isn't designed that way. Some religions though can be more easily exploited.
 

Comeback Girl

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I experimented with various religions in my teens, but I decided to stick with being an atheist in the end. I think if you have a good moral compass of your own that helps you to be good to others or to take care of this world, you don't need religion. It's up to everyone to believe whatever they believe, as long as they have a good working sense of right and wrong. But what scares me about religion is how people try to force their beliefs upon other people and try to tell other what to do and what not to do. Especially when religion gets involved into politics and all decision get based on 'but my God/religious writing says this' only. Over the years and over the time that I met various extremely religious people, I'm sorry to say that I started to associate religion with losing my freedom. I'm okay with moderately religious people who don't try to force their religion upon me. But I've had a little too much strictly religious people tell me I couldn't do things and when I asked why, all they said was 'The Bible says so!' or 'God wants it this way!' (most of them were christians BTW). It's like many strictly religious people only base their views on their religious books and not on anything in the real world and the thought that they'd become powerful enough to rule governments scares me. It's like I'd tell other people what to do based on, let's say, '50 shades of grey' and try to rule an entire country based on the things that were written in '50 shades of grey'. So those would be my problems with religion: that strictly religious people only live by the rules of a book, instead of by common sense or realistic moral guidelines, and that strictly religious people try to tell others what to do and what not to do.

Anyways, my theory on religion is that the first religions were started to explain things people couldn't understand at that time, but at some point some people decided to use religion to tell other what to do and how to live and pretty much control their lives.
 

five sounds

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both. like most things in life, there are ways to use it for good and ways to abuse it.
 

Oaky

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Nah wait. Unity or conflict is like... something people throw about by themselves under what their values are. It depends on the individual to adopt a sense of both with what they have.

Agree with 93JC's post.
 

cafe

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People are just nasty, greedy, violent primates that will justify their actions in whatever way is most convenient. If religion is handy, they'll use that. If not, they'll find something else. So six of one, half a dozen of the other, IMO.
 
I

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Sure, it unites, but the act of unition means differentiating and separating from all others, thus creating potential conflict. It is to say "I am not that, I am this", which is especially harmful where people's personal beliefs and values are concerned. I think control is a more fitting term than unity anyway.
 

cafe

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Yup. Me too. If we want to be nice, we'll generally find some way to justify it and if we want to be mean, we'll likely do the same. Or that's what I've observed so far. I'm only about halfway through with this thing, I'm hoping.
 

Mole

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I'd love to see someone try to use the B'Hai faith to become a world dictator; the faith just isn't designed that way. Some religions though can be more easily exploited.

This is true, Jennifer, but I was struck by something a world religious leader, the Dalai Lama, said the other day.

He said, he thought our only chance of a universal ethics is a secular ethics because there was no chance the various religions could agree on religious ethics.

There is some evidence for this because 57 religious nations have publicly and openly rejected the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

But I was struck because here we have a famous religious leader calling for secular ethics.
 

Totenkindly

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This is true, Jennifer, but I was struck by something a world religious leader, the Dalai Lama, said the other day.

He said, he thought our only chance of a universal ethics is a secular ethics because there was no chance the various religions could agree on religious ethics.

There is some evidence for this because 57 religious nations have publicly and openly rejected the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

But I was struck because here we have a famous religious leader calling for secular ethics.

Which is why in the conservative faith I was part of, they would decry the Lama as a heretic and a misleader of people. :doh: Because he "doesn't believe in God." Or the right "God."

I think he makes sense, though.
 
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Neither. I think both statements--that religions unite and that religions divide--are true, and neither is more true than the other.

This ^

People are just nasty, greedy, violent primates that will justify their actions in whatever way is most convenient. If religion is handy, they'll use that. If not, they'll find something else. So six of one, half a dozen of the other, IMO.

With a healthy dose of this ^

Undoubtedly there are those who use religion to divide, and they are doing religion wrong. That said, I kind of chuckle when I hear someone blame religion for all manner of atrocities in a way that presumes the world would be holding hands and singing Kumbaya if religion wasn't around. Awful people will be awful, and hateful people will find a way to separate and elevate themselves from those they find unworthy of kindness.
 

Honor

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People are just nasty, greedy, violent primates that will justify their actions in whatever way is most convenient. If religion is handy, they'll use that. If not, they'll find something else. So six of one, half a dozen of the other, IMO.
There are exceptions to this. But yeah, in general, this does seem to be the case. I think the day I realized this, my heart broke irreparably.
 
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