vera

Easy, Sturm, you are getting overprotective again.

People have the right to their opinion, and we should respect it. Especially if a person has a system of reasoning that got him to form this opinion. After all, we want them to respect ours.

As much as you want to protect your religion, these people do not attack you, but speak of their own personal experience, which is as legitimate as yours or mine.

vera

I agree. Organized religion often misuses and abuses its power, and by the harm it does greatly diminishes the good.

Faith, however, I see as something positive, especially if it drives the person to self-improvement and not to the improvement of his neighbors.

Comet

I also agree...history has shown how much organized religion can abuse and mislead society.

Which is why religion is unique. Faith is its driving force and if its one way in which people can receive comfort and acceptance in their life then its certainly a positive.

Sharks and love

Does faith really drive self-improvement, or does it drive perserverence?

In what way would faith drive self improvement? Couldn't I just as easily say that it drives "acceptance?" I guess psychological acceptance of yourself is a worthy (and even healthy) accomplishment in self development, but does it drive self improvement in any other way?

Edgewaters

A standardization of the psychotic experience. (Psychotic in the technical sense, not the lay term that refers to a crazy guy with an axe).

Religion channels the psychotic experience into forms that society can cope with, or forms that are usually less detrimental to society.

Lord Ragnar

You speak of excess.
If 'excess' were your criteria for dismissal, you would passionately campaign for the elimination of democracy, capitalism, and, of course, the military. Indeed, you would believe in absolutely nothing at all, least of all yourself.
That the church has conducted itself in excess is undeniable. It is also irrelevant. It does nothing to undermine the truth that it claims to represent. The critics of the church are so often eager to illuminate ecclesiastical crimes as evidence of falsity and deception, yet are ready to dismiss the good works of the church as merely an off-subject. The church has so often been a tremendous force for good (as it has historically seen it); amongst innumerable projects, it has been at the forefront of charity and the cause of civil and human rights. It preserved education (such as it was), literacy and healthcare during the dark and middle ages, and has sponsored much of the most achingly beautiful art the world has ever seen.
Now, as to spiritual truth, it is not necessarily so that these examples of 'good' affirm the Church's doctrines any more than its 'excesses' detract from them, however, perhaps it would be wise to maintain at least a passing recognition of the virtues of the church without falling into the mindset of that most memorable of phrases from the dubious Professor Dawkins: "Religion poisons everything".

Lucius

Organized religion? Compared to what? Disorganized religion? Organized Atheism?

sturm

I have seen how priests in United States of America, organize demonstration during somebody's funeral, because the man who died, died out of AIDS.

This is a brutal act, that cannot, and would not be tolerated by any christian church, or any christian who have actually read the Bible, and who is not a bigot. This act's are done by individual persons, like the priest or priest's who organized this demonstration.

Atheist's are attacking the Church, both Catholic and Orthodox Christian Church (by what i understood they even dont make much difference between both church's), because of individual acts of stupidity. I cannot defend the actions of every stupid person who clames that he is a christian and he is doing something which should be approved by every christian on that world. I cannot approve there actions, because first and above all, both christians, muslims and i guess any other religion, give the nessesery respect to the people who have died.
I would like to point out to the atheist's, that there are people on this world, that understand religion differently, there are christians who understand christianity very differently then myself, as there are atheist's who understand religion differently, and attack religion on different levels, like some atheist's are attacking the Church but not the christianity as a dogma, others attack the Bible, in order to prove there point, which is unprovable, i dont know how it would be possible, for a man who believes in God and christianity like myself, to leave his religion and become an atheist, this is vertually impossible.

Take a look at that video Those are the christians i hate, those are the christians i cannot place myself next to them, i cannot understand them, they are totally different, i cannot defend there actions, and i will never do, check out the t-shirt of that women, check out what those christians are demonstrating against homosexuals.