Religion only causes harm

"Religion is the tie that binds good and bad ideas together it is no single idea. The bind does no good. It only harms." This is what my opponent claims. http://www.debate.org... . I just want to see him back it up. The debate will be 4 rounds. No new arguments in the last round only rebuttals. As usual round 1 is for acceptance and clarification of terms only.

Definitions
Religion
1. re�li�gion noun 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.
Harm
1.harm noun physical injury or mental damage; hurt:
2. to do him bodily harm. moral injury; evil; wrong.
3.verb (used with object) to do or cause harm to; injure; damage; hurt: to harm one's reputation.

I hope my opponent does realizes he carries the burden of proof

Accepted, with the knowledge I will lose the vote, because the iq of the average ddo user is not that of the average rock.

Maybe it will be easier to get votes if you didn't insult the voters

My opponent states that Religion has never done any good. So in order to prove my case I would just need to show a group of religious people doing good.

Here's an article from 2007 http://www.christianpost.com... that states that Christian charities made up nearly a quarter of the 100 best nonprofit groups for financial integrity in the United States, according to a leading nonprofit management magazine.

Charity is normally seen as a good this. So this is religion doing something good.

Look forward to my opponents rebuttal.

"Religion is the tie that binds good and bad ideas together it is no single idea. The bind does no good. It only harms."

This is what I have to back up. My opponent defines religion as a set of beliefs, which means plural beliefs. Then goes on to give one belief. My point is that belief is not the religion. That is one belief. A belief that secular countries tend to be better at, charity.

So, where does religion come in? Well religion is not that individual action, but the tie that binds it to many harmful actions. When you get religious charity often times the charity is tied to their religion. They waste resources of charity on proselytizing and bringing bibles. In many cases such as missionary work in Africa the charity can go awfully wrong by bringing the bible to them. It inspires witch hunts and burnings and more.

Yet, I will digress. Let me show a set:

(charity, love, kill all who don't belong to your group, friendship)

Now yes you can take out each individual action and say it is good or bad, as well we should. We would say charity, love, friendship are all good and kill all who don't belong are bad(accept retard cerebral, who doesn't grasp morality). Now if we had a belief system that tied all these together as one(the set) group that was take it or leave it. That would be negative. The reason is it has good ideas and bad ideas, the grouping of ideas like that into a take all or none is inherently bad. It would be much better if we could take each idea on its own merit.

Yet, this is exactly what religions do, they tie good and bad ideas together and indoctrinate people into thinking we should take all the ideas, and buy them as a set rather then to take each idea on its own merits. At the very least religions promote tying a good idea to the idea that we should believe without evidence. That on its own corrupts the good idea and makes it lesser then it would have been without the religion.

In conclusion, Good ideas are better when not forcefully tied to bad ideas, like religion always does. So the end result is religion harms always by tying good ideas to bad ideas in take all or nothing package.

Not sure if my opponent understands the debate. It appears that he believes that the religious only believe in charity and that doesn't make it that they are doing good. Unfortunately for him, the article gave is about people actively participating in charity. Which is good. So religious people,under the influence of their beliefs, are doing good.

But to humour him I'll play along. He gives a set (charity, love, kill all who don't belong to your group, friendship). He then says that religion forces us to take all those at the same time. Meaning every religious person is a murderer. I ask that my opponent explain that with 4.6 billion religious people worldwide (http://en.wikipedia.org...) why he even has a pulse?

I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and maybe he's talking about other bad ideas that religion does. But I would need him to elaborate in his next argument.

Btw I was thinking about what Geo said " As Christopher Hitchens rightly challenges, show me a moral action that a religious person can do that an Atheist cannot."
The only thing I can come up with is comfort during death. Especially if someone is dying. People want hope that they will see their loved ones again. Religion gives that. People don't want to believe that they will die and....that's it. They want to see what impact they left on their family and on the world. Atheism doesn't allow that.

My opponent does not seem to grasp anything about this debate. When we talk about the idea of giving to charity, we have to look at what tying it to religion does vs allowing it to be an individual idea. It being associated with religion does harm, as it ties it to bad ideas.

My opponent missed the point of my example. It was not necessarily a set based on religion, but instead a sample set to show that bundling good and bad ideas turns the whole idea of bundling the ideas bad. That is what religion does. I have already argued at the very least religion ties these acts to the belief in unjustified nonsense claims. That by itself, makes the effect of religion bad, while the idea of giving to charity is good, and would be better if not attached to religion.

As for his example of comforting during death, it seems to me religion provides a cover for this, yet we would be better off accepting reality. What really useful does the idea of lying to oneself about any knowledge about after death do. It certainly doesn't help in accepting reality.

I understand what you're saying. It just doesn't make any sense. It's supposed to be "Religion corrupts good things and make them bad" but as you have yet to provide any evidence of this it just comes out as "I don't care if Religion does good, them doing it makes it bad". You mentioned Witch Hunts in Africa. So I looked it up, and the most recent article( http://www.thedailybeast.com...) mentioning African witch hunts, doesn't mention Christian charities being at fault. If you have the evidence please present it. Otherwise please tell us why the millions of dollars raised by Christians each year are considered evil.

"My opponent missed the point of my example. It was not necessarily a set based on religion, but instead a sample set to show that bundling good and bad ideas turns the whole idea of bundling the ideas bad. That is what religion does. I have already argued at the very least religion ties these acts to the belief in unjustified nonsense claims. That by itself, makes the effect of religion bad, while the idea of giving tocharity is good, and would be better if not attached to religion."

So us believing in God, makes charity bad? Thats.......interesting. I asked that you provide me with a better example than this nonsense.

"As for his example of comforting during death,itseems tome religion provides a coverforthis, yetwe would be better off accepting reality. What really useful does the idea oflying tooneself about any knowledge about after death do. It certainly doesn't help in accepting reality."
Where is your evidence that is a lie? And if we accept that God is not real what usefulness is knowledge while dying?

My opponent says that religious does no good because it is tied to bad idea. If his logic were true I'd still win because under his logic,religion is neutral and causes no harm.

My opponent continues to not grasp my position. He thinks I am saying that religion makes charity bad. I am not saying that at all, I am saying that attaching religion to charity makes it worse then it would have been if it had not been attached to nonsensical ideas. Remember religion as defined is a set of ideas, not just one.

My opponent continues to commit the fallacy of composition over and over again. He points out that charity is good and asserts that the set must be good. I on the other hand have argued that forcing charity into a set of other ideas that are both good and bad, is harmful because it would be better to allow charity to stand on its own merits.

I don't think my opponent is grasping this. Its this simple:

I give a college student a bag of presents, here is what is in the bag:

text books for his next set of classes, a e-card for the caf, and a uncaged angry gaboon viper.

If I asked if the present was overall good, it would be a no, as the uncaged gaboon viper being wrapped up in the deal makes it worse then it would have been had that gaboon viper not been included. Including unnecessary bad things into a package always brings it down compared to what it would have been if you allowed the person to accept each one on his own.

As this is the last and final round, I will not make any new arguments but I must state some facts.

My opponent has accepted knowing he had the burden of proof

My opponent has FAILED to list one single bad act that religion had caused. I am not naive. I know religion has caused several atrocities. However I will not help my opponent beat me.

My opponent has FAILED to say what it is that religion does that causes charity to be bad.

My opponent has FAILED to show that the bundling of ideas makes everything bad instead of neutral. In fact as he didn't refute that point it should be taken as a CONCESSION on his part.

My opponent has FAILED to prove that witch hunts in Africa are started because someone brought a bible with them.

My opponent has FAILED to prove that the existence of a higher power is nonsense, and therefore bundling it with charity CAN NOT be considered a bad idea.

Due to my prior point
My opponent had FAILED to list one idea that of religion that instantly causes all other ideas to be bad.

I ask that you put aside your personal feelings towards my opponent when you cast your votes. He has insulted many people on this site but I don't want to win because people wanted to spite him. If you feel he mad the better arguments, than by all means vote for him. Thank you

Ok, it has been clear the readers and my opponent are not able to understand my argument. I have established that religion is the set of beliefs(plural). Not a single idea. We must look at the impact of creating that set to see if religion is good.

As I have said religion is like creating a set of (text books, e-cards and and angry gaboon viper) and giving it as a gift. Or maybe a clearer example, take this salad: Lettuce, tomato, onions, bread crumbs, fat free ranch dressing, and rat poison. It would be retarded to argue that because the salad contains lettuce it is good for you. The overall impact of putting these things in a take all or nothing package is clearly bad. Religion never fails to add the rat poison, by adding gullibility to believe nonsense. My opponent is clearly trying to argue the salad is good because it adds lettuce. The only failure to this analogy is it would give religion too much credit with the amount of good ingredients, but it gets the point across.