[HPLovecraft]

Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher

Some would argue that religions that put forward the concept of heaven are in fact devaluing this life in favour of an afterlife that may turn out to be a fantasy/myth. If I base my life on the belief that I am doing certain things to get into heaven there's a chance I may not make the most of THIS life and there's a chance that this life is the only life I have.

There are many passages in the Bible that suggest striving for great things is not what you should be doing. The meek shall inherit the earth, the last will be first, etc. The Bible at times legitimizes servitude. I think several things about the Bible encourage mediocrity and hamper ambition to do anything great on this earth.

Some would also argue that the Biblical model of humans being granted dominion over the beasts/land has in part led to a destructive and exploitive relationship with nature.

Some would also argue that the belief in the imminent return of Christ lessens any responsibility for leaving the Earth in good shape for future generations. If you believe Christ may return in your lifetime you aren't going to prioritize sustainability, leaving the Earth in good shape for your children, for their children, for 100 generations from now. Many Christians have thought they were living in the endtimes for the last thousand years. You can find a multitude of Christian literature on our current times being the "end times."

Cults are seen as more obviously insidious with their brain washing but some of the principles they use are not so different from the larger religions. And in fact various religions consider each other to be cults, I know many Christians consider Mormons and JW's to be in a cult.

These are but a few of the interesting arguments as to how religion is actually a destructive influence on life, on the environment, on people's lives. If people are interested in arguments like these I'm sure I can think up/research a few more.

I've certainly take a few classes on subjects like these including a class called "The Critique of Christianity" and one called "Humanities and the Natural World" in which causes for our destructive relationship with nature were explored. Good ol Liberal Arts education. In the Critique course our reading included Marx (including the paper his famous religion is the opiate of the masses is quoted from), Freud's Future of an Illusion, Nietzsche's Anti-Christ and Twilight of the Idols and Schopenhauer's Essence of Christianity. If anybody wants any further reading I'm sure you can those on the web in mediocre translations. I think a lot of their arguments are more sophisticated that the current militant atheists like Hitchens.

Turns out people have been arguing that religion can be a bad influence for the past 200 years. Perhaps more successfully in the 19th century than in the 20th for some strange reason.

That reads like a list of reasons (faulty as they are) as to why Christianity is a destructive influence, not religion. I won't go into depth and refute everything you said, largely because it's all been said before on here, both of us will argue until our fingers fall off, and nothing much will be settled.

What I will say, however, concerns the point you mention about the Bible (and what I assume you to truly mean -- religion) encouraging mediocrity and hampering ambition. This is straight-up bologna. You wouldn't be where you are today if it weren't for the exceptional abilities of religious men and women before you. Some of the greatest artistic expressions of our western heritage are existent because of religion. Do you believe Michaelangelo aspired to mediocrity? Leonardo (who also happened to be a groundbreaking scientist)? Are you familiar with the work of John Milton? Dante? Machiavelli? How about Gothic architecture?

How about science? The science of today stands on the shoulders of those giants in science of the past who tried to explain the world in natural terms; not to prove that God didn't exist, but to further add to His glory. And I quote:

Originally Posted by Galileo Galilei

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

Thomas Aquinas, the great philosopher, certainly wasn't anything mediocre or lacking in ambition. Copernicus first presented his system of the planets circling the sun inside the Vatican, at the behest of the Pope! Bacon, Descartes, Kepler, Sir Isaac Newton:

Originally Posted by Isaac Newton

The most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion on an intelligent and powerful Being.

Even Albert damn-freaking Einstein was a religious man:

Originally Posted by Albert mothereffing Einstein

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

I won't even mention the contributions of those who followed the creeds of other religions and explored and created in the name of God or the gods. Homer, the literature-loving kings of the Mughal Empire, Ghandi, the fusion of art styles in Andalusia. . . . The entire groundwork of our Western Heritage, and the rest of the world, was laid out in the name of religion. Dismissing it as merely something that makes fellows aspire to mediocrity is not just plain wrong, it's ridiculous. Where we stand today is testament to the error of that statement.