Is religion still relevant in modern society?

[Mr Khan]

Marks said:

Runa216 said:

Marks said:
Can't just make religion disappear because you don't agree with it my good man. It may "not have a purpose" (assuming science is right about big bang/evolution/etc) but there are still billions around the world who are religious.

I've kind of outgrown religion myself but I still think it serves a good purpose of teaching kids good values. It teaches not to kill, not to steal, to be faithful to your wife/husband, not to lie, etc. If it wasn't for all the extremists in religion nobody would have any problem with religions.

*sigh*  You do not need religion to teach you that deliberately harming others is wrong. if anything, religion would only serve to push outdated values on the weakminded (gays are evil, men are greater than women, kill all those who worship any others...).  if I actually had t he time, I could easily give you hundreds more bad things the bible could teach compared to the good things it teaches.  

Sadly, I have a life so this will have to go unresolved.  

Seriously? So its only religious people that harm others, are homophobic, are sexist, etc? I know you're like the most anti-religious guy on the site but even you can't say that with a straight face. 

What do Hitler, Stalin and Mao have in common? All strongly anti-religion. Not saying atheists are killers or anything, all I'm proving is that violence and religion don't go hand in hand. 

And do you seriously think homophobia was invented by religion? Yeah the bible is anti-gay but only in the Old Testament (before Jesus and everything). I know so many people that hate gays but none of them are due to religious beliefs, its just because gays are different. People will always hate those that are different. If homophobia ever goes away then it will just be replaced by some other form of hatred. I don't see hate in general ever disappearing from humanity. 

And just like I said with homophobia, sexism I'm sure wan't invented by religion either. Yeah I guess some religions like Islam say that men are more important than women, but do you really think sexism is suddenly going to disappear overnight if religions disappear overnight? I doubt it. 

All I've said is that religions can teach kids good values, I didn't say kids can't learn good values without religion. Big difference between those two statements. 

Hitler's status on religion is more ambiguous than the militant Communists. Hitler was an occultist and may at least have put some stock in the Christian mythos, even if he didn't subscribe to Christian ideology or impress it upon his people

But a fairly modern counterexample might be Leopold II of Belgium, pious conservative Catholic who killed half the population of the Congo Free State. Religion or a lack thereof does not make a ruler more or less benevolent. What about the regime in Iran?