Is religion still relevant in modern society?

[Runa216]

RolStoppable said:

I am not sure if I understand what you mean by "using god as an excuse". Does this really protect people from having to take responsibility for their own actions? If I take for example Jack Thompson, the lawyer who rallied against violent video games, the only people who supported him were religious extremists as well while the rest of people could see through him. In the end his license or whatever got taken away from him, because all his talk about his ideals couldn't cover the fact that he shouldn't be a lawyer.

In other cases, I would expect it to be very similar. The only supporters such people can get are usually extremists too and that's a minority of the population. And since we live in the information age, it's becoming increasingly more difficult for these leaders to "recruit" more members.

It doesn't sound like religion per se is the problem, but rather using religion as a guise to push certain values on others on a massive scale.

Not really sure how to explain it.  basically, if someone says they hear God, they're encouraged and given support by the church. If an Antheist claims to hear voices, he's put in a mental asylum or has to take pills.  Religion, in the wrong hand, justifies bigotry, sexism, racism, and other forms of unacceptable behaviour, but if you're Atheist, any hate or ignorance you have is seen as you just being delusional or hateful.  If you're religious, you can simply say that you were following your faith, and for SOME crazy reason, people are more accepting of people doing it 'for the right reasons.' 

Basically, Religion allows people to do irrational things without being deemed irrational people. it's kinda bullshit. 

Also, I grew up in a very strict christian community, half of the people there are highly religious (some are Amish, some are Mennonites, some are dutch reformed, others are just good old christians), so I dealt with a lot of "You're not following the bible, you're a heathen/antichrist" in school and growing up.  Hell, if you were selling anything in our town on a Sunday, the entire religious community stopped giving you business.  We have this one Pizza joint that opens on a sunday, and because of that the religious citizens stopped going.  their profit suffered greatly because they dared go against god's plan, or whatever.