Should governments start regulating religion?

[gokart48]

Isn't the problem how people use religion to justify their goals, not religion itself? The extremist, and fanatics are the people who would use their religion to hurt people, but religion itself teaches the opposite of that mind set.

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I mean, yes, a government runs better without religious interference. That is common sense. However, I do not understand why we would push it any further than where it is now. There are hundred of donation organizations that abuse their free tax breaks in the same way that some religious organization do. And, many churches actually are very active in the community to improve it.

Also, why are we only looking at one side of things? Religions has been shown to help, as much as it hurts. It's easy to point to fanaticals and overzealous hypocrites, but what about the 98% of people who are religious followers who are moderates, and are normal people? Don't they find some fulfillment or comfort in something that may or may not exist?

I think the most damaging stigma for both sides is the belief that religion and science do not mix. When in reality, religion has been shown to both encourage and discourage scientific research. One is about understanding yourself, and the other is about understanding the world around us. Naturally at times they will buck heads, but both have been misinterpreted heavily.

I mean look at how Charles Darwin theory of evolution was blatantly disrespected by its followers. Creating the mindset of eugenics. Whereas religion picked it apart because it created a hole in their explanation of the world. Both sides completely abused it for their own purposes.

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And just as it is ridiculous to ignore science, it is also ludicrous to ignore the impact that religion can have on people. Many of the mindsets we have today stems from religion. Especially the belief to respect others.

Religion might not provide a physical product, but it brings an emotional comfort. And, I think people have a very justified reason to believe in something that does not have scientific backing. I mean, we know the world is around 13.8 billion years old, and that an event like the big bang formed the world. It's also very possible there are multiple universes out there that we will never know about. There is also reasonable evidence to show we evolved from other species in the past.

However, in that same light, couldn't those same factors be the way we got here? Not necessarily the proof that a God doesn't exist? It seems like a God who could created the world would know the science behind the universe better than any of us (which is why I laugh when some people call miracles magic), and the sheer random chance of how we got here is mind boggling otherwise.

People will look at facts and come up with different interpretations. The problem is when we blame one side for not following the other side.

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I think the real problem we need to address is how people use religion, or the media, to fulfill their own purposes. The same people who used religion to justify slavery or bombing a building, were the people making a profit off of slavery or fear. Instead of targeting religion which can be abused by people who claim to follow it, why not blame the people that disrespect it?


So in regards to the OP, No. government should not regulate religion. Instead, we need to stop the stigma that the two are completely incompatible and that someone who believes in religion should be discouraged from science, or vice versa.