Is Religion a Force for Good? 

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When asked about the evils committed in the name of religion, Shadi Hamid admits that this has happened but then asks (paraphrase), "But is that due to the religion or because of some other underlying causes?" Fair enough. It's definitely a counterpoint worth exploring. But he never seems to ask the same type of question for his own argument that religion causes good in the world. Should it not therefore be asked, "But is that (the good) due to the religion or because of some other underlying causes?" He seems to excuse religion in the former case while praising religion as THE cause of the latter.

[paraphrase] “When people can’t turn to religion to fill the void for the numinous and transcendental, they opt for things like communism and fascism” Me, an atheist, putting down sandwich in awe: …..I didn’t know that

Great arguments, fun listen

This topic is the mother of all rabbitholes. Did this debate cover everything? Nope. Not even close. But the channel's aim of modelling turn-based, civil, respectful discourse is admirable, if nothing else it softens people's stances towards one another, even when it doesn't change their minds.

Not trying to be mean but could 55:43 have picked better people for the religion debate. Anyone who claims the burden of proof is on the person saying god ‘doesn’t’ exist is just fundamentally oblivious to how logic and reason works. The burden of proof is indeed on him to prove it does exist.

The reason we say religion caused it when a religious person does something bad is because they almost always TELL US it was because of their religion that they DID the bad thing. What kind of argument is that Shadi?

Very good conversation.... I can follow and agree with Annie Laurie's view...following an organized religion could ruin your life and at the same time, it teaches you how to treat others with love however, it may mean only treat those with love who follow said religion. It is more probable than not that this life is everything and when one dies everything is finished. Organized religion makes a promise of heaven awaiting and, this could be true but more likely it is fiction. There will never be a time when you say, I am over here because I was a believer and those people over there are not here because the did not believe...and, they deserve everything they get. So, we see taking their bad vibes into heaven with them. Actually, you might as well believe in heaven because when you die everything is over...and I mean everything...the whole universe. So thinking you are going to heaven is good for you and for those that benefit off of you because you are believing you are going to heaven if you behave a certain way...like flying airplanes into buildings, beheading folks or blowing oneself up along with unbelievers as an Islam example or, going door to door giving pamphlets out about heaven as an Jehovah Witness example or, sharing half your food rations with the family next door because they have no food as an Christianity example. I must say all of them teach to practice charity. While nursing mother at the nursing home an old man in a wheelchair told me he never had a girlfriend or had sex. When I asked why he told me, "because the church would not allow it." There was not a woman that he gelled with in the congregation. He could have eventually found a girl if he wasn't involved with the church so, he spent a lonely life and now is an old man doped up on Risperidone because of his behavior towards psw staff. PSWs had a security guard for him because he would try to touch the psws inappropriately. He just wanted to know what a females breast feels like. Religion destroyed the man's life and there are billions of stories much worse than this of religion destroying people's life and getting them killed and brainwashed. Lots of teachings of how to treat one another respectfully in the New Testament, however unfortunately, with the Quran, the peaceful verses are superseded by violent verses. The Quran is a book of Mohammad taking child brides, launching campaigns of war, chopping off people's heads and you can bet he is beating and raping women and so on so you see, these things are not of a peaceful situation to a rational level headed person and to think in this day and age people worship a guy like this. With The Tradition of the Shariah I know that no one on this panel would want to submit to any of that or any other level headed person on this planet other than a Muslim man. Feeble minded folks use religion to live out and rationalize acts of violence and it is easy with being a Muslim if you are a violent sociopathy. You see, actions of a Muslim, Islam takes no responsibility for...with Christianity the actions of a Christian all Christianity takes responsibility for. I use Islam and Christianity for examples because they are popular religions nowadays. Look at boxing legend Mike Tyson. A man who was knocking out grown men twice his weight when he was 13 years old. He turns into the world heavy weight champ then, he gets arrested for raping (a rapist always a rapist so more probable he raped many women and they are too terrified to say anything) a young woman, goes to prison and turned into a Muslim while in prison and now, he is a manipulative violent scary old man who is speaking of how he used to always be picked on and how he can smash your face in and how he is going to kill his next opponent. So you see, he is using the teaching of religion Islam to rationalize his violent behavior. If you want peaceful reading, practice Buddha because, it is very peaceful. The teachings of Jesus are peaceful. Bhagavad-Gita Hinduism is peaceful although I need to read more into Hinduism to say but, the vibration of Hinduism gives me peace. Be good to one another. It is common sense.

Hitch said it best a long time ago #ReligionPoisonsEverything

I give Shadi credit for confronting the realpolitik of the issue upfront, and I thought perhaps he could have a reasoned position of the utility of religion as a social control measure despite its falsity, but when pressed even quite lightly in the following segment he digs in and disappointingly plays the part of the believer. I don't see the value of that in this context. He was on much stronger ground while ceding the nonsense of it all as a necessary function of its ability to have a positive effect. Once he became prideful about his particular flavor of belief, he diminished his argument beyond repair. I think this question would be better addressed by two non-believers of opposing views, who could discuss the topic without the burden of emotional baggage that belief carries, whether genuine or feigned.

Ini bukan apa yang saya saksikan sendiri beberapa kali, melainkan juga mendengar dan membacanya dari puluhan berita, kesaksian, buku dan artikel2 Islamik dimana para ulama telah berseru kepada umat Muslim untuk menjauhi Alkitab dan Injil orang Kristen. Lihat saja bagaimana Profesor Doktor Hasbullah Bakry dalam bukunya yang pernah best seller, melarang kaum Muslim (yang umumnya dianggap awam) membacanya: “…bagi orang awam yang tidak mengetahui ilmu perbandingan agama, dilarang membacanya (membaca Kitab Injil) sebab dikhawatirkan turut sesat” (p.27, Isa dalam Quran, Muhammad dalam Bible). Baca pula pelbagai kesaksian dari pemurtad Islam, yang dulunya dilarang oleh Ustad mereka untuk membaca Taurat dan Injil. Kisah terkini juga dapat dilihat pada “Himbauan Untuk Melarang Alkitab Di Bawah Hukum Penghujatan Pakistan”, yang umumnya menganggap Alkitab itu sesat dan juga dituduh porno ! Sejarah kok dibilang porno ! Mereka mendalilkan Adam dan Hawa antara lain mengenakan cawat dari daun ara, Nuh yang dikisahkan telanjang, Yesus menghentikan pelaksanaan rajam batu terhadap perempuan yang kedapatan berzina. Semua ini sangat sulit diterima oleh para wakil Muslim di Parlemen Pakistan yang diwakili oleh Partai Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam. Mereka memandang kisah-kisah seperti itu sebagai penghinaan terhadap tokoh-tokoh Kitab Suci yang mereka klaim sebagai para nabi suci mereka. Dan itu juga dianggap sebagai penghinaan terhadap Islam di bawah hukum-hukum penistaan agama di Pakistan yang terkenal konyol itu. APA MASALAHNYA ? Tentu lucu dan membodohi umat bila ada ulama Islam yang melarang Muslim untuk membaca Alkitab / Injil yang adalah “The World’s Best Seller Book of All Time” tahun demi tahun sejak awal abad Masehi hingga kini ! Dewasa ini Buku Ajaib dan bagian2 nya ini telah diterjemahkan dalam 3223 bahasa / dialek dunia, diantaranya terdapat 1442 bahasa untuk Perjanjian Baru termasuk Injil. Ratusan milliar manusia di dunia telah membaca buku ini atau membacakannya bagi orang lain disepanjang hidupnya. Dan ada jutaan sekolah telah mengajarkan buku tersebut kepada anak didiknya ! Dan semuanya selalu menemukan keluhuran ajarannya yang superlatif yang mampu memperbaharui hidup umat manusia dari masa ke masa. Tak ada yang menuduh kitab moral tertinggi itu sebagai porno ataupun sesat, kecuali sejumlah ulama Islam itulah yang baru ada belakangan untuk menakut-nakuti umatnya agar jangan sampai memegang atau membaca “kitab orang kafir” yaitu Alkitab / Injil, yang dikatakannya sebagai korup dan palsu, tak asli lagi, kitab bidat yang menyesatkan dan tak layak jadi kitab suci. Sayangnya itu hanya suara para ulama yang berseberangan dengan suara Muhammad. Sebab Quran sendiri justru membenarkan dan menyerukan umat Muslim untuk mengimani pula Kitab2 Taurat dan Injil, bukan sekali melainkan berpuluh kali dalam ayat2 Awloh yang kekal, (Surat 2:41, 89, 91, 101, 136; 3:3; 4:136; 5: 43, 44,46,47,48,68; 6:92;10:73, 94; 29:46; 32:23; 35:31; 46:30; 43:4; dll).

Went from against and stayed against but I thought Shadi had a lot of decent arguments that were excellently articulated. Annie Laurie stumbled a lot which was disappointing since she was the defender for "my side' of the debate. Her closing was good though - I got the sense that she's a lot like me: much better at articulating her thoughts through writing than extemporaneously through speech. It was a bit of a shock when that second questioner was the one to cite new work that demonstrated the problems with the main studies that Shadi was referring to in his opening remarks. I too have heard about studies where religious people tend to embody more social grace than the nonreligious but apparently that's not true? Would like more clarity on that. I also would've liked to hear a counter or concession to Shadi's point about religion providing a vehicle for people to engage with other humans socially. I've heard a lot about how that's been in decline for decades since we don't really have a new vehicle to replace religion, and because we are social animals now becoming increasingly isolated and anonymized, our entire society is becoming more polarized. I also never heard the main argument against that I would've been making, though it was nearly made. The main problem with religion is that it encourages faith; faith is the belief in something despite the absence of evidence and even in spite of any contradictory evidence. Religion gets people to develop that muscle, which can then be applied to other areas of life outside religion, e.g., the efficacy of vaccines and masking. I felt a pit in my stomach when Shadi started talking about how following the science during COVID caused net harm to the world... up to that point in the debate his arguments were all very well reasoned. But oof. The fact that anyone can have such a poor understanding of such basic biological stuff in our society, _especially_ after we just experienced millions of deaths from viral spread... it's extremely worrying for the future. A deadlier and/or even more contagious virus will come eventually. Anyway... religion = net bad, but Shadi did a great job arguing the opposite.

No 💁‍♂️

The debate question is too broad. A more focused question would be better... Something like "Regardless of what happened in the past, from this point forward in the United States of America, will religion primarily be a force for good?"

The personal good of religion is solely due to a lack of governmental/secular social programs...people can be just as happy, loved, secure in community, etc without religion, but capitalism disincentivizes this...which is a whole other can of worms...

45:44 - _'The other things that we find can be worse than religion.'_ So... there are *worse* things than religion, and you're using this when trying to make a point about religion being a force for good? Sorry, mate, you just lost...

Maybe it's complacency that's the death of good, and trying to perfect the good always lead to complacency?

Well done, def want to see earth a more kind place❤

There have been (too) many of these "Is Religion a Force for Good?"debates. They all pretty much go the same way: tedious, pedantic, and predictable. It would be interesting if from time to time someone were to defend a non-standard position such as Nietzsche's view. Is religion good for society? Absolutely not. Why not? Because, he says, Christianity is based on and promotes a morality of pity and compassion! This is another position which is worth considering. Unfortunately, neither speaker seems to be aware of Nietzsche's third option. Need to think outside the box.

Yeah this guy is just wrong. Over and over and over.... He's either ignorant, or malicious.

That woman is rude. You don’t make noises, shake your head and interrupt in a debate… unless you’re Trump.