Is religion useful?

[NBVegita]

Although let me add something. The positive aspects of religion cannot be had without the negative, and I am firmly of the opinion that the negative outweighs the positive (otherwise I wouldn't have posted so much). Religion is useful if one concentrates only on the areas where it can be useful; but from looking at the whole picture, which may not always be consciously acknowledged (and religion by it's nature suppresses the whole picture), it's clear to me that religion is a detrimental force.

 

And this is the only place I feel we disagree. I agree that there are positives and negatives, but I don't think you can label religion as a whole a detrimental force, based on the fact that there are so many varying levels of practice and the fact that there are so many undocumented events.

 

Like I posted above, similar to the news today, you rarely see historical documentation of positive things, normally things make history/news only with negatives. I personally don't feel there is enough evidence on the positive to even relate it with the negative. Of course we could almost tie this back up above, but our philosophical fundamentals are different. You philosophically believe religion to be more detrimental than good, I philosophically don't believe I can make that judgement based on the lack of documented evidence for one side of the argument.