Do you believe that religion has helped the world? [Spirituality & Religion]

First, we should agree on what "the world" is. In this context, I think it safe to assume that you mean humanity, civilization, etc. The human existence.

In that context, since we don't dwell as the other primates do, one could make a compelling case for the power of a strongly ingrained belief system, and its ability to organize social behavior to cooperate and collaborate in achieving, quite frankly, some pretty damn astounding accomplishments for a bunch of hairless monkeys with the attention spans of crows.

HOWEVER.

Downside is that these social paradigms all have one thing in common. They all begin with a SMALL LOCAL group that grows successfully beyond its original social reach, due to containing the right social encouragement at the right time and the right place. By the way, encouragement is defined by both the carrot and the stick. Social pressure is what it is.

See, as it expands, it also acquires the snowball of reality outside of the bubble it was born in. What is wisdom and works in a desert is useless in the rainforest. The paradigm doesn't fit. Success is NOT guaranteed.

Something has got to change... or the story ends.

Now compound this challenge with the accumulation of knowledge over the span of time as well as space, as mentioned above.

If you refuse to use the information available to you, how can still call it wisdom?

If your paradigm resists including the wealth of knowledge and understanding gained by the collective whole of the human experience, you may want to reconsider.

Religion doesn't have a place in the modern world. Antiquated thinking, people killing others just for believing differently from them, children being thrown out of their own homes because their parents can't accept them, I could go on for a while.

It's what people make of it. Religion through art, charity, and education has greatly helped the world. Through polarization, violence, and intolerance it has hurt the world. (But of course there are many other things that can be a source of these).

I think in today's world, people use religion mainly to give meaning to their lives in a world seen as increasingly devoid of meaning. That's not a problem most of the time. But for some, they think their religion urges them to transformative violent action and then it becomes a serious problem.

Eh, it's definitely a mixed bag. People use religion to justify feeding the poor as they justify slaying the infidels. Overall, I tend to lean towards religion being a net negative -- because you don't need supernaturalism to justify helping other people -- but I don't really think anyone is qualified to give a concrete answer.

The essence is of love, peace, and tolerance but the human is a quite greedy and self-centered being, as history and basic intelligence can highlight. My thoughts on religion in today's world is that we cannot gauge a religion based on its "followers" since the current meta is to follow and accept one's desires and society's demands over withholding from ourselves and maintaining religious values .-.

I tend to be very critical of religion. At the same time there is room for intuition and irrationality and that can even take the form of religion sometimes. I like rationality and its many fruits, and I like science, but I don't like scientism.

I like Nassim Taleb, a Christian philosopher, although he probably won't get along with most evangelical Christians. I like what he has to say sometimes about religion, especially the link that he makes with religion and the benefits it has in limiting the intervention bias and its iatrogenics. There is also the benefits of fasting. See his book Antifragile.

Of course these things can be divorced from religion. You needn't be religious or a believer to fast. You needn't see doctors for small matters and you can do this without having to go to church instead. Perhaps I'm not as tolerant of religion as Nassim Taleb is.

Beliefs have an effect on behavior. Sometimes it is good and sometimes it is bad. Ultimately people will do what they do and justify it however they can.

The opposite actually.

Most of the wars fought hundreds of years ago had to do with religion.
Even the Irish IRA killed many in the name of God.

religion is a very powerful tool to unite a society. but it doesnt work in an educated society anymore. clinging to it is foolish.

Man made organized religion has done more harm to mankind than all the wars put together. Yahweh, really hates it.

it's just an outdated tool for social control, nothing more

it helps some, and destroys others.

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It can help or harm depending on interpretation

It has.