Plan B Forum

A bigger share of Australians than respondents in most other countries think religion does more harm than good in the world, new polling has revealed.

But we are also more comfortable with religious diversity than the international average.

The survey of more than 17,000 people across 23 countries by polling firm Ipsos found opinion is evenly divided about the influence that religion has in society.

It showed 49 per cent of respondents across all countries agreed with the statement "religion does more harm in the world than good".

But the proportion of Australians agreeing with that statement was well above the international average at 63 per cent.

"Australia is one of the more negative countries regarding the perceived harm that religion does," David Elliott from the Ipsos Social Research Institute said.

Only Belgium (68 per cent) had a higher proportion than Australia who agreed religion does more harm than good, while Germany and Spain were on par with Australia.

"religion does more harm in the world than good."

Definitions of religion tend to suffer from one of two problems: they are either too narrow and exclude many belief systems which most agree are religious, or they are too vague and ambiguous, suggesting that just about anything and everything is a religion. Because it's so easy to fall into one problem in the effort to avoid the other, debates about the nature of religion will probably never cease.

A good example of a narrow definition being too narrow is the common attempt to define "religion" as "belief in God," effectively excluding polytheistic religions and atheistic religions while including theists who have no religious belief system. We see this problem most often among those who assume that the strict monotheistic nature of western religions they are most familiar with must somehow be a necessary characteristic of religion generally. It's rare to see this mistake being made by scholars, at least anymore.

Burning Petard wrote:My own definition is that everyone has their own personal religion which I define as one's personal first principle, what do you assume is the explanation for the basics: why am I here?

MajGenl.Meade wrote:Rather facile observation as well as inaccurate. "Religion" actually does neither good nor harm; it is a much debated descriptor of a major aspect of human or cultural behavior.

Gob wrote:Religion Humanity is the cause of much harm, those who are facile enough to need a big oogha boogah in the sky [and] uses it any excuse to justify their prejudices, and to control others.[/s]

While I recognise your pretence that "religion" itself is blameless, anyone of an atheistic bent will surely agree we would be better off without it humanity, as it is put to harmful use.

Religion gives us ISIs, Palestine vs Israel, IRA vs the British, gay prejudice, and the KKK southern states of America, for some random examples.

MajGenl.Meade wrote:
Yeah, I hear Josef Jugashvili and Mao had that kind of bent.

MajGenl.Meade wrote:

Religion gives us ISIs, Palestine vs Israel, IRA vs the British, gay prejudice, and the KKK southern states of America, for some random examples.

Oh, you speak of the wrong religions! Well, that's all right then!

rubato wrote:

I do not say that all evil comes from religions but only religions have tortured and murdered people for 'thought crimes'. For their beliefs.

In the 1920s and 1930s, 2,000 writers, intellectuals, and artists were imprisoned and 1,500 died in prisons and concentration camps.

Gob wrote:

rubato wrote:

I do not say that all evil comes from religions but only religions have tortured and murdered people for 'thought crimes'. For their beliefs.

Never heard of Josef Stalin then?

In the 1920s and 1930s, 2,000 writers, intellectuals, and artists were imprisoned and 1,500 died in prisons and concentration camps.

God you're dumb.

rubato wrote:
Stalin did not kill them for what they thought. He killed them for what they did.

only religions have tortured and murdered people for 'thought crimes'. For their beliefs.

Stalin did not kill them for what they thought. He killed them for what they did.