Harm To Society
Some aspects of religion are criticized on the basis that they damage society as a whole. Steven Weinberg, for example, believe it takes religion to make good people do evil. Bertrand Russell and Richard Dawkins cite religiously inspired or justified violence, resistance to social change, attacks on science, repression of women, and homophobia.
Hartung has claimed that major religious moral codes can lead to "us vs. them" group solidarity and mentality (often referred to as moral superiority) which can dehumanise or demonise individuals outside their faith as "not fully human", or less worthy. Results can vary from mild discrimination to outright genocide. A poll by The Guardian, a UK intellectual newspaper noted that 82% of the British people believe that religion is socially divisive and that this effect is harmful despite the observation that non-believers outnumber believers 2 to 1.
Read more about this topic: Criticism Of Religion
Famous quotes containing the words harm to, harm and/or society:
“When a toddler uses profanity, don’t make a big deal about it. If you do, you give the child more power. After all, it’s only a word—one that won’t do much harm to anybody. In fact, if you think about it, a nasty word is a step up from hitting or biting someone. So look at it as a sign of growth.”
—Lawrence Balter (20th century)
“Our repentances are generally not so much a concern and remorse for the harm we have done, as a fear of the harm we may have brought upon ourselves.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“I do not mean to imply that the good old days were perfect. But the institutions and structure—the web—of society needed reform, not demolition. To have cut the institutional and community strands without replacing them with new ones proved to be a form of abuse to one generation and to the next. For so many Americans, the tragedy was not in dreaming that life could be better; the tragedy was that the dreaming ended.”
—Richard Louv (20th century)