You could argue that organised religion is evil and has never done any good to anyone, or you could consider it as one of the more significant contributors to the culture, morals, ideals, society, education etc. of mankind through much of our history. But I won’t digress into a Google-assisted overview of the evolution of society here or go into how actually religion does lots of good things nowadays.
Culture - indisputably
Morals - 100%, absolutely not (depending on your definition or morals)
Ideals - ditto
Society - arguably
Education - couple of hundred years ago, yes.
Good things now - no. People do good things.
Antitheism (or whatever you want to call the define-it-as-you-go way of thinking) is a load of bollocks; I’d be embarrassed to find myself spouting ‘intellectual’ crap like that when the only result is to piss people off and make yourself sound like a 17yr who’s just found the grown-up section of the library. I’m firmly in God’s corner here because I can’t stand the high-and-mightiness of atheists (whatever) who go beyond simply not believing in God (which is fine) and start looking down upon those with differing beliefs or ways of life, considering them inferior and/or lacking in common sense.
When their religious beliefs result in the retardation of society (and I dont mean mentally) then I absolutely will look down on it. When you deny evidence because of a badly translated, selectively edited book then you dont deserve respect.
Can anyone really lump themselves in with people who make sweeping statements such as “well that [religious person] [did something bad] therefore all x billion [religious persons] are [negative descriptive]” and expect people to warm to their way of thinking? Atheists (whatever) are supposed to be the easy-going, logical-minded ones, right?
I judge people on the basis of their own actions. If you quietly go to church and mind your own business, work away. If you petition schools to teach "intelligent design" as a viable scientific alternative to evolution then youre a blight upon society. Same if you tell uninformed people living in a country with the highest rate of AIDS in the world that condoms *cause* AIDS, then you are no better than a murderer.
Also, afaik there is no analogue to big bang theory (as far as being widely accepted in the scientific community goes) when it comes to the origin of life on Earth. Let’s be clear. Evolution as a process involving natural selection and adaptation to changing environments is fact. Goovolution as a process involving a puddle of goo evolving into life via RNA and DNA is theory, one of dozens of scientific and mythical ideas that attempt to explain the origin of life.
There are a few theories on abiogenesis, none of which are conclusive. Yet. They werent dreamed up in the pub over a beer, there is clear scientific process and research behind them. To say "you cant explain X, therefore god is as likely an explanation" is the most basic logical mistake you can make.
Believe in God or don’t. Either is fine. You have faith or you don’t, no problem, but any opinion that flatly states that God does not exist is poorly researched to say the least - attempting to deny something which by definition is undeniable is rather futile, isnt it?
No-one states flat out that god doesnt exist because, by definition, it is impossible to disprove the existence of *anything*, including leprechauns, invisible flying pink unicorns and the flying spaghetti monster. However, saying that the non-existence of something that has *zero* evidence for existing is the default position that one should take. I dont believe in gods in the same way I dont believe in fairies.
