"Why do you atheists always talk about bad things that come from religion? Why don't you ever talk about the good works like feeding the poor and building hospitals, etc?"
"Well, religion is not all bad! Look at all the good things that come from religion like charity and love and etc..."
This one type of defense of religion that I find not only weak but, frankly misses the point.
Firstly, it is basically arguing for the usefulness of religion not for its truth which seems odd when we're arguing about whether a god really exist. But we'll leave that aside since this post is coming from another angle.
"Religion does good too!" sounds almost reasonable, ie not reasonable.
You mean aside from stifling science and education, obstructing justice, denying LGBT rights and perpetuating a general contempt of humanity among other historical atrocities, religions also does charity and some good works? Wow, who knew? /sarcasm.
Put it this way: Say there's a rich guy who love his wife and kids. He is rich and successful businessman who provides welfare for his workers and donates to large sums of money to charity monthly. Every fortnight, he kills a family and rape the kids. But look at all the good things he does!
No. He's a psychopath and needs to be locked up. Same with religion.
What makes the defense even more worthless is the fact that ALL the good works religion does can be and (hopefully) will be done, if not superseded, by secular means. That means we can have all the good without the bad -- religion can and should go.
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