Is "God" a Good Thing? Part 2: has religion been a net good for society?
Episode 28 of the Morality of Everyday Things is now live (and part 2 of our God miniseries)
Episode 28 is now live. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Anchor, Google Podcasts and more.
Is “God” a Good Thing? Part 2: has religion been a net good for society?
In this episode, we continue our series (of 3 episodes) exploring the intersection of 'God' and morality. You'll note the use of quotation marks, this is because we explore the moral implications of theism and organized religion in a way that is not limited to faith-based belief. This means both looking purely at the incentives around belief rather than basing belief on faith, but also weighing up the pros and cons of organized religion and their impact on society. Did it help to instil moral norms and unity, or more act as a basis for persecution, subjugation and undue docility.
In this episode, we weigh up some of the goods and bads that have been committed in the name of society, and whether belief even matters to the moral teachings of religions. We begin with looking at Alain de Botton and work our way through to the '4 horsemen' of atheism, with a bunch of thought experiments along the way.
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