General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: A reminder to think before you speak - Israel and Palestine edition [View all]hfojvt
(37,573 posts)You might make that a primary result, but the primary purpose of religion is "to get people to be good". Religious people have commandments that they are supposed to follow, things like "love your neighbor as yourself", "do unto others as you would have them do unto you", "do not steal", "do not bear false witness", "do not kill", etc., etc.
The primary purpose is to teach certain truths and to strive to live right.
Of course, then people act like people and start to believe "only a small elect group has the REAL truth and only WE are living right" and the churches become human institutions which accumulate property and then the humans fight over this valuable property.
Sure there are perhaps better ways to teach people to be good, and maybe even better defintions of what it means to actually be "good". But to wish, like John Lennon, for "no religion" is to deny the good that actually does get done in the name of religion, in small ways and large.