Did religion ever bring anything to mankind?

[Yorktown]

186. You make some good points with which I still disagree

• Art: I had skipped that because I had discussed it with others. But it's true it's a long thread.
The reason I say religion in itself did not contribute to Art is that Art exists with or without religion. Greek statuary did not need Jesus. The Birth of Venus is a beautiful painting irrespective of the reality of the existence of Venus. Cain and Abel doesn't need to be religious, it's the fight of the strong vs the weak. And the best Requiem was composed in honor of atheistic masonic values by Mozart.

• Religion theology to me is a good example that religion was just pasted on one side. If only because in most South American countries, the religious hierarchy sided with whichever strongman was in power. So you could have priests on both sides of the different south american conflicts. Which tends to show religion was not bringing any inherent morality to conflicts, its preachers being split.

• Ghandi/Hinduism: the issue is too confused to call. As Hindu intolerance demonstrated often in recent times, the religion is difficultly separable of a fierce Indian nationalism. I dare venture that for the common man in India in the 40s, the aspiration was primarily that of a nationalistic independence. The culture with its religious undercurrent did color the way the road to independence happened, but the process can't be strictly linked to religion.

• Tibet/China: there are different way to be wrong, they do not all follow the religious or not dimension. Chinese authorities are up for a land grab in the name of selfish national interest (and not atheism). But the Tibetan buddhist clique was a bunch of obscurantist leeches. so, in that conflict, it's difficult to see a positive role played by either atheism or religiosity.

Anyway, all in all, I would grant religion did play a role (1) as a consoling placebo and (2) as a vehicle to get complicated messages accepted (like the interdiction of eating pork/trichinosis) in primitive societies.

But I would also say that the key messages of religion are fantasies (hell, paradise, god, soul, miracles) and do not bring anything tangible to mankind today.