Sure, but how would that be an objective, universal, absolute standard of good and evil? You claim philosophy, and yet this is an age-old philosophical problem. For example, see Hume's guillotine, i.e. Hume's is-ought distinction.

"teaching people to be nice to each other lies in everyone's interests, a God serves no purpose here."

Is truth determined by fact and reason, or merely by the purpose it serves?

Also, much of the abuse by the Catholic Church happens in third world countries. What few studies I've seen of child abuse rates in general in those countries paint an extreme grim picture compared to other countries. I say this with full knowledge that in the US we have rates of 1 in 5 for similar forms of abuse.

I admit, this can be a problem. But it doesn't have to be that way. You can be logically inclined and attach at least part of your identity to religion. Having part my identity attached to religion gives me a sense of purpose. I know that life isn't meaningless and that God expects me to do certain things if I want to maximum happiness for myself and the people I love.

On the other side of the coin, I have a lot of atheist friends who struggle with nihilism which has often led to other equally strange decisions, despite them being "logically inclined" (like dabbling in drugs) to try to cope with their sense of purposelessness. I had one friend (brilliant programmer) who basically fried his brain using LSD trying to find purpose in life. He is a completely different person than he was before, and not in a good way. Some friends have even had prolonged periods of depression because of it.

What they do or not do is not up to the church, is up to them. The catholic church didn't tell them to abuse someone. Did a local catholic church help people wanted by the law or convicts escape the law (and also extradition)?

Now, if the church took someone accused as a child abuser (that somehow the law neglected to convict) and moved them in another country in a church position they still work with children, then sure, we can condemn the church authorities.

In the eyes of the church, even flawed people that did abuse can be accepted and transferred to positions where they cannot do such harm (e.g. in a monastery). The church was created to welcome flawed people and to help them, not to ostracize and condemn them. It's role is not even to hand them to the law, if the law doesn't ask for them (which is also why something confessed during catholic confession, even a murder, is not supposed to be revealed).

(I'm not Catholic btw, just reasoning based on their principles).

Well, it may just be my ignorance, but I thought Buddists didn't believe in God. I thought it was more a bunch of good philosophies that a man named Buddha came up with. Even the religion itself is named after a man (named Buddha).

Are you asking my opinion? My opinion is that the only way to tell is to ask God directly, study it out in your mind, and follow your gut. If God exists, he should be the only one that can tell a person what His true religion is and will confirm his true religion in a way that you recognize.

I believe it is also possible to have reproducible spiritual experiences/impressions confirming your choice.

Says who? Do you mean priests accused abusing people wont be taken to court/jail because they are priests? Because that happens all the time (just like with any other profession doing that).

Whether the Church advertises it or not, or tries to keep it from publicity, is something most entities would do. Companies don't advertise their members bad behavior either.

Of course you believe anyone would come to the same conclusion. And the fervent Hindu/Buddhist/Scientologist/Sikh/Zoroastrian who went through the same process believes the same thing about their religion.

I imagine you’ll say that such people didn’t do it right... because they didn’t reach the conclusion you did?

In a similar way, a great deal of the Old Testament is presenting history, not condoning those beastly actions (and, indeed, often directly and straightforwardly condemning them). Context is vital.

This is quite wrong - the main beneficial function of religion is to provide an institutional framework for enhancing social capital and the overall "sense of community", which is a critical antidote (far more so than "welfare" or even private charity) against social exclusion and marginalization for the most vulnerable in society. The only states which try to take over this function altogether are totalitarian states - in fact, even in many authoritarian or otherwise dysfunctional and unfree states, religion - at least at a "grassroots" level - tends to function in practice as a haven for civil society. The only institutions that even compete would be labor unions (in some places), and for obvious reasons these are far less universal in their overall outlook.

Going into the realm of personal experience, I made the choice to go to church as a child, and reading the bible expanded my horizons to lots of other religious texts and eventually philosophy and literature. My closest friends in this hobby and discipline started the same way as well.

I am not positing that it opens everyone to philosophy and new ideas (as it is deeply steeped in tradition), but that it opens those who may already be interested and gives them an "in".

[1] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_philosophy

"Universal human rights" feels like a more modern wording for "God-given lifestyle". They are beneficial, but also as irrational as any religion before them, and rely on supernatural origin to make them them non-negotiable.

If I were earnestly searching for religious truth, I think God would lead me to it eventually, yes. It might take many years.

More likely, though, I would live and die without discovering Christianity because I'm too busy just trying to survive, (like if I were born in poverty in some remote location in China).

Not at all. I'm saying don't take my word for it. Try it out for yourself and come to your own conclusion.

> For example, there’s the fact that nobody anywhere at any time in history is known to have independently discovered any religion.

I don't see how you can assert this as a fact. What counts as "discovering a religion"? There are so many huge holes in history across all the continents over thousands of years.

> If it’s really possible to discover the truth through the process you describe, you’d think someone would have done it at some point and come up with the One True Religion despite never having been exposed to it.

I think this has happened - many times. God's true church isn't omnipresent throughout history. It's there sometimes, and missing other times. It gets established, and then goes off the rails due to corruption. I actually believe Judaism used to be God's true religion a long time ago, but has since gone off the rails and is no longer God's true religion.

>In short, what makes people happy is not religion, but material well being and the assurance of material aid. That’s supported by the study’s finding that immigrants, including Muslims from the Middle East, quickly gain the happiness of their new country, while (I suspect), still keeping their religion, though perhaps in an attenuated form.

This does not contradict my point- if you live in rural Appalachia, there's a good chance you have a pretty hardscrabble life. Religion is adaptive in this circumstance, and you can become happier by becoming religious. The author of the article you linked also goes on to quote Marx, saying that abolishing religion is curing the masses of their opium addiction, and curing them of their delusions. I would argue that irreligious people are just as delusional, but with different failure modes. Apathy, nihilism, and lack of a sense of self dominate the irreligious; moral absolutism dominates the religious.

Edit: I'm talking about my experience of religion in Scotland, which is a bit grim and dour, not the rather cheerful kind that they seem to have in the US :-)

That seems counter intuitive, and everything I'm seeing on an initial search says the opposite. Example: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-19659985.

The aggregate conclusion I'm seeing is that smarts corresponds with a small bump in happiness.

This is a half-truth, those same countries you'll be killed for expressing non-belief or belief in a different accepted religion. This is extremism and shouldn't be linked to what the vast majority of the rest of world practices.

Religious populations that murder irreligious people are bad, and not worth defending. That is likely a type of suffering caused by religion.

My argument is that participating in religious activity makes an individual person happier, on average, when looking at the data. That should be convincing, given the data I presented.

> It is entirely possible to be religious without rejecting rationalism ...

>This is clearly not true, even if (as you suggest) attempt to morph capital-G god into a metaphor.

I would have a tough time convincing you that it's true, especially considering that you don't appear to be trying to argue in good faith. But consider the Unitarians. They are mostly focused on personal virtue ethics through religiosity that rejects fundamentalism. I can say that looking at athiest strongholds, such as r/atheism, does not look like a more rational congregation than you might see at your local Unitarian church. The Unitarians are trying to better themselves; r/atheism is mostly focused on tearing down their oppressors.

The claim that religious people are more charitable has not been debunked in this thread, and I would be surprised to see that the evidence points that way in the literature. I've researched it a good bit. "But it's because they give to church" does not fully explain the difference.

>but in any case if the motivation is 'not spend an eternity being tortured' it suggests it's self-interest, not altruism at play.

Altruism is not incompatible with self-interest. Additionally, most Christians are not fundamentalists. You can conceptualize Hell as the suffering that you are dealt as a result of your own failures. By giving to charity, you avoid one of these failures, and in doing so also make the world a measurably better place. (Meanwhile the statistically uncharitable atheists still think of themselves as superior, for some reason...)

I know I am picking on one small part of your argument, but I really hate this line of thinking. So what? Who cares why someone is charitable? I assume most people not doing it in "self-interest" feel good when they do it - does that invalidate the charity? Nobody does anything in a vacuum.

To be fair, Russia in 1920-1930s was pretty close to that. One surely may argue that communism is also a religion, so they were simply getting rid of the competition.

Apples and oranges. You're comparing secular states with religious ones.

>In (as far as I know) no countries would you be killed by atheists if you're non-atheist.

The communist block says hi. China salutes you as well.

  Who has woe? Who has sorrow?
  Who has strife? Who has complaining?
  Who has wounds without cause?
  Who has redness of eyes?
  Those who tarry long over wine;
  those who go to try mixed wine.
  Do not look at wine when it is red,
  when it sparkles in the cup
  and goes down smoothly.
  In the end it bites like a serpent
  and stings like an adder.
  Your eyes will see strange things,
  and your heart utter perverse things.
  You will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea,
  like one who lies on the top of a mast.
  “They struck me,” you will say, “but I was not hurt;
  they beat me, but I did not feel it.
  When shall I awake?
  I must have another drink.”

It's not a tax. You can't get your passport revoked if you don't pay tithing. You won't go to jail for tax evasion, either. In fact, probably nothing will happen. You can continue to go to church every Sunday without paying tithing and most congregations would still welcome you with open arms. Ecclesiastical leaders might remind you that tithing requires faith and that you would receive more blessings if you paid your tithe, but as long as said leaders do not profit from said tithes, I don't see a problem with it as there is no conflict of interest.

is key.

The idea that there isn't supposed to be any evidence because faith is the whole point is such an obvious con. If a used car salesman tried to use a line like that, you'd walk out of the dealership. But change salesman to preacher and dealership to church and suddenly we're supposed to think it makes any kind of sense. "You have to believe me but I can't prove it to you because proof would defeat the purpose" is not something you hear from a deity, it's something you hear from someone reaching for your wallet!