If you are going to take religion’s effects into account as well as the truth of it, you need to look at both sides of the ledger, and weigh the ills it brings against the good. No cherry-picking.
Morendil, I absolutely agree. It may very well be that the ills outweigh the good (though I happen to personally doubt it). I’m just saying that the weighing should be done independently of the rationality of religion (which I think we can all agree is about 0). I just fear that it is too easy for there to be a negative halo effect around religion, which is understandable seeing that this is a forum about rationality.
If you are going to take religion’s effects into account as well as the truth of it, you need to look at both sides of the ledger, and weigh the ills it brings against the good. No cherry-picking.
Morendil, I absolutely agree. It may very well be that the ills outweigh the good (though I happen to personally doubt it). I’m just saying that the weighing should be done independently of the rationality of religion (which I think we can all agree is about 0). I just fear that it is too easy for there to be a negative halo effect around religion, which is understandable seeing that this is a forum about rationality.