In 1955, Mao Zedong told the Dalai Lama, "Religion is poison." Do you agree?

Not the religion itself per se, but the followers are. Or can be.

That is just a crock people use to only remember God when they need something.

Because people can have trouble accepting others & different perspectives, it can be. Religion can be a good thing for people who can apply it to their own lives. But when it's forced on everyone else is when it can become a problem. Religion has been used as an excuse to suppress & brutalize. Religion should be a comfort or a guide, not a weapon. It's not always the religion itself necessarily but the people practicing it.

Ghandi who said "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

And Voltaire, “Of all religions, Christianity is without a doubt the one that should inspire tolerance most, although, up to now, the Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.”

I think it depends on the religion in question and its members.

With the exception of disease and natural disasters, religion has been the cause of most of the immeasurable misery in the history of humanity. That’s just a historical fact. It’s like fire. It can be beneficial but if you don’t learn how to control it you will burn the world down.

Except that religion in itself is not what's responsible for so much trouble. The biggest problem to ever plague mankind is mankind itself, people are the ones to blame for all the world's problems that don't fall under the category of natural disaster.

CeCe wrote:

Because people can have trouble accepting others & different perspectives, it can be. Religion can be a good thing for people who can apply it to their own lives. But when it's forced on everyone else is when it can become a problem. Religion has been used as an excuse to suppress & brutalize. Religion should be a comfort or a guide, not a weapon. It's not always the religion itself necessarily but the people practicing it.

Ghandi who said "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

And Voltaire, “Of all religions, Christianity is without a doubt the one that should inspire tolerance most, although, up to now, the Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.”

Except that Voltaire was only exposed to the intolerance of Christianity in his sphere of reference. I think in modern times Islam has surpassed Christianity in its intolerance. The brutality of Islam is neck and neck with the brutality of Medieval Christianity and the Inquisition.

And Mao was no champion of tolerance. His observations were just an excuse for his attack on the Buddhists of Tibet who were not particularly aggressive towards others.

Selfishness is to blame, not religion.

It's not so much the religion....it's the religious people who try and use religion as a weapon to brainwash, control or trample others.

I think that most religions and most of their people are not poisonous. While I'm not religious, I definitely think that religion and having a certain faith can bring comfort when a person is sick and/or troubled. I think because of a few extreme lunatics, people tend to stereotype religions and their people as brainwashing or pressuring others, when most of the time that's incorrect. Rightfully so, most religious people don't give a shit if you agree with them or not.

I think that most religions have an underlying message of good, but power corrupts man and some men (I guess women too, probably somewhere) gain too much power from religion and lead the masses down an unjust path.

Is that poison? IDK, but I do think that all those witches burned at the stake, and all the people killed during the Inquisition would probably think so...

I believe it CAN be poison, but it isn't inevitably so. It poisoned one of my friends. I'm not sure if I even like him very much any more, which is awful and painful and sad. But I have other friends whose religious beliefs are an integral part of them, something that I can't separate from my overall sense of them as good and decent people.

Chris wrote:

In 1955, Mao Zedong told the Dalai Lama, "Religion is poison." Do you agree?

No. I think that it can be "poison" if it's taken to the extreme like so many religious zealots and right wing conservatives do. But religion in itself is not necessarily "poison" if the fundamental tenets are "good". Sure, there are some strange religions out there that are more about exploiting the ignorant than helping them (ie: scientology). But for the most part I find that most religions out there have a basic "goodness" to their fundamental teachings but I also believe those teachings are twisted and perverted by corrupt organizations who gain power through fear mongering and intimidation.

It is those individuals who prey on the innocent and "brainwash" people into subscribing to their intepretation of religion for personal gain. I believe that "organized religion" is poison. It is the followers of organizations dedicated to making laws based on religion and shoving their beliefs down other peoples throats which infect the souls of the innocent like a cancer. These are the people who have destroyed the well being of societies throughout history.

I believe religion should be a private matter that is negotiated between the individual and God (whomever they hold that to be). Once it becomes a public display, whatever goodness there was has become poisonous. Church/temple/synagouge/mosque gatherings of fellowship are the extent of which religion should be made public. Anything outside of those walls should be strictly secular and any and all religion should remain internalized with the individual. That is the only way religion can truly remain a positive influence in society.

I got a long list of things more poisonous than religion.

Shale wrote:

Except that Voltaire was only exposed to the intolerance of Christianity in his sphere of reference. I think in modern times Islam has surpassed Christianity in its intolerance. The brutality of Islam is neck and neck with the brutality of Medieval Christianity and the Inquisition.

And Mao was no champion of tolerance. His observations were just an excuse for his attack on the Buddhists of Tibet who were not particularly aggressive towards others.

ITA with this. There are many religions out there that are VERY intolerant. Christianity is rapidly being surpassed by Islam and there are many religions that are committing horrible atrocities today. It's very easy to blame only Christians for religious intolerance, but in today's world, that is not longer the case. It seems, though, that it is okay to attack Christians but if you attack any other group, you're branded intolerant, so Christians are the easy target.

Some of the stories I've heard of "ethnic cleansing" by particular religious groups are every bit as brutal as what the Christians did during the Crusades. A friend of mine lived in India for about 7 years while growing up and he talked about the violence between the Hindus and the Muslims. That scene from Slumdog Millionaire that showed the Bombay Riots - he said he remembered hearing about them at the time and that it was brutal. There are stories in other countries of Christians being burned alive in churches and being raped and tortured in the name of religion. Another example of religious intolerance at its finest - West Bank and Gaza.

Ghandi's quote could be applied to any religion, including his own, as the Hindi religion is not all that innocent, either. I remember asking my friend about the Slumdog scene in which Jamal's Mom is killed. I had assumed the group who swept through, slaughtering at will, was Muslim but he said no - it was the Hindus who were responsible. He said that while Hinduism is supposed to be a religion that promotes peace, some Hindus aren't all that different from other religious groups that practise intolerance and use violence. Ghandi's religion isn't entirely pure and his quote does not apply just to Christians but to many religious groups that are still committing atrocities today, including his own religion.

As for the original question - yes - religion can be poison, but not always. There is a difference between a religion and a faith, and I think that is the key. As others have said, there are religions that prey on people and enslave them, brainwashing them. It only takes a few bad apples to give a religion a bad name.

ITA that religion is poison when taken to extremes!

^^^^^ANYTHING is poison when taken to extremes.