Why religion is necessary for democracy

[Sara S]

90 seconds from Clay Christensen, Harvard Business School:

https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?...XYDPw44&sns=em

[Valley Oak]

I have to express my strongest possible disagreement with the main premise of this video.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Contrary to what the video asserts, human beings do NOT need religion in order to be good people. Just because there is no religion in a society does NOT mean that everyone is going to start breaking the laws and become criminals.

The Scandinavian nations, Holland, and other countries around the world have a very low level of religiosity and their crime rates are much lower than in the U.S.

As a matter of fact, if this gross falsehood were true, then why does the U.S. have consistently higher crime rates than most other nations? Looking at the facts, it would seem that religion has been an utter failure here in the states and that if anything positive could come from religion it would be its elimination, not its presence or its expansion.

90 seconds from Clay Christensen, Harvard Business School:

https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?...XYDPw44&sns=em

[theindependenteye]

I follow the logic of this only halfway. There is indeed a need for institutions or occasions something to instill the purpose and value of following the law, insofar as that means a responsibility to respect your fellow humans. But i don't think I learned that from going to Sunday School or from any messages about God. I learned it, I guess, from people whose ethics were ingrained and who impressed me. Some of these may have been religious, some not, I have no idea. I've known many, many religious people I would call models for emulation, but I don't know that it was their religion made them this way. Rather, I think it's possible that their inner feelings led them to connect with what they saw as valuable in a particular religious outlook.

[Sara S]

I probably should have added that I would substitute "ethics" for "religion" here; then I think what the guy says is true....

I have to express my strongest possible disagreement with the main premise of this video...