What are some effects that organized religion has had on society and what are some examples from past and/or present world events that illustrates the examples?

Question

religion has caused countless wars in world history. This includes: The Crusades, The 30 years War, The French Wars of Religion, and MANY more. It was also the back bone of renaissance art and culture. Many kings of Europe used God to their advantage by stating they had divine power and were not be questioned, as well. This in turn created new types of government (Absolute Monarchy) and wars with the church and people. (The Reformation).

do you know of any websites that could back up this type of information.

Type "Olum's Paradox" in google and go to my blog :)

I've visited it just a few min ago. Honestly I don't know how or what to answer for my question that I posted that's why I need help.

The Crusades
The Reformation
The Thirty Years War
The Renaissance
The French Wars of Religion
Divine right of kings

since we're not aloud to post links, I couldn't post the ones I found. But just type those into google and check out wikipedia.

Hope it helps. =]

Yes it does thank you very much you are a savor!

Well, religion has had many effects, both positive and negative. If you want to find out what the effect of something is you have to look at conterfactuals. In this case that means that you have to consider a hypothetical setting in which, e.g. religion would be less prominently present in everyday life in the middle ages, or you would have to consider some other hypothetical setting.

The point that I made on my blog is that it may be the case that religion and other irrational beliefs maximize the number of individuals that will ever live in our civilization.

you're welcome =]

Answer 1

One of the effects that organized religions have had on society in the past is persecution of Christianity. During the pre-Christian era of history Christians were imprisoned or put to death by pagans. One of the greatest persecutions in history happened during the years prior to the rule of the Roman Emperor Constantine. Christians were put to death for practicing their religion by the followers of Mithras. In some articles historians believe that if it was not for Constantine’s tolerance of this newly forming religion then Christianity would have ceased to exsist.