How would the world change if all religion AND belief in God(s) ceased?

[ecstatic]

If Atheists convinced everyone to stop believing, would that be a good thing?

Would there be more peace and less war?

[beam me up scottie]

1. When did you stop beating your wife?

What's with the epidemic of begging the question polls?

[DainBramaged]

3. You hate America, don't you?

:spank: :yourock: :hide: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[beam me up scottie]

4. That depends.

Does God still kill a puppy every time I say yes?

[DainBramaged]

7. god of the rocks, cow udders, grasshopers, puppy food makers?

I think the sky rains puppies every time a Volkswagen is sold.:dilemma:

[beam me up scottie]

15. Say, I like that. Okay, I believe in sky puppies from The VolkswaGod too.

Blessings be upon you.

I love this place. I came here to proselytize and deconvert theists and found a new religion instead.

[DainBramaged]

2. Instead of spending so much time worshiping their gods

and pissing money away on un-godly possessions and idols, maybe people would find the time to do something good for those who need it most.

[beam me up scottie]

6. My turn.

:yourock:

[trotsky]

5. Why does a lack of religious belief equate with having nothing to hope for?

I'm going to guess that about 99.9% of atheists have plenty to hope for, and also find plenty of meaning in life without god beliefs. So why the bogus poll option?

[ecstatic]

8. Well let me clarify

I mean a lot of religious people are going through tremendous suffering from poverty, etc. and the only thing that keeps them going is their belief in a higher power and/or belief in an afterlife. Hope that makes sense.

[trotsky]

9. But could that not be because...

their religion teaches them that if it wasn't for the higher power or afterlife, there wouldn't be anything else to live for?

[cosmik debris]

10. On the other hand

In many cases the only thing that holds them down is a religious hierarchy. Sound to me like eliminating religion would be a wash.

[beam me up scottie]

12. POTD!!!!!

You said a mouthful, comrade. :patriot:

What better way to control the masses?

[bryant69]

16. Would it be better to have a poll where all the answers were positive?

I mean plenty of atheists don't go out and rob banks because they don't fear god, so that gets rid of answer 4, doesn't it?

Bryant

[cosmik debris]

17. Perhaps you should abandon your obsession with polls.

If you want to know something, ask.

If you want to say something, say it.

You don't need to stack the deck with your preconceived answers and ideas.

Keep it simple, sir.

[bryant69]

18. I like polls

And I see little value in bending the way I do things to people who are going to stack the deck against me anyway.

Bryant

[cosmik debris]

19. Keep digging. n/t

[bryant69]

21. Anyway there are atheists here capable of discussing for

more than a few posts without resorting to "keep digging."

[beam me up scottie]

23. Discussing with others, sure.

But after knowing what you really think, maybe we're not quite ready to give you the benefit of the doubt, hmm?

[bryant69]

28. You got that mind reader working, eh?

Congratulations.

[beam me up scottie]

30. I don't have to, I have your posts.

Just because they deleted them doesn't mean they disappeared.

[bryant69]

31. Yeah I wondered how you are going to handle that huge delete they did

sunday. Be interesting to see how your memory works.

Bryant

[cosmik debris]

32. digitally I suspect. n/t

[bryant69]

33. I mean which parts of that conversation are going to turn up - I didn't

save any of it myself. But I know the bit where I said some things I shouldn't have (and apologized for later) was saved.

[cosmik debris]

24. And frequently they are complaining about

Your canned answers. You don't fool anyone when you tell us what answers you want and what answers you don't want. You merely expose your own prejudice. It was amusing at first, now it is just tacky.

[bryant69]

27. I will note, I didn't actually create this poll but presumablye

you already know that.

I created the other one about doubts, that very few have responded too.

Bryant

[godless]

11. How would the world change

Don't listen to the needful shamers. It's high time for the human race to abandon fanciful notions of the 10,000 year old savages that imagined a human-like hand behind the natural world and built up a politcal philosophy behind that sadly mistaken notion. If anything, this century is shaping up to be one in which the war between superstition and enlightenment finally gets played out. I can only hope that enlightenement will finally win the day because the inevitable result of a fundy win will be a new global Dark Ages, where brutality rules and our environment is compromised past the breaking point. The Fundys look to hasten God's hand and bring about Armegeddon and the return of their fictitious king. It is pure & utter folly, but try telling one of them that.

[trotsky]

13. Welcome to DU, godless!

For all our sakes, I also hope enlightenment finally wins in the end.

[beam me up scottie]

14. Welcome to DU, godless.

:hi:

I lived in Lehigh County for years.

[Crunchy Frog]

20. There would be just as much wars, violence and hatred.

People would just find different justifications for it. Overall, humanity would be diminished because of the tremendous loss of religion associated culture and traditions that would accompany it.

I say this as a completely non-religious person.

[beam me up scottie]

22. Oh yeah, I personally would really miss stoning adulterous women.

And the poor people wouldn't know what to do with all of that wealth in the Vatican anyway.

They'd probably spend it on condoms, health care and education, the fools.

[cosmik debris]

26. I like getting stoned with adulterous women!

Oh, sorry. I misread your post

[beam me up scottie]

29. Ha! Not as badly as Lerkfish misread the poll!

Ain't it a gas?

All of the polls are slanted for their benefit and they still complain.

[Lerkfish]

51. feel any better?

I suppose hubris is your modus operandi.

however, you have misread my point. I understood the blatant point of the poll, I just chose to counter it with my own point.

further, what you perceiving as my "complaint" here?

[beam me up scottie]

71. Yes, yes I do! Thanks for asking.

And since you also asked for this, here are a few examples of your complaints:

am not perfect, and get a little gunshy in this forum especially, which I liken to a "Lord of the Flies" group dynamic for atheists.
Even though its called "religion and theology", the predominant allowed philosophy is atheism. If you are a progressive christian, you will end up being villified, and drawn and quartered, either being blamed for right wing christian misdeeds, chided for not being able to change right wing christians, blamed for all the evil in the world and the sins of the inquisition, told you are delusional, irrational or childish, etc. And if you point that out, they blame you for not having a thick enough skin.

so.......not really much here most of the time for progressive christians to discuss, unless they wish to run that guantlet.
Some days I venture in and run it anyhow, but it certainly guarantees that most posters in this forum will be atheists, because they annoy progressive christians enough to avoid it. There is no reason for atheists to avoid it, though, there's safety in numbers.

but I am not overly fond of people calling me irrational, delusional, or evil because I'm a progressive christian. And, I'm sure they don't appreciate being called a heathen or whatever by right wing fundies. But attacking progressive christians for what fundies do and say is a little like invading Iraq because Al Queda blows up your building.

I bristle at the constant yammering here that implies a progessive christian has not come to be that with a great deal of thought and investigation.

thanks for reminding me why I usually avoid this forum.

These posts were directed at Finder, an exceptionally polite and tolerant atheist, (which you would know if you actually participated in this forum instead of just posting insult and run diatribes), who was bending over backwards to find common ground and making a superhuman effort NOT to offend you.


Thanks for reminding why I'm glad you usually avoid this forum.

[Boojatta]

74. "People would just find different justifications for it."

It's hard to imagine suicide bombers shouting "Walmart is great!" just before setting off the explosives.

[Lerkfish]

25. All violence would cease. No man would ever cheat his neighbor, no

person would ever insult their neighbor, No person would ever again have an unkind thought.
No person would receive a broken heart. No relationship would ever dissolve. No mothers would abandon their children, No politicians would lie to their people.
No armies would ever wage war again.
There would no longer be a disabled person born, no one would suffer any debilitating illnesses.
No one would take food from another.
No animal would be killed for its flesh.
No pollution would exist any longer.
No one would ever be poisoned again, no one would receive or transmit venereal disease or for that matter, no one would ever get the common cold again.

Yes, if there were no longer religions, no bad thing would ever ever happen again.














because mankind would have become extinct and unable to do all of the above.


Religion of some form has been with man, in all societies and tribes, throughout recorded history. Even regimes that sought to eradicate religion did not completely succeed.
For better or for worse, it seems some form of religion has been in place as long as man has been in place.

I'm not actually certain removing religion completely from mankind is an achievable or desirable goal, any more so than forcing manking to adopt religion completely.
Both are opposite ends of the bell curve where only extremists exist to the exclusion of every part of the spectrum except their own.

And if that happens, where is the diversity, where is the variety? Mankind would eventually either stagnate or find ways to subvert the conformity.

I think it would be much better to CELEBRATE the differences between all of us as precious, then to fantasize about a monolithic utopia, godfilled or godless.
Man does not do his best work in a society of like thinkers.

just my 2cents.

[Finder]

38. Spirituality has existed for sure and will continue even without....

organized religion. They are NOT the same thing.

[Lerkfish]

44. I'm responding to the OP

who said religion and belief in God(s).

I read that as meaning any sort of spirituality that involves gods/demons. do you read that differently than I?

[Finder]

46. I was responding to your take on religion in history...

and I do see spirituality as being very different from organized religion.

[Lerkfish]

50. I don't recall referring to "organized" religion.

if you keep splitting the straw finer and finer, of course you can make more straw men.

I was, on my part referring to either religion or spirituality or belief in things outside ourselves.

of course, this is intentionally trying to drag me down a rathole of your framing. The point I'm making is that for ANY extreme position to avocate a monolithic theological or philosophical paradigm is doomed to failure, because mankind operates in a spectrum of attitudes about religious or spiritual thought. Draconian edicts of proselytzing the whole of mankind into either mindless religious fervor or Randian atheistic intolerance of diversity are much worse in and of themselves than the ills they purport to resolve.

of course, you could continue on in a distracting sidebar of semantics, and feel free to do so, but it has little to do with my point.

[Finder]

52. Not trying to drag you down any rathole, honest....

and I agree with you regarding spiritual diversity.

I disagree that most religions have any respect for diversity whatsoever. Polytheism seemed to work in some societies and does today in places like India but the Monotheistic religions have been a bane on mankind.

As far as your cite of "Randian atheism", I was not aware atheism had sects.lol

[Lerkfish]

53. lol! well, its been my experience

that whenever some atheists are relentlessly trying to "enlighten" me to atheism, the ones that seem most adamant that the entire world should adopt atheism keep quoting or trying to get me to read "Atlas Shrugged".
I have no problem with atheism or atheists usually, but those I've run into like that I've coined "Randian atheists", and they are the most intolerant of other viewpoints than their own, they usually carry a great deal of negative baggage about religion from personal bad experiences, and their arguments usually consist mostly of emotional vitriol instead of logic.
They're like the analog to in your face religious evangelical proselytizers.
at any rate, I'm always astounded for people who claim to use reason over superstition that they have this esotheric utopian dream of monolithic nonreligion, and in this little pipe dream of theirs, all the evils in the world stop when we abandon religion.

Sorry if I tarred you with that brush. I am not perfect, and get a little gunshy in this forum especially, which I liken to a "Lord of the Flies" group dynamic for atheists.
Even though its called "religion and theology", the predominant allowed philosophy is atheism. If you are a progressive christian, you will end up being villified, and drawn and quartered, either being blamed for right wing christian misdeeds, chided for not being able to change right wing christians, blamed for all the evil in the world and the sins of the inquisition, told you are delusional, irrational or childish, etc. And if you point that out, they blame you for not having a thick enough skin.

so.......not really much here most of the time for progressive christians to discuss, unless they wish to run that guantlet.
Some days I venture in and run it anyhow, but it certainly guarantees that most posters in this forum will be atheists, because they annoy progressive christians enough to avoid it. There is no reason for atheists to avoid it, though, there's safety in numbers.

and, just to prove my point, be sure to pay attention to how they respond to THIS post...LOL!

[Finder]

54. Well the founders of this country had a utopian dream too...

which many atheists and progressive theists agree with. Often generalizations are made that rub people the wrong way, even know we are all on the same side. That is why this forum is tucked away from the rest of the board.

Seldom is theology discussed since it seems--ironically--only some of the atheists have actually studied theology.

It gets heated at times and we get a few trolls but I am sure a lot of theists have a better understanding of atheists and a few atheists have a better understanding of theists at the end of the day.

Politics and religion are seldom discussed without passion from both sides.

[Lerkfish]

55. well, I think the founders did not dream of the obliteration of religion

in their utopia, just an immense tolerance of the diversity of religious/nonreligious thought.

I'm talking about atheists who rant we should eliminate all the religious people. When I ask them how they intend to accomplish that, they don't really have an answer that makes me comfortable. When I bring up that some people consider their religion as more important than their own life, and how do you force them to be nonreligious short of killing them, they accuse me of baiting them, but I think its a valid question: if your utopia means no relgion, how far are you willing to go to accomplish that, considering that many people are currently religious, many of them zealously so.


at any rate, I'm not really disagreeing with what you're saying, I do think some atheists know more about theology than some religious people do.

but I am not overly fond of people calling me irrational, delusional, or evil because I'm a progressive christian. And, I'm sure they don't appreciate being called a heathen or whatever by right wing fundies. But attacking progressive christians for what fundies do and say is a little like invading Iraq because Al Queda blows up your building.

[Finder]

56. Education is what most freethinkers see as the solution...

for individuals. Not to make them become non-religious but to give them the tools against being duped by disingenuous religous leaders.

Also, attacks on fellow DUers are against the rules. Alert if you feel you have been attacked.

Debating and/or challenging someone's beliefs is not attacking IMO. That is the nature of political discourse.

[Lerkfish]

58. Well, I"m well educated, top 1% of my class, split major in art and

physical chemistry, though I chose to concentrate on design the last year, graduated with honors, and took many courses studying philosophy, Kant, Descartes, Liebnitz, Neitsche, and on down the line.

The implication that all christians need is education to become atheists is condescending in the extreme. I am not duped by religious leaders, I came to my relationship in religion through much soul-searching and inward investigation. I read the bible, cover to cover 4 times before I approached a church to become a christian.

Sorry, but this is just more of the same thing I was referring to earlier. I flat out reject the premise that I have to be uneducated to be a christian, and I am a christian INDEPENDENT of any religious leaders, but because I feel it is the right thing to be.

I bristle at the constant yammering here that implies a progessive christian has not come to be that with a great deal of thought and investigation.

[Finder]

59. Well you are obviously not following leaders like Dobson, Falwell...

and ilk. It is not progressives that are trying to turn the US into a theocracy.

I did not imply christians needed education to become atheists and specifically stated it was not to make them non-believers.

With all due respect, you are approaching these discussions in a defensive manner when there is no need to.

We are all progressives here and honestly, no lions allowed.

[Lerkfish]

60. ah, yes, the "thicker skin" argument.

as long as we're talking thicker skin, I was not implying you implied anything.
I was speaking of the notion in general, when it is used, to imply that christians need education.

thanks for reminding me why I usually avoid this forum.

[Random_Australian]

34. Other: People would become 'spiritual' and believe there were ghosts

and whatnot.

After all, one of the functions of religion is to explain things when we don't want other answers.

For instance - "I have imperfect cognition" vs. "I felt the presence of an angel"

Second is FAR nicer for people to believe.

As for removing organised religion, if it happened now things would be ok, but I think I can think of a few times in history when it was beneficial for this conversation to happen:

Je-mo-bud-hammad: "Peoples of such and such! Follow these arbitrary rules! Do it now!"

Peoples: "Why the fuck should we do that? You just pulled them out of your ARSE"

Je-mo-bud-hammad: "Peoples of this time are as gullible as fuckery, so I will tell you awful things will happen after you die if you don't do the right thing!"

Peoples: "Ok, we'll b-a-a-a-a-a do it"

Mainly when shit-for-brains leaders had gone and messed up things a lot, and people needed some way of being motivated to do things against said leader, before the rise of people spending time a-thinking about morality.

I wonder what other uses religion has. I'm still thinking over it.

[moobu2]

35. The false belief

that there is an afterlife has got to be the most destructive part of any superstitious religious belief. I’d settle with a world without that.

[Finder]

37. I agree it is the most destructive but it is also a positive belief for...

those who are mourning loved ones. Believing you will be with them again one day has helped many towards acceptance.

[Finder]

36. The world would be more peaceful, healthy and educated...

not perfect but better.

Wars would be shorter and less violent since killing indiscriminately and letting god sort them out would no longer be the standard. People would not martyr themselves in the hope of eternal bliss.

Poverty would decrease since people would stand up rather than accept their suffering. People would be proactive about their health rather than just hoping and praying for healing...

People would care more about the environment and understand how cause and effect operates. More people would take personal responsibility and seek help rather than blame their behavior on demons or devils, etc...

Humanitarians will no longer have to compete with organizations that oppress in the name of religious humanitarianism...ala Pat Robertson and his diamond mining.

[kwassa]

39. Crimes committed in the name of religion are often non-religious

in causality. It is usually about one group seeking power over another, and many excuses are made in justification. Wars would simply slip to another justification. The amount of war would be the same.

Much of the world's greatest art and music has been made in the name of religion. The meaning of much of that would lose its cultural context if the particular religion is no longer studied.

[Goblinmonger]

40. Interesting that you can say

that war would continue to happen without religion (which, at some level, I don't disagree with) but you can then turn right to saying that the people who created great works of art wouldn't have done so without religion. Would they just have become slack-jawed mouth breathers without religion or what? Rembrant would not have had any talent, internal turmoil, or subject matter without religion (how much of his stuff was religious again?)?

I think you lose credibility on your first point by making your second point. Plus it just pisses me off when theists imply that an atheist has no reason or ability to be creative.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

69. Lots of Rembrandt's work was religious in nature

I don't remember the exact percentage, but I've certainly seen examples.

[Finder]

43. Art and Music was controlled by the church...

for hundreds of years. Also, many artists are well known for the religious pieces they did but there are many of their works that are not religious or downright anti-religious in some cases.

[Evoman]

48. But many wars and conflicts DON'T make sense without religion.

I mean..think about the protestants and catholics in Ireland. Or the shi'ites and sunnis (or even kurds). Or even Palestine and India, who are basically divided in terms of religion. Without religion you could not have a religious right...because almost all their views are based on religion. Anti-abortion, Anti=gays, Anti-science. And why would someone bomb themselves to be martyred, if there was no reason for it. I bet those virgins are really enticing...you don't see atheists blowing themselves up.

I don't buy it. Yes, many wars are based on economic reasons or expansion reasons..but not all of them. Religion has caused many conflicts. Not only that, many despots have become legitimate solely because of religious reasons..."i.e. he has been chosen by god".

Your second point is absolutely absurd. I bet if many of those painters hadn't been forced to accept church money to paint church related paintings, they would have done beautiful non-church paintings. I mean...look at shakespeare. I bet if he had been forced to take church money, he would have done some pretty great religious writing....and you would have added his name to your list of great church artists. Sure we would have missed out on Hamlet, and Macbeth, and Julius Caesar.....

[kwassa]

64. They would find alternative causes

In Northern Ireland, the protestant and catholic conflict is really about the invasion of a catholic nation by a protestant one 300 years ago. It is about Irish nationalism. Those Irish that converted to the conquering protestanism of the English are seen as English sympathizers.

Sunnis, shi'ites, and kurds all worship Islam. Kurds are sunnis, too, but are a non-Arabic ethnic group, so this is about ethnicity. Sunnis and shi'ites are also group definitions, and formerly they lived together in peace. Most divisions in Iraq are along tribal lines, with Shi'ite militias fighting other Shi'ite militias and Sunnis fighting each other, too. Iraq used to be ruled by Saddam's Al-Tikriti clan, specifically.

Cultural divisions often travel along with religious divisions, but is can be a toss-up whether the conflict is really religious in nature.

"I bet if many of those painters hadn't been forced to accept church money to paint church related paintings, they would have done beautiful non-church paintings."

but you don't know that, do you? Great art comes from contemplating deep questions, and in the search for the deepest meaning of life and lives, as in religious art, great art is found. Religion is very much a part of those great works of art.

[Evoman]

65. The irony here, kwassa, is that your last point was my point

"but you don't know that, do you?"

Thats the thing...you don't know. That did not stop you from speculating, did it? You speculate that without religion, things would be the same, "but you don't know that, do you?"

You speculated that without religion, the great painters wouldn't have been so great but "you don't know that, do you?"

Since there have been many great painters who did not paint about religion (Monet? Van gogh? Kinkaide...oops, nm), its not hard to imagine that painters who painted religious painting would have been just as great. I mean..what if science has predominated in that era...maybe Michealangelo would have painted a great dome dedicated to science. After all, science contemplates deep questions...and answers some of em too.

But I don't know do I. We will never know. Because if they had used their talents for something else, they would have either starved or been executed.

[shrike]

41. Unfortunately, it would not change

I wouldn't even mind if religion were eliminated if I thought it would actually make a difference. But we would still be a race of selfish, grasping, greedy people. We just wouldn't believe in God.

[neebob]

42. Wars would be based on pure greed and aggression

and a lot of personality-disordered assholes like Dick Cheney and G.W. Bush, presently constrained by fear of eternal punishment, would lose their inhibitions. And the rest would be as tractable as ever - maybe even more so, with the loss of the meaning and purpose that religion provides so many people. New liars would step in to fill the void.

Which is not to say I think the demise of religion would be a bad thing. I just don't think the world would change all that much.

[kwassa]

45. Who in Bush's cabinet share in his fundamentalist views?

Many Republicans have little interest in religion. I don't think of Cheney or Rumsfeld as observant Christians.

[neebob]

47. I don't know

I just used them as examples, because they're crooked. I didn't mean them specifically. But I believe Cheney professes a belief in God, and don't consider Bush a fundamentalist. To my knowledge, he hasn't expressed much more than a belief in God, so I don't know where people get that he's a fundamentalist. To me he and Cheney are just representative of a lot of high-functioning sociopaths and narcissists. I expect that if the belief in heavenly reward or punishment went away, many of them would go balls out.

[hunter]

49. Humans can always find something to fight about.

Religion is one of the more common themes, but language or skin color would do just as well.

Frankly, football, of both the U.S. and soccer sort, can be just as dangerous as religion.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/2308799.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,505435,00.html

[Crunchy Frog]

57. Agree about football.

I wouldn't mind seeing it eradicated from the face of the Earth.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

70. True, two Central American countries

Honduras and El Salvador, fought a "soccer war" in 1969. I don't mean team rivalry, I mean an actual war with gunfire and everything.

India had "language riots" in the 1960s, when southern Indians (mostly speakers of Dravidian languages, such as Tamil) rioted against attempts by the central government to impose Hindi ( a north Indian language closely related to other north Indian languages like Bengali and Punjabi) as the sole official language of the country. Both sides were majority Hindu.

Somalia, where everyone is Muslim, had a civil war that was purely a power struggle among clans.

[SPKrazy]

61. I Don't Know If You Could Make A Prediction Like That

too many variables as there are too many religions, and too many combinations of government and religion separations or enjoinments to make a prediction with any validity.

I don't think that the world would come to an end.

I think that some people would freak out (those who need external structure and locus of control to function)


I think that most people would be fine, with a lot of adjustments.

I don't know that it would be inherently good or bad. Why would atheists want to convince everyone to stop believing for one? I thought atheists were not trying to convert anyone, since they come from a stance of non-belief, rather than belief in a negative.

How does one convince one of non-belief?

It's a Sam Harris kind of question, which isn't bad. It's just not a realistic one to try to sort out for me since it has too many variables.

[neebob]

62. It would depend on why and how quickly religion went away.

I don't see how it could ever happen in a very short time. I can't think of anything - not visiting extraterrestrials, not even successul human cloning - that would cause that kind of mass rethink. I'd expect the death of religion to be more gradual, over a number of generations.

[Finder]

63. The world has become less religious since the Enlightenment...

and churches no longer are the repositories of knowledge in most countries. The era of nation-states has kept religion in check...for the most part. The Middle East and the continent of Africa seem to be the last frontier for religious power struggles. A few battles still rage in Europe and the US but freethinkers including liberal and moderates know the stakes and will prevail.

[Evoman]

66. And thats the kicker.

In secular countries, you don't have a lot of infighting or "ethnic cleansings". We have people of all religions in Canada, but they aren't blowing each other up or killing each other. Whats the difference between theists in secular countries and religious countires....oh, gee, I don't know...could it possibly be to positive influence of secularism and science on people?

[Random_Australian]

68. Actually, there is a big thing with out-groups.

They are responsible for a lot of bad things happenning.

Basically, if a secular state lets all alone to practice their religion (within reason ie. no human sacrifice) then its a cue that all the religions are part of one group.

So, if you have a state religion, you get us vs them thinking, which means outgroups form, which leads to trouble. Lots of trouble.

[beam me up scottie]

72. Now THAT is one of the most quote-worthy posts I've ever seen.

In secular countries, you don't have a lot of infighting or "ethnic cleansings". We have people of all religions in Canada, but they aren't blowing each other up or killing each other. Whats the difference between theists in secular countries and religious countires.

Oh, come on, Evoman, I know for a fact Back Baconians and Anti-Back Baconian factions blow each other up all the time.

[Chulanowa]

67. No change at all

Fanaticism is the problem within religion. The big problem is, fanaticism is not inherent to religion, nor does it rely on religion to exist. Fanaticism is a mental discorder, a sort of violent obsessive-compulsive urge. If you take religion away, then the fanatics will simply find something else to fanaticize and kill in the name of.

[ecstatic]

73. interesting and scary at the same time! nt