Why religion is the worst thing that ever happened to humanity

[Rich]

My worst fear is that religious conflict will destroy the world in a self-fulfilling prophecy and then they'll say, "you see. It was God's will."

[[deleted user]]

While the brave exist, science is not in danger.

[Eat.Sleep.Lift.Read.]

Gregory wrote: "While the brave exist, science is not in danger."

Tell that to the kids being taught 'creation' or the common schmuck paying 'green taxes'.

[Rich]

Check out my video on Youtube on "endmeme". You'll see why belief in the "Second Coming" is such a danger. Also, you don't worry about your house if you believe it's going to be foreclosed. You don't take care of it. Nature pays the price for the crazy belief.

[[deleted user]]

Why fear what isn't going to happen?

[Rich]

Because of the possibility of a self-fulfilling prophesy. It happened quite a bit in history: Hitler predicted the invasion of Russia in Mein Kempf in the '20s. Can you picture the likes of Sarah Palin with her finger on the red button praying, "Tell me when, Lord, tell me when."

[[deleted user]]

I will not let an irrational fear dominate my thinking. I simply refuse to give in to cowardice.

[Rich]

How can you claim it's an irrational fear? It's not a matter of cowardice or fear, it's about cautioning people to the possibility. I'm saying electing another fundamentalist Christian like W. Bush increases the chances of it happening. Would you vote for Sarah Palin knowing what I just wrote?

[[deleted user]]

Sarah Palin is a stupid bitch.

[[deleted user]]

Rich wrote: "My worst fear is that religious conflict will destroy the world in a self-fulfilling prophecy and then they'll say, "you see. It was God's will.""

What is you definition of religion? A religion doesn't need a god or god's.

[Rich]

Lennart wrote: "Rich wrote: "My worst fear is that religious conflict will destroy the world in a self-fulfilling prophecy and then they'll say, "you see. It was God's will.""

What is you definition of religion? ..."

All right I should have said "organized religions" excepting the Buddhists. They all believe in the "end of days."

[[deleted user]]

Rich wrote: "Lennart wrote: "Rich wrote: "My worst fear is that religious conflict will destroy the world in a self-fulfilling prophecy and then they'll say, "you see. It was God's will.""

What is you definiti..."

It all gets a bit fuzzy then. What was, in sovjet Russia, the phenomena that made people worship dead martyr's? Religion was officially banned in sovjet Russia.

[Rich]

Lennart wrote: "Rich wrote: "Lennart wrote: "Rich wrote: "My worst fear is that religious conflict will destroy the world in a self-fulfilling prophecy and then they'll say, "you see. It was God's will.""

What is the phenomenon? Ignorance.

[[deleted user]]

Rich wrote: "Lennart wrote: "Rich wrote: "Lennart wrote: "Rich wrote: "My worst fear is that religious conflict will destroy the world in a self-fulfilling prophecy and then they'll say, "you see. It was God's ..."

So, organized religion is equivalent to ignorance?

[Rich]

Len, I'm getting a little confused by the above italics such that it's difficult to follow the thread.

I believe you asked, what is the phenomenon?

The main point I was trying to make above is that ignorance is a cause of religious or superstitious thinking. There are, of course, other reasons for religion's resilience emanating from human evolution. It's in our DNA. As carnivorous pack hunters there's a need to adore the alpha male. That's why most institutions, including government, have such a rigid hierarchy.

[[deleted user]]

Rich wrote: "Len, I'm getting a little confused by the above italics just that is difficult to follow the thread.

I believe you asked, what is the phenomenon?

The main point I was trying to make above is th..."

Just trying to get the definition's straight.

I'd not go that route to discredit religion - with the conventional definition, as the way you do. In fact, there's a common philosophical error in your argument against religion. Ironically, you even used the word DNA. The philosophical error is called "genetic fallacy" which states that an argument has not been defeated because you can explain where or how the argument came about. For example, our mathematical knowledge or sense of what is _true_ is probably due to evolution, but you wouldn't argue against me believing that 3*2=6 _because_ evolution has developed me into thinking that is true, even if evolution was the cause!

If a case against religion is to be made it should be made with two types of arguments:
1. Philosophical arguments (logic, inference to the best explanation, premises and conclusions)
2. Historical or scientific evidences (history, archeology, science)

Personal anecdotes would be irrelevant.

All I'm saying is that you do a disservice if you simply call someone ignorant for believing something. You'd have to discredit it _intellectually_ for it to be viable. The personal belief that someone claim is irrelevant for the argument against that belief.

[Rich]

All I'm saying is that you do a disservice if you simply call someone ignorant for believing something. You'd have to discredit it _intellectually_ for it to be viable.

You're trying to defend the indefensible. Belief in organized religion is not only ignorant but crazy. Do you believe Christ died for our sins to palliate his egomaniacal father? Let's get to the nitty-gritty. God the Father was offended by Eve's disobedience. Does it make sense to order his own son to undergo torture and death to satisfy is whacky ego?

Please don't hand me the old cop-out: God works in mysterious ways.

[[deleted user]]

Rich wrote: " All I'm saying is that you do a disservice if you simply call someone ignorant for believing something. You'd have to discredit it _intellectually_ for it to be viable.

You're trying to defend t..."

I'm not defending anything, I'm just pointing out fallacies. But, if what you just wrote is viable, then taking that as a template would be viable to any other argument:

"You're trying to defend the indefensible. Belief in [the democratic party, ..] is not only ignorant but crazy..."

.. that is not an argument.

[Rich]

Belief in [the democratic party, ..] is not only ignorant but crazy..."
.. that is not an argument.

I have to agree with you there. I'm voting for Bernie.

OK, here's an idea. I'll be more specific. In my humanist essays I made up a list of bad things religion has supported and condoned in the Bible and church teaching. Pick any of the item in this Pandora's box of mine and we'll discuss it.

Here's the list:

“The Bible and Koran condone and then encourage the worst aspects of human behavior:  war, slavery, necrophilia, cruelty to animals, abuse of the Earth itself, anthropocentrism, suicide, starvation, racism, dichotomous thinking, nepotism, xenophobia, child abuse, misogyny, blind faith, hadephobia, genocide, sexism, child sacrifice (especially filicide considered redemptive), capital punishment, homophobia, denial of reality, self-flagellation, torture, human sacrifice, symbolic cannibalism, and other insults to reason.  The result has been to corrupt, distort and pervert the worldview of all who stubbornly cling to these primitive tribal superstitions and have faith in the dictates and promises of professional clerics.” 
 
Pot Stories and Humanist Essays

Slavery, for instance. Even something so evil and sinister as slavery is accepted in the Bible as normal. The Mormons even used their bible as an excuse to persecute black people, descendants of Ham and all that.

[[deleted user]]

Rich wrote: "Belief in [the democratic party, ..] is not only ignorant but crazy..."
.. that is not an argument.

I have to agree with you there. I'm voting for Bernie.

OK, here's an idea. I'll be more speci..."

Of course you are :)

Again, what you're stating are not arguments and cannot be used to discredit anything. They are opinions. You'd have to build a case that, for example, slavery is bad else it's just your belief in what you believe is good or bad.

[Carlos]

Religion did not "happen to humanity" - religion is humanity. Externalising it is the same as externalising Evil as though it is something that seduces us away from our true selves. Bollocks. In the words of Pogo, "I have seen the enemy, and it is us."

[Rich]

I don't know how I can spell it out for you any better. How can you state what I said was an opinion? Almost everyone would agree that slavery is an evil and instead of condemning it the Bible accepts and condones it.

Let's try another. Anthropocentrism is placing mankind at the center of the biological world—as if we have a soul and the animals not. We are God's principle creation and a gift to the planet. Genesis says a few times, "Be fruitful and multiple" and "subdue the Earth." (Now the planet has over 7.3 people and life in much of world is as cheap as dirt.")

Look at the horror this directive has caused the world. Humans have made a mess of the entire planet where even coral reefs are disintegrating and remain ugly scars of what they once were.

We're in the middle of the Holocene Extinction and most religious people don't know it and don't even care. More than 50% of the Amazon Rain Forest is degraded since the time I was born (during WWII) and more the half of all vertebrate species are extinct.

This is not an opinion. You can look it up on the Internet in sundry sites. Google "Holocene Extinction". Look at that dentist that paid $50,000 dollars to shoot an old lion in South Africa last year. He does not see any biological connection between himself and the rest of mammalia.

The Iron-Age idiots that wrote the Bible caused this detestable conceit. Instead of emphasizing the genetic connection they separated mankind from the rest of the animal world.

Please don't tell me this is an opinion. It's a disturbing and undeniable fact. If you disagree show me how and where I'm wrong.

[[deleted user]]

Rich wrote: "I don't know how I can spell it out for you any better. How can you state what I said was an opinion? Almost everyone would agree that slavery is an evil and instead of condemning it the Bible acce..."

Yes, most people agree that slavery is bad, but it's still not an argument.

An argument FOR slavery would go something like this:

1. Premise: People who own a car takes better care of that car than if they'd have rented it.

2. Premise: People who own people takes better care of those people than if they'd have hired that person.

3. Conclusion: Therefore, slavery is better than hiring people.

How would you refute this (this was actually used as an argument in 18th century U.S)? in philosophical terms it's refered to as a defeater.

"Slavery is bad" is not an argument.


.. and this is why arguments and philosophy are important. I don't agree that humans are bad. I do believe that humans should rank itself above all other animals and life.

[Carlos]

While the population explosion and the words in the bible are both facts, connecting them together, effect and cause, is hardly a fact. I doubt very much people have had too many children, or went about increasing their life span and survival rates simply because the bible told them to do it.
In fact, religion has far less to do with 'religious wars' than tribalism, a genetic facet of humanity that has been exploited by secular and political leaders (including leaders of religions) forever. It has nothing to do with religion.
The idea that man is Good or Bad is irrelevant as well. Man just is, at least for now. The concepts of good and bad are human inventions, for whatever reason. The universe is not "good or "bad," nor are animals. The invention of these fanciful concepts does not make humans superior to animals, it just makes us crazy animals.

[Rich]

"It has nothing to do with religion"

Are you saying the Protestant Reformation wasn't caused by religion? How about the English Civil Wars and the numerous wars of Islamic expansion after the death of Mohammad? How about the Crusades and the Fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453.

The list goes on and on. How about in modern times the Shiites against the Sunnis?

I'll admit the tribe you're born into determines what religion you belong to. Then how come there're very few infra-tribal (within a tribe) wars being they all have the same religion?

[Rich]

Len, I see you're a fan of Noam Chomsky. A slave owner's crafty bit of sophistry to justify slavery. This country fought a brutal internecine war over it, just horrible. Do you really believe what you seem to be purporting with this jejune syllogism?

Let's get back to the original thesis. How could a book on morality overlook and condone the institution of slavery? And I assure you, ancient slavery in the time of the Romans was even more pernicious than at the time of the Civil War. (Notice I did say "evil.")

[Carlos]

Rich, there were many factors
At work to cause the Reformation including the widespread disgust at corruption and wealth in the Roman Catholic Church and political unease at the owner of another state, far away, with far too much influence in the workings of other governments. These are economic, political and secular causes. Theological doctrinal differences, I believe, arose out of these essentially non-religious problems. Once defined, the doctrinal differences led to various religious sects and tribalism then takes hold.
Do you really think that Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland were killing each other over religious differences? Likewise Sunnis and Shiites I'm sure - the political and economic problems between them are huge and I don't think they are killing each other over the question of who should have been Mohammed's successor.

[Gary]

Rich wrote: "Len, I see you're a fan of Noam Chomsky. A slave owner's crafty bit of sophistry to justify slavery. This country fought a brutal internecine war over it, just horrible. Do you really believe what you seem to be purporting with this jejune syllogism?"

Hi Rich, from my reading of his post I would say that no he doesn't. What he was doing was pointing out the difference between an emotive argument and rational debate. Labelling something as "evil" or "wrong" without being able to understand or articulate why they are wrong is part of the problem with religions and many forms of bigotry.

Taking the slavery example, why is it wrong? Spluttering and claiming it is 'obviously' wrong does not help because the only reason that we now think of the term "slave" as wrong is because of hindsight. The original term for slave in latin, "servi" is also the root word from which we derive the words "service" and "servant". Is having hired help as bad as slavery?

The problem then occurs when people pay too much attention to labels and names and not at what they represent. Look at the wealthiest nations on Earth in the current economic paradigm and look at the widespread poverty in the lowest paid of even their working population. If you are free to work or to refuse, but work generally only pays enough to survive to continue to work, then what are the differences with slavery? A slave is not given freedom to leave their toil, but when faced with destitution for yourself or worse your family if you leave a job with no future for you but endless toil, is that any difference from slavery?

After all a slave has value, a free person is free to go where they choose and starve and die homeless. In most modern societies free people barter away their freedom, and toil in return for shelter and food.

Obviously there are differences, but actually being able to understand and articulate those differences is extremely important. It is also important to know what makes things morally wrong and the difference between a label and the details of the things it represents.

Rich wrote: "Let's get back to the original thesis. How could a book on morality overlook and condone the institution of slavery?"

It is indeed a valid point when viewed from the point of view of a modern and democratic "free" society. However, by using that point of view we also blind ourselves to something far more important about the book. The book in question does not just overlook and condone the institution of slavery, if you understand the substantive context of what slavery is, then the entire book is fundamentally based on the components of slavery.

The term "Lord" as used in the Bible is nowadays used in the context of "nobility" as derived from a medieval form of feudalism, however in the Latin the term Lord "Dominus" is directly translatable as "Master". The rest of the book not only portrays that master as one that should be obeyed or suffer limitless punishment, but also the idea that everyone should be in service to him. How many times have you heard the term "I am your servant, Lord" from Christians? How much cleared is it when you realise that the Latin root of the word "servant" is "servi" which is the Roman's word for slave. The entire Bible's incorporates a complete power imbalance that is typical of a Master/Slaves power dynamic, including the wilful abuse of slaves (such as the perfect innocents in Genesis) and the constant refrain of the idea that god's mightiness is synonymous with his righteousness. Indeed the Bible not only places value on slaves, but makes many references to the intrinsic value of flesh. In fact the idea that Jesus' "precious" blood was shed to pay for a debt is a direct correlation to human life being a form of commodity.

By concentrating on the few times that the Bible condones or overlooks slavery by name, you can miss the fact that the entire Bible is about slavery by any other name!

Rich wrote: "And I assure you, ancient slavery in the time of the Romans was even more pernicious than at the time of the Civil War. (Notice I did say "evil.") "

Really?

Knowing a bit about slavery in Roman times I wonder about that assurance. Certainly I do not support the general concept of slavery however their are degrees and differences that are important to recognise.

First slavery in Roman times compared to pre-Civil War America was a lot less racial. Slaves could be of any colour or creed, and indeed any colour or creed could be free men with their own trade. Slavery in Rome was generally not driven by the idea that one race was intrinsically superior to another.

Slavery in Rome was also a form of public welfare - something which many modern conservative groups are quietly advocating now - instead of a free unemployed person starving to death in poverty they had the choice to sell themselves into slavery, paying off debts and giving them hope of survival. In fact one of the main forms of social conflict in Rome was between the free Plebian lower class tradesmen who found their livelihoods threatened by slaves.

Slavery in Rome was also potentially more socially mobile than in the Civil War. Slaves could earn their freedom and many loyal slaves were freed in their masters wills. The social stigma of slavery also legally only extended a generation. With the racial based slavery of the Southern states of pre-civil war USA such social mobility is a lot less prevalent.

Of course both cultures routinely abused slaves and both were abhorrent for reasons I can certainly articulate, but I leave that for now. However, once again the argument about Roman slavery being more pernicious you have just presented as a "fact", just like the assertion that slavery is "evil". To understand and compare such things one needs to present their reasoning, not simply appeal to the emotive content of the words themselves.

[Gary]

Carlos wrote: "Do you really think that Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland were killing each other over religious differences?"

Absolutely.

There is a common defence deployed by the religious about the role religion plays in human conflicts, and that is to point out non-religious causes and then pretending that the existence of that completely absolves religion. However, this flies in the face of the evidence of millennia of violent religious schism across Europe and the Middle East in particular.

There seems to be a lack of comprehension on the religious side of the strength of their own beliefs. That somehow one can have religious faith giving them strength and being the core of their worldview and yet somehow never informing their choices and actions in an ongoing conflict.

Yet history shows that disparate cultures that are involved in wars and invasions can have their populations resolved or assimilated within a few generations, even with major economic or political differences. Yet sectarian conflicts last for decades or millennia. Look at England after the Roman invasion. The Saxon invasion of the Britons, the Danish invasion, the Norman invasion. Often these invasions had people with entirely separated languages and cultures but similar religions and the differences were quickly assimilated into the culture. However, England's separation from the Catholic hegemony of Europe led to centuries of warfare and constant conflict and even civil wars and regicide.

Carlos wrote: "Likewise Sunnis and Shiites I'm sure - the political and economic problems between them are huge and I don't think they are killing each other over the question of who should have been Mohammed's successor. "

They are not merely killing each other over who was Mohammed's successor but of what version of "the Truth" i.e. Islam is the "true" version of Islam. If it is all down to economics and politics then how come the violence keeps separating so neatly across religious divisions? Even if it is mere "tribalism" then why does religion define their tribe more than geography, politics or even economics?

This is because national differences can be solved by negotiation or even emigration. Economic differences can be resolved politically or by opportunity. Social differences can be resolved by integration and cultural education. However religions are dogmatic and absolute and therefore non-negotiable. If you are truly a "god-fearing" person then how can you accept a different idea about god because some other mortal person - some heretic - claims they know god's mind better than you do?

This is the reality of these situations and more importantly it is the skeleton that appeals to everyone regardless of their political involvement or awareness. The average citizen may not understand or even know the history of their conflict with their neighbour, they may not understand the nuances of their politics or economic theory. However, knowing that those bloody heretics over their have weird unholy rituals and worship the anti-christ pope instead of god... or they deny gods word and the authority of the Church Jesus appointed... or they deny the divinity of Christ, his position as messiah and support those that murdered him... These are all ideas that can consolidate a population together, and also make them enforce their own kind of apartheid from others with "wrong" ideas no matter how integrated they have become geographically.

Of course I can understand why so many religious people can believe wholeheartedly in their willingness to adhere to their religion, and yet at the same time see other people's devotion to their god and blame their actions on politics, economics or even just a lack of morals - because that is the exact conceit that is at the heart of the problem.

"We the righteous would never act as immorally as those people over there who are just pretending to have faith"

Cut and paste to the mindset of a dozen different faiths.

[Carlos]

Gary, you make excellent points but I guess it's down to how one interprets events. In regard to Sunnis and Shiites, the economic differences are stark and, yes, they follow the religious lines, but I believe the essence of that is tribalism over theology. It is not simple, for sure. Along with religious differences come economic and political alignments that then become the prime movers in the mutual ill feelings and aggressions. And then comes the revenge factor which was so dominant in Northern Ireland - "they killed my brother/father/children so I will never forgive them."
I went to a Rangers game in Glasgow once and made the mistake of wearing a green sweatshirt - it was cold. My host made me leave it in the car because I would surely be beaten to a pulp if not killed if I kept it on. Green is the Celtics colour, whose fans generally are Catholics; the Rangers (blue) are Protestant. So I froze, but it had nothing to do with religion, just waving flags and wearing colours: tribalism.
I still think that religion is the least of the causes for strife. I find that economic and political roots are more important, keeping in mind, too, that many wars have been initiated by wealthy ruling elites for political purposes but in the name of religion.
If one considers Henry VIII the first shot of the Reformation, it was clearly political, evidenced by the Church of England being pretty much a replica of the Catholic Church without obeisance to the Pope.
Note, too, that Jews and Arabs/Muslims got along all right in the Middle East until, after Britain labelling their half of 'Arabia' as the "home for the Jews" which Jews took seriously when they began to flee Germany and no one else would allow them in. The rapidly increasing immigration of Jews upset the social, political and economic balance, some demagoguish Arab leaders fuelled the anti-immigrant fires and here we are at war. No one was caring about the details of the respective religions. They still don't, other than some Muslims having no respect for the Jews because they are too secular.

[Rich]

OK, fellows, let's not beat a dead horse. Looks like the slavery issue has run its course. There's still a cornucopia of other evils in Pandora's Box.

Picking one at random from my list. It will be fun listening to you people try to rationalize and explain this one: Cruelty to animals.

Does not the Bible say: have dominion over the Earth. To me that means you have a soul and the animals not. You can use them for any purpose you wish: Eat them, work them to death, ride them, play with them and bet on them. How about use them for the experiments of cosmetics companies.

An enlightened morality, methinks, would take into account that we are sharing the planet in a Darwinian sense. We are all products of nature.

What kind of example does it set for the writers of the Bible to offer animal sacrifices such as lambs to an all-powerful supreme being? And the bigger question: What the heck does God get out of seeing a baby lamb stabbed to death and its blood run all over the sacred altar. I think Abraham should have been institutionalized rather than made the patriarch of the three major religions.

[Carlos]

There are some subtle distinctions of cruelty to animals. Simply killing an animal for food is on a different level from the torture of lifelong caged birds and cattle or, on yet another level, the killing of animals for trophy heads, ears, or in the case of Donald Trump's son, elephant tails. And of course the abusers of pets that fill FB pages.
As long as we are eating meat, we are obviously killing animals. This predates religion. The ritual sacrifice of animals, while it may seem a ridiculous gesture, is probably no more cruel than killing them for food, maybe even less. As you might know, there is a current controversy over the cruelty of halal slaughter - one Scandinavian country has already banned it saying cruelty to animals supersedes religion. But the biggest contemporary cause of cruelty to animals remains that we eat them, and in mass societies, to which we all belong, the depersonalisation of slaughter enables far greater cruelty than ever before.

[Gary]

Carlos wrote: "I believe the essence of that is tribalism over theology."

And that is indeed a belief, however I do not think that this is either supported by evidence or even logical. Firstly "tribalism" is not separate from theology. Far from it. Humans divide easily along ideological grounds of all sorts and routinely take an "us or them" mentality that we can call "tribalism". However, they will do this over belief in deities just as easily as any other ideology, especially since it is (1) fundamental to the worldview of the member and thereby informs almost every other ideological choice and (2) it is specifically inoculated against rational discussion and compromise by its nature.

Saying that this is tribalism over theology is like saying Relativity is physics over mathematics. In fact the two are intrinsically related.

Carlos wrote: "It is not simple, for sure. Along with religious differences come economic and political alignments that then become the prime movers in the mutual ill feelings and aggressions. And then comes the revenge factor which was so dominant in Northern Ireland - "they killed my brother/father/children so I will never forgive them."

Agreed. However, again this just aggravates the theological schism. The whole point of faith is to accept without question, and when you will not question the righteousness of your cause, so will you never allow yourself to believe those that believe different could be right.

Economics and politics may aggravate, revenge may prolong, but theology makes these differences quite literally - fundamental.

Carlos wrote: "Green is the Celtics colour, whose fans generally are Catholics; the Rangers (blue) are Protestant. So I froze, but it had nothing to do with religion, just waving flags and wearing colours: tribalism. "

I grew up in a sectarian city and you may like to believe that it is just shirt colours, but I can tell you that in Churches and pubs there are still major theological differences. Coming from a mixed faith background I saw the antagonism personally, and I also saw how the one thing that could unite both sides was hatred of those who rejected both religions.

Carlos wrote: "I still think that religion is the least of the causes for strife. I find that economic and political roots are more important,"

You may find that, but you are born into a culture that is predisposed to giving religious faith a clean card. To the extent that religious people will tell you that they plan to die for their cause, then kill themselves murdering other people for their cause, and then people fall over themselves to claim that actually they were lying and actually did it because they are evil/cowards/insane/misguided/any other excuse to blame instead of religion.

Carlos wrote: "keeping in mind, too, that many wars have been initiated by wealthy ruling elites for political purposes but in the name of religion. "

Another common excuse. "Oh it's not really religions fault, its invoked by nefarious people for their own ends."

If this was true then logically it would be a pointless tactic because everyone would know it doesn't work! If religion is an effective tactic for manipulating people into a war they do not really want (and I agree it is) then it follows that religious differences are effective at causing conflict and war! That is the simplest of logic.

Carlos wrote: "If one considers Henry VIII the first shot of the Reformation, it was clearly political, evidenced by the Church of England being pretty much a replica of the Catholic Church without obeisance to the Pope. "

Yes, but again the story is not as black and white as you imply. Yes it was political, but the only reason that the Political move was necessary was that the Pope controlled who amongst the ruling families of Europe could or could not marry, and could exert political power by excommunicating monarchs from the body of the Church. If it had nothing to do with religion then what threat would excommunication be? Why did the Pope have the power in the first place except for the fact that the subjects of the King were all religious!

Carlos wrote: "Note, too, that Jews and Arabs/Muslims got along all right in the Middle East until, after Britain labelling their half of 'Arabia' as the "home for the Jews" which Jews took seriously when they began to flee Germany and no one else would allow them in."

That is a very 20th Century focused view. The persecution of the Jews did not start in 1930s Germany, and the conflict between Arabs, Jews and Christians date back even further. The persecution in Germany was the end result of a millennia of on/off Christian persecution of Jews. The more recent troubles have been magnified because of pressures from the exodus of Jews to Israel and the legacy of European colonialism in the Middle East, all of which forced religious sects uncomfortably closer together.

If it was all political or economic then the Middle East would be rent with conflict primarily between Europeans and each country, when in fact the countries are largely little effect on the loyalties of the "tribes" who are mostly split by - you guessed it -sectarian Shi'a/Sunni divides more than nation.


Carlos wrote: "No one was caring about the details of the respective religions. They still don't, other than some Muslims having no respect for the Jews because they are too secular. "

Your entire argument seems to be based on the idea that those that kill in the cause of religion are actually lying, and that everyone else knows their lying, and they themselves know that they are not fooling anyone by their lies. Yet these self same people often destroy themselves in service of their pretend religious cause, to then get rewarded in what - their 'pretend' afterlife?

It staggers me that those that defend religion so fervently from even the slightest suggestion of it causing violence seem incapable of understanding what a faithful person is capable of, yet those self-same people often cite religion as vital to their own outlook and understanding of the world.

Try looking at it this way;

Religion ("x") is true. ("X" can be any of the mutually exclusive monotheistic faiths)
Religion ("x") teaches us that we have a finite mortal life and an infinite afterlife)
Religion ("x") exhorts us to avoid following any other path or risk eternal punishment.

So when someone of religion "y" or "z" comes along, also claiming the same urgency but a different path. Which is more important, your temporary life or your eternal soul? More importantly how much is their lives worth compared to the eternal souls of your families and loved ones that they may corrupt and turn from the true path?

Now imagine if those religions do not have absolute and clear rules against violence and killing? Or worse actually contain dogma that could be considered justification for violence.

Religion is not the only source of conflict in the world but failing to see that it is a major contributor in and of itself is not just a failure of logic and empathy, it is a failure of imagination.

[Carlos]

I think you misunderstand me, to a degree. First, I am not religious; I regard it as a mass insanity. Then there is the question of defining what we are talking about: religion. Not spirituality, of course - which is something I do like. Then, religion and tribalism are inextricably entwined and it is difficult to separate one from the other as motivations. But I am pretty much on the side of tribalism - I see humans' overwhelming need to belong, to family, to political party, to sport teams, etc. These are not thoughtful choices, they are in most cases not choices at all, but guided by happenstance, where you were born, etc. And this includes religion.
People in powerful positions have been taking advantage of this for millennia, using the specifics of religion - or political alliance - to incite people, whether it's "they killed Christ" or "we must defend our freedom" (from Vietnam?). I'm afraid that you will not convince me that when Orangemen marched en masses through a Catholic neighbourhood or planted a bomb in a town square they were thinking about predestination vs free choice. The same goes for the IRA of course.

[Rich]

Good post. I certainly agree. There's a lot of work out there on DNA related religion. Meme driven genes where religious belief helped the individual survive. That's one reason religious people seem so resistant to logic and reason.

Another point about the tribalism is that humans evolved from pack hunters. There's a strong urge to obey and worship the alpha male.

How about the rest of my list? Hadephobia, for instance. What a terrible belief to inflict on someone. Do you think the fear of hell does anybody any good? It's good for the ruling classes, all right. Fear keeps people in check.

Does you ever see Jesus Camp on Youtube? If kids misbehave they put them in the "Get Straight" closet for days.

[Gary]

Carlos wrote: "I think you misunderstand me, to a degree. First, I am not religious; I regard it as a mass insanity."

I apologise for that, I must admit I made the assumption when you were using typical apologist arguments against religion being blamed for violence.

Carlos wrote: "Then there is the question of defining what we are talking about: religion. Not spirituality, of course - which is something I do like."

That is perhaps a different conversation. I find the concept of "spirituality" to actually be a hang over from 19th-20th century physics. During the enlightenment there was a conceptual shift from the idea of the universe as being a single entity and a 'formal' adoption of the idea of the universe being divided into the material and immaterial. This has been surpassed now almost a century ago with the revelation that mass is just another form of energy, rendering the "spiritual" realm as irrelevant. After all the "spiritual" universe when analysed conceptually was little more than a ghostly parallel to "material" reality. In essence the "soul" is nothing more than a brain functioning on a conveniently ephemeral structure of energetic interactions, rather than the structure of energetic interactions we already know about.

Carlos wrote: "Then, religion and tribalism are inextricably entwined and it is difficult to separate one from the other as motivations. But I am pretty much on the side of tribalism"

Do you see how you have in one breath pointed out the inseparability of them, and then still ended up claiming one side could easily be separated for purposes of your opinion of their culpability!

Carlos wrote: "I see humans' overwhelming need to belong, to family, to political party, to sport teams, etc. These are not thoughtful choices, they are in most cases not choices at all, but guided by happenstance, where you were born, etc. And this includes religion. "

Yes. I will absolutely agree with you here. Tribalism is actually a (potentially pejorative) term for the way humans form communities and societies out of social attitudes. "Belonging" is an extremely powerful - genetically imbued - quality of humans. It is primarily responsible for our success and survival as a species, but like most evolved advantages it has its drawbacks.

Carlos wrote: "People in powerful positions have been taking advantage of this for millennia, using the specifics of religion - or political alliance - to incite people, whether it's "they killed Christ" or "we must defend our freedom" (from Vietnam?)."

Worth bearing in mind there that one of the main motivations employed by the west in their opposition to communism was the idea that it was "godless".

Carlos wrote: "I'm afraid that you will not convince me that when Orangemen marched en masses through a Catholic neighbourhood or planted a bomb in a town square they were thinking about predestination vs free choice. The same goes for the IRA of course. "

That is not my intention, nor is it my argument. You either are employing a straw man fallacious comparison or you do not understand my point.

First is it religion or tribalism that is responsible for most conflicts. That is like asking is it guns or weapons that are most responsible for death in war. Tribalism is a loose term for the kind of large community bonding that goes on in human behaviour. It is not something that you can separate as a motivation from religion because religion is a major source of the attitudes that cause tribalism.

Yes you are right that the Orangemen marching probably are not thinking about religion. More is the pity! That is the entire point, people adopt a religion (usually that of their "tribe") and they do not think about it again. Most American Conservative Christians cite religion as their major motivator but perhaps if they thought about it they would realise how diametrically opposed a lot of Christian teaching is to the selfish and brutal concepts of right wing capitalism.

In the same way the IRA may not always be thinking of their Unionist foes as apostates of the Anglican Church, nor do the unionists constantly dwell upon the IRA as servants of the papal anti-christ. However, this does not mean that religious differences are irrelevant, it just means that they run so deep that it literally goes without saying.

As I said before tribalism is indeed something irrational, but religion speaks to it in a very irrational and emotional way. Religious leaders have also become very adept at taking advantage of this to their own ends, but to imagine every religious leader is secretly an atheist who is purely taking advantage of 'innocent' religion for their own gain is an exercise in cynical credulity that I could not support. The worst thing about many of these religious leaders is that they do believe what they say, and that faith carries them and their victims singing into the abyss.

Religion is a major source of tribalism and therefore conflict, but most of all it is a source that is specifically walled off from criticism, from compromise and from rational thought. This is why religion remains one of the major contributing factors to bloodshed around the world.

[Gary]

Rich wrote: "OK, fellows, let's not beat a dead horse. Looks like the slavery issue has run its course. There's still a cornucopia of other evils in Pandora's Box."

Well I do not think it has "run it's course yet" as no one has actually presented an actual ethical argument for why slavery is immoral!

For example, a rational argument for the immorality of slavery is the concept of altruistic legislation. The idea being, imagine a group of politicians who were taken from their population, their memories of their own life and identity temporarily erased and then asked to create laws for everyone. Would you at that point legalise slavery (in its most commonly imagined form) if when your identity and memories return there was a chance that you would actually be in the class of slave? I think most people appreciate their rights and freedoms and would not wish for the institute of slavery to exist if it could be likely that they would be subjected to it against their will.

Obviously, there are more arguments, but the above argument is extremely powerful as it can be applied to many other ideas. Replace slavery with "availability of abortion" or "banning gay marriage" and then imagine that when your identity was returned it turned out you were going to carry the child of your rapist, or that you were in a long term relationship with someone you loved beyond reason who was the same sex as you.

Rich wrote: "Picking one at random from my list. It will be fun listening to you people try to rationalize and explain this one: Cruelty to animals."

Why don't you?

The point was to actually critique the horrors of the Bible, and indeed the immorality of basing your conscience on divine commands rather than ethical understanding was to employ that ethical understanding.

So why do you believe cruelty to animals is wrong? Does it always apply in all circumstances, and what do you define as 'cruelty' anyway?

Or again do you base this on a purely emotive reasoning because you feel it is 'obvious'?

Many vegetarians deploy the same emotive arguments against eating meat. Some are piscatarian because they think that fish do not count as "animals" some are vegan because they extend cruelty further than just eating their flesh.

Using ethical logic though, what is the real difference between eating an animal or a plant? Just because animals are more like us than they are, or they have brains and nerves that we can relate to in terms of suffering, we still do not know what it means to be a blade of corn, mown down and harvested after a brief existence.

We are animals, we cannot currently live without killing other lifeforms, even the biota in our own digestive systems!

Rich wrote: "What kind of example does it set for the writers of the Bible to offer animal sacrifices such as lambs to an all-powerful supreme being? And the bigger question: What the heck does God get out of seeing a baby lamb stabbed to death and its blood run all over the sacred altar. I think Abraham should have been institutionalized rather than made the patriarch of the three major religions. "

You have touched on an important point here. The practise of sacrifice is an ancient one, pre-dating Christendom. Also known as "scapegoating" placing ones "sins" on an animal and then killing it to die for your sins. This ancient pagan magical ritual was later conflated to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ in early Christianity (evidence suggests that the concept was later adapted rather than being present from the start of the Christian cult)

Where does it come from? Again from emotive ethical arguments instead of rational ones. We instinctively know that wrongdoing requires punishment. The rational person knows that punishment should serve correction of the person and discouraging others from also doing wrong. However the emotive person is more likely to fall to concepts such as revenge. Even tests with non-human primates have shown that they will often disadvantage themselves if it means punishing a wrongdoer in their own community.

So scapegoating is just emotive comprehension of the idea that when someone does wrong, then someone should suffer to balance for it. Ideally the person responsible, but in scapegoating, and Christendom, that debt is transferred.

[Joey]

It is not only religion, but every information we learned from the past.

We humans borrowed and copied ideas from antiquity. Ideas predated back from the stone age, the ancient era, and the middle periods. The buy and sell, the conquer and rule, the torture and execution, you work I pay, and the other various social practices are still being utilized to these modern days. Wars, slavery, genocides, apartheid, and atrocities are super old ideas which are still being passed on from generation to generation. We know they are barbaric. They victimize Innocent children and unsuspecting civilians. They victimize US.

The Sumerians, the Egyptian dynasty, the Indus Valley, the Babylonian empire, the Roman empire, the Ming Dynasty, the Russian empire and the declining American empire, all of these cultures borrowed and copied ideas from their past. Most of these empires, bound by their diverse political, cultural, geographical and social powers, once stood up and somehow now disappeared without a trace. Their social practices, which were acquired from the past, brought them down to extinction. If humans will still cling to the same social ideology of antiquity, modern humans will face the same path of extinction.

Religion is not the only worst thing that happened to humanity, it is the information we learned, borrowed and copied from the ancient past.

[Carlos]

Gary:
“…concept of "spirituality" to actually be a hang over from 19th-20th century physics.“
That’s taking a very specific view of the term and certainly not what I meant. Spirituality is just a sense of connection, to life on earth, to animals, to all of humanity, to the universe… take your pick. It does not exclude science; it is possible, probable even, that all these mysteries like the question of a soul, will be explained scientifically, and perhaps, too, the satisfaction of connectedness.

“…you have in one breath pointed out the inseparability of them [tribalism and religion], and then still ended up claiming one side could easily be separated for purposes of your opinion of their culpability!”
First, I never said they were inseparable, just difficult. This is not a logical fallacy. There are many human qualities that are entwined in religion. Take greed, for example: some people will talk about the Church being greedy, but I am saying greed is a human condition, not a religious one. This does not preclude that the Church has been greedy, accumulating vast wealth, through most of its history.

“…one of the main motivations employed by the west in their opposition to communism was the idea that it was ‘godless’.”
Frankly, that’s just more exploitive appeal to tribalism. First of all, it’s a falsehood, as we have seen in loosening of repression in former Soviet Union. Look how every presidential candidate goes on about being a Christian when they are mostly far from it. They are defining a tribe, falsely, because there are many Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and non-believers in the country, including most of the candidates.

“…because religion is a major source of the attitudes that cause tribalism.”
Tribalism is there, firmly implanted in the human makeup. People take advantage of it, exploit it, as much as they can. Sometimes it has been useful, when there was a real enemy. It can still be so, but mostly it has been exploited for political and economic power. Not unlike the testosterone fuelled males of the species, who are finding that their genetic inheritance is ill-suited to the highly technological information age.

“…but to imagine every religious leader is secretly an atheist who is purely taking advantage of 'innocent' religion”
I don’t think I ever accused church leaders of being secret atheists. People are very adept at compartmentalising and the Catholic church, in particular, has been very effective at articulating the difference between the religion and the flawed human priests. “Christian” politicians as well, extremely poor at turning the other cheek, extending compassion to the poor and just in general not killing hundreds of thousands of people.

“Religion is a major source of tribalism and therefore conflict, but most of all it is a source that is specifically walled off from criticism, from compromise and from rational thought. This is why religion remains one of the major contributing factors to bloodshed around the world.”
Rather than a “source” of tribalism, I’d say an avenue for it, which is basically my argument. Governments use tribalistic instincts constantly for their own purposes but most of us don’t want to do away with government. It remains my contention that there are a number of inherited predispositions built into humans, and tribalism is one. So is the desire to believe in something ‘supernatural’ (not the right word, but it’ll have to do for now) that can explain the world; that is ‘religion’ to me. The organisation that is constructed around that core, be it Christianity, Hinduism, the Inca religion, whatever, is where the bloodshed enters, often but not always employing tribal feeling. So, you see, that’s how I define religion and tribalistic behaviour.
I feel that, if one hypothetically made all religion just disappear, the proclivity for tribalism would remain, and simply transfer to secular avenues: government, race, etc. This, of course, has already happened as the power of relifion waned in the 20th century, replaced by nationalism and racialism. But the manipulation and the killing didn’t stop.

[Akash]

The main thing that people fail to realize is that historically, religion has almost always been used, as well as abused, by the leaders of countries to subdue their people. Nobody promotes religion just because its "good for others". Its only because its good for them.

When was the last time you heard of a monk asking people to submit to His divine will?

[Carlos]

Yes! People take advantage of others in any way they can, a sad curse of humanity. Whether it's belief & superstition, tribal urges, or just basic things like need for food and healing, some people will always use them to manipulate.

[Rich]

The point was to actually critique the horrors of the Bible, and indeed the immorality of basing your conscience on divine commands rather than ethical understanding was to employ that ethical understanding.

I don't understand this at all.

So why do you believe cruelty to animals is wrong? Does it always apply in all circumstances, and what do you define as 'cruelty' anyway?

To me it's axiomatic. If you're going to question such basic questions our conversation is going nowhere. Don't you believe humanity has a deep innate sense of right and wrong? Forget about the Christian soul, just the Jungian collective subconscious. It's wrong to needlessly inflict pain and suffering on another of Earth's creatures. That's cruelty and if you add a sense of pleasure to the misdeed, it's sadistic. Sadism is never justified no matter how intense the sexual pleasure.

You're reminding of Bill Clinton's subterfuge. I hope you didn't learn this stuff in law school. "Whatever is, is." Remember that?

Or again do you base this on a purely emotive reasoning because you feel it is 'obvious'?

Damm straight. You're implying that I'm letting my emotions determine my logical conclusions. I'm basing my opinion of many years of teaching biology.

Many vegetarians deploy the same emotive arguments against eating meat. Some are piscatarian because they think that fish do not count as "animals" some are vegan because they extend cruelty further than just eating their flesh.

Using ethical logic though, what is the real difference between eating an animal or a plant? Just because animals are more like us than they are, or they have brains and nerves that we can relate to in terms of suffering, we still do not know what it means to be a blade of corn, mown down and harvested after a brief existence.

By "Piscatarian." I presume you mean piscivorous as opposed to carnivorous or granivorous as in horses and cows. An important point to consider is that plants and animals had a co-symbiotic evolution where plants used animals to spread their seeds. Apples were meant to be eaten by the natural order and there's nothing cruel or unnatural at all about munching on a tasty mackintosh.

[Gary]

Carlos wrote: "Spirituality is just a sense of connection, to life on earth, to animals, to all of humanity, to the universe… take your pick. It does not exclude science;"

I do not think you followed what I meant. Spirituality as you describe it here is still in my view a null term. "A sense of connection" is just that, a human paradigm built from the way our pattern matching brains function. This is actually a fundamental limitation of our perceptions rather than the ability to perceive something "deeper". Like many religions we think we are looking "deeper" but instead just find our own preconcepions reflected back at us.

Yes we are all connected but that is not a revelation or a special sense, it's the mere fact of existence. Referring to a separate "spirituality" is imbuing an unnecessary 'mystical' or hidden significance to something that is easily comprehensible.

Carlos wrote: " it is possible, probable even, that all these mysteries like the question of a soul, will be explained scientifically, and perhaps, too, the satisfaction of connectedness."

As put for example here. The "question of a soul" is only a question when the underlying paradigm as the mind being an entity rather than a process is accepted. If you think of the human mind as something sitting within the structure of the brain and body, that makes "free will" choices apart from them, then you find the deep questions of what constitutes a soul, deep questions that again say more about the poor quality of our ideas of "souls" and "spirituality" than it does about their complexity.

Carlos wrote: "First, I never said they were inseparable, just difficult. This is not a logical fallacy. There are many human qualities that are entwined in religion. Take greed, for example: "

Again you are not comparing similar ideas. Greed is a human quality indeed but it is an easily separated one from most other motivations. However, the relationship between tribalism and religion is not two separate things as religious adherence is a major contributor to tribalism. They cannot be separated because religious identity is just another form of "tribe".

Carlos wrote: "Frankly, that’s just more exploitive appeal to tribalism. First of all, it’s a falsehood, as we have seen in loosening of repression in former Soviet Union. Look how every presidential candidate goes on about being a Christian when they are mostly far from it. They are defining a tribe, falsely, because there are many Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and non-believers in the country, including most of the candidates. "

I am not sure what you are trying to say here, but my point was not to illustrate whether communists were actually "godless" or whether all the politicians actually tell the truth about their faith. My point was that it is a clear call to tribalism from a theological basis. A particular strong one to be wielded in places like America because it could be successfully employed to motivate people across all socio-economic backgrounds against the enemy ideology, but the only reason it works at all is because many people do grow up with faith.

Carlos wrote: "Tribalism is there, firmly implanted in the human makeup. People take advantage of it, exploit it, as much as they can. Sometimes it has been useful, when there was a real enemy. It can still be so, but mostly it has been exploited for political and economic power."

I am still not arguing against this idea. I agree entirely. However, this does not mean that religion is therefore exempt from blame for conflict and violence. Firstly some people exploit it for political and economic power, but it can be easily shown that many also strongly believe in the precepts from their actions and their own personal sacrifices. It is one thing to die in defence of your homes and your loved ones, it is another to die for the soul reason of killing the enemies of your god and receiving assumed supernatural reward in the afterlife.

Secondly, yet again, how can it be possible for religion to be exploited as an excuse for conflict, unless it actually works? If religion is truly blameless for conflict then every Jyhad or Crusade called in its name would have fallen flat in its tracks. It does not matter whether the leaders motivations are cynical greed, self-glorification or actual self-righteousness. If a religious person can make a religious appeal to a religious populace and thereby elicit more support for a campaign of violence, then religion bears responsibility for the spread of conflict.

Carlos wrote: "Not unlike the testosterone fuelled males of the species, who are finding that their genetic inheritance is ill-suited to the highly technological information age."

Relevance?

Carlos wrote: “I don’t think I ever accused church leaders of being secret atheists. "

I am referring to the idea that religion is blameless for conflict because their is always another secular reason for the conflict. This could only be logically true if religious leaders did not actually believe in the motivations for conflict that the espoused, and also that the laity did not actually accept religious arguments that promoted conflict.

So if you agree that many religious people do actually believe what they claim to believe (leaving aside hypocrisy, double standards and cognitive dissonance that plagues most religious paradigms) then that means that religion is indeed a source of conflict.

Carlos wrote: "Rather than a “source” of tribalism, I’d say an avenue for it, which is basically my argument."

Which is the argument I am disputing. You are effectively saying that religious difference is always passively employed by other motivations to the ends of divisive people, and denying the concept that fundamental differences in the way people view the world works can contribute in a major fashion to their self-identity.

Again this has a wealth of historical evidence against it and also runs directly against what religious people will actually tell you themselves. Certainly they will also in the same breath try to distance religion from any negative connotations, but that is a feature of religious conviction, to blame humanity for the flaws of their allegedly sublime and perfect ideology.

If religious difference was only ever an avenue for secular quarrels or differences then we would see a much different history. Huge schisms and sectarian warfare would have been replaced with minor skirmishes between disparate tribes, and religious differences would rarely even be mentioned. The Holocaust would have been directed at a nation, or just those 'different' enough rather than at a specific religious sect. The Arab world would either have resolved into separate nations or a single unified power.

Carlos wrote: "Governments use tribalistic instincts constantly for their own purposes but most of us don’t want to do away with government."

This is starting to border on conspiracy theory territories.

First 'governments' are not a distinct entity from people or tribes either. 'Government' is just a label for the way humans formalise their social organisation. So governments do not "use" tribalism. Tribes form governments to maintain their cohesiveness. A map is not the territory and different names for aspects do not mean that aspects of a complex system are distinct and separate from each other.

Second "most of us don't want to do away with government" is asinine at best. Humans are social animals that form communities, communities and societies need interaction. Interaction implies structures. The only way to avoid such structure is for every human to exist in isolation.

Once you have a structure then the tendency is to formalise it so that people can co-operate in a structured environment. Lack of such a formalised structure is just an unstable situation until someone imposes a structure anyway. The label for such a structure (be it an anarchist co-operative, a communist commune or a despotic dictatorship) is "government".

Government is not a "necessary evil", government is just a feature of the principal evolutionary aspect that has allowed us to survive and thrive. Like any of our evolutionary traits, it does carry both advantage and risk.

Carlos wrote: "It remains my contention that there are a number of inherited predispositions built into humans, and tribalism is one."

Agreed, but tribalism is just a label for the human instinct to form communities. Effectively "tribalism" is just a label for the negative aspects of human communities, which leaves aside the advantages gained of co-operation, mutual protection and economies of scale.

What my point is that like any of our instincts, there are advantages to it, but in a civilised society we need to recognise the limitations and risks of those instincts. The instinct to form a tribe is an extremely important and fundamental one to humans, but one that can also have a dangerous cost.

Carlos wrote: "So is the desire to believe in something ‘supernatural’ (not the right word, but it’ll have to do for now) that can explain the world; that is ‘religion’ to me."

I absolutely refute this. We do not have a 'desire' to believe in something supernatural. What we have is pattern matching brains, the evolutionary advantage of a "theory of mind" that gives us the ability to infer the motivations of other entities, but carries with it the unfortunate penalty of projecting human motivations onto non-human entities and phenomena, and finally we have a curiosity and a desire to understand.

None of this intrinsically requires supernaturalism.

In fact the entire concept of a divide between supernaturalism and naturalism is an extremely recent one. Before modern science the "theories" of naturalism and supernaturalism were one.

The only reason humans have a tendency to supernaturalism is that we have evolved an entire set of mental shortcuts that allow us to make important and life preserving decisions, fast. These adaptations are part of our success but also give us tendencies to make assumptions that are fundamentally flawed. Look at the poor ability people have with comprehending statistics, the tendency to assume correlation is causation, our tendency to anthropomorphise anything from other animals, to inanimate objects to abstract concepts.

[Gary]

Carlos wrote: "I feel that, if one hypothetically made all religion just disappear, the proclivity for tribalism would remain, and simply transfer to secular avenues: government, race, etc."

Which again is not what people like me are arguing, misses the entire point being presented and also has a reasonable amount of evidence against it.

Your basic assumption is that tribalism is a distinct and separate impulse that gets expressed in other realms. This is rather putting the cart before the horse. In fact tribalism comes from humans creating communities based on common ideas and common purpose and then separate communities coming into conflict.

What people like myself are saying is if religion hypothetically vanished overnight, it would not remove all other sources of conflict, however what it would do is remove one of the major sources of differences between various communities, which would significantly lessen - not eliminate - violence. More importantly though, it would eliminate one form of difference that is specifically exempted by its nature from rational discourse or compromise.

Carlos wrote: "This, of course, has already happened as the power of relifion waned in the 20th century, replaced by nationalism and racialism. But the manipulation and the killing didn’t stop. "

This is the problem you have with the concepts presented. You are thinking like an absolutist. I certainly would not suggest that eliminating religion would eliminate violence.

That being said, there is a large correlation between the secularisation of certain nations and the lessening of wars and conflict between them, and violent crime within them. People again are poor at recognising this as we look at the two World Wars as being a huge escalation, but forget to factor in the larger human population in the twentieth century and the quantum leap in technology for waging war that we had in that century. If we had warred with the technology and populations of the twentieth century with the frequency and intensity of the fifteenth, the century would have been far bloodier.

This also leaves aside the fact that religion was still quite dominant in the twentieth century within the public consciousness with the vast majority of the population subscribing to religious convictions, yet with only a small shift toward less theologically dominated populations violence has fallen, and in the west continues to fall year on year.

Even in places like the US you can correlate religious faith across violent crime state to state. Now it is important not to assume that correlation is causation, but all we need to establish a good case for causation is a repeated pattern in different areas (look at the Middle East) and a logical framework for conflict to be caused. (Anywhere where there is belief that adherence to a particular ideology to all others is vital for morality sets the stage for conflict)

On top of all this, there are also non-theological ideologies that rose as modern parallels to religion. Such as the ideological commitments to extreme communism or extreme capitalism, and the extremes of nationalism and racism.

So what people like me are saying is that religion is not a consequence of tribalism but is instead one of the many factors that feeds into tribalism. Removing religion would not remove tribalism or end war but it would (a) remove a major source of idealogical difference between populations and (b) remove a convenient method of manipulation of a population that is by its nature almost immune to critique.

In its absence two populations that were in conflict could more easily get over their differences. Ideological commitments over economics and politics can be negotiated or even be subject to testing, borders can be redeployed, old scores can be buried by new generations, prejudice and bigotry can be resolved with education and integration. However fundamental and non-negotiable convictions about the necessity for submission to an arbitrary authority and morality is a source of conflict that is specifically immunised against criticism and reason.

[Carlos]

Gary, I am not misunderstanding you. I am saying that tribalism is a very basic and immutable element of humanity and therefore a precondition of organised religion. And if one were able to magically remove religion, the tribal instinct would just find other avenues of self definition.
In other words, you are attempting to treat the disease by attacking one of the symptoms.
The story of the 20th century is of secularisation: most of the major wars did not use religion as a pretext but rather nationalism. Of course nationalism is sometimes given mystical dressing, like Nazi Germany or the US with its God-given Manifest Destiny, but that should not be considered religion.

[Carlos]

In case you didn't understand: tribalism does not come from the communities humans form, it is the impetus for the forming of communities.
And I think, if you went through the wars of the 20th century, you would find most wars of nationalism rather than religion.
Yes, you can consider nationalism a religion of sorts (which, actually, I do) but that, for the purposes of this debate, renders the definition meaningless and you may as well be arguing that, if tribalism were eliminated, war would vastly decrease.

[Carlos]

In case you didn't understand: tribalism does not come from the communities humans form, it is the impetus for the forming of communities.
And I think, if you went through the wars of the 20th century, you would find most wars of nationalism rather than religion.
Yes, you can consider nationalism a religion of sorts (which, actually, I do) but that, for the purposes of this debate, renders the definition meaningless and you may as well be arguing that, if tribalism were eliminated, war would vastly decrease.

[Carlos]

In case you didn't understand: tribalism does not come from the communities humans form, it is the impetus for the forming of communities.
And I think, if you went through the wars of the 20th century, you would find most wars of nationalism rather than religion.
Yes, you can consider nationalism a religion of sorts (which, actually, I do) but that, for the purposes of this debate, renders the definition meaningless and you may as well be arguing that, if tribalism were eliminated, war would vastly decrease.

[Carlos]

In case you didn't understand: tribalism does not come from the communities humans form, it is the impetus for the forming of communities.
And I think, if you went through the wars of the 20th century, you would find most wars of nationalism rather than religion.
Yes, you can consider nationalism a religion of sorts (which, actually, I do) but that, for the purposes of this debate, renders the definition meaningless and you may as well be arguing that, if tribalism were eliminated, war would vastly decrease.

[Carlos]

In case you didn't understand: tribalism does not come from the communities humans form, it is the impetus for the forming of communities.
And I think, if you went through the wars of the 20th century, you would find most wars of nationalism rather than religion.
Yes, you can consider nationalism a religion of sorts (which, actually, I do) but that, for the purposes of this debate, renders the definition meaningless and you may as well be arguing that, if tribalism were eliminated, war would vastly decrease.