Pericles,

As WM Trevor has pointed out, I have (deliberately) kept the scope of my argument rather narrow here (ie: I haven't made any reference to the POSITIVE things religion does and the fact that the vast majority of mainstream religious teaching actively encourages people to be peaceful rather than violent).

But given the criticisms you've made, I now need to broaden my scope to show where you are missing the point.

Consider this. How many devoutly religious people are there in the world? At least two billion? It's difficult to say, because the official stats would suggest 4 or 5 billion or more, yet they are biased as they include people who only have a very nominal affiliation (These would be the same stats that suggest two thirds of Australians are Christian). Regardless, the number of devout religious believers represents a substantial proportion of the world's population and the amount of time spent by these people doing religious observances and involving themselves in their faith is quite substantial. And their views of the world are impacted by the religious teaching they receive as well.

If those billions of people were spending their time doing something else, for example supporting a political ideology instead of observing their religion, and were taking other views into their minds instead of the (mostly) peaceful religious teaching they receive, then of course they would still be fighting just as much, and dare I say it much more.

(cont'd

In other words, you are missing half the equation. You're saying "Look at the religious justification for wars. What other justification could be used in THOSE circumstances?" Well of course, none. Those circumstances wouldn't exist! But given the substantial amount of people and time spent on religion, the amount of negativity and violence that arises directly from that is actually minimal. So if considering the hypothetical scenario that religion didn't exist, you need to account for the other half of the equation which is the fact that religious people would be spending their time doing other things, being influenced by other things, and starting wars on behalf of other causes which would utilise their human nature for violence in a worse manner than religion does.

Well Trav, it’s easy to see why you don’t think we’re understanding each other…

<<If, after repeated attempts, I have failed in my attempts at assisting someone in understanding my argument and if, after repeated attempts I have also failed to understand their argument (as you claim I have here), then the practical thing to do is end the conversation out of respect for each other's time.>>

I had said in my last post that I think you DO UNDERSTAND what I’ve been saying.

Twice.

A key to understanding others on OLO and determining whether or not they understand you is to not skim their posts.

It would probably be a good way to respect their time too.

Pericles:
“Can you think of one reason why suicide-hijackers flew those planes into the WTC, apart from their religious convictions?”
Gee, let me think.
“merkan sojers' are currently occupying (“aiding”)more than 40 countries, nominally for the cause of 'Democracy' but realistically more for the cause of American Capitalism.
People don't tend to like other people coming into their country, and telling them to change.
Witness the rise in antipathy in this country against Muslims, especially when it's suggested we have to change our traditions to placate them.
“...self-transcending devotion to collectively shared belief-systems...” don't necessarily have to be religious.
People tend to react violently towards invaders; yes like the IRA again. They have committed atrocities for generations, all in the name of a 'free Ireland'. I sincerely doubt the IRA fanatics were greatly exercised by Catholic beliefs, since they tended to ignore Papal injunctions (as well as other tedious rules, like “Thou shalt not kill...”).
Of course when it comes to martyrs, believing in Eternal Bliss certainly doesn't hurt.
Rather than 'casting around' Pericles, I would suggest you are quite comfortably ensconced in your anti-religious shell, and don't feel much need to cast very far at all.
The root of our disagreement lies in whether religion is a root cause of war, or merely a convenient justification for war.
“And psychopaths are just psychopaths.”

I'm not sure that helps us a great deal, Trav.

>>If those billions of people were spending their time doing something else, for example supporting a political ideology instead of observing their religion, and were taking other views into their minds instead of the (mostly) peaceful religious teaching they receive, then of course they would still be fighting just as much, and dare I say it much more<<

Why "of course"?

The vast majority of people are "supporting a political ideology" as well as their conducting their religious observances. And what on earth makes you think that when they stop doing so, their thoughts immediately turn to "who can I kill?"

Where's the evidence that tells you this?

If you cast an eye around the globe today, please identify which wars, terrorist atrocities and kneecappings are conducted by atheists, and which under the banner of religion.

Just pick a handful, I'm not looking for detail, just establishing a principle.

This is where our views diverge most noticeably:

>>...given the substantial amount of people and time spent on religion, the amount of negativity and violence that arises directly from that is actually minimal<<

I suspect that the people of Kashmir would take leave to disagree with you.

Don't forget that the entire partitioning of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 was underpinned by the perceived need to separate Muslim from Hindu. Give me one good valid reason why the State of Pakistan would have been created, in the absence of these two religions.

"In a couple of months in the summer of 1947, a million people were slaughtered on both sides in the religious rioting"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/06/south_asia_india0s_partition/html/5.stm

These people were, quite literally, defined by their religion.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/indo-pak-partition2.htm

The existence of the two religions caused the million people to die. the non-existence of those two religions, would have removed the motivation to slaughter each other.

Pericles,

Providing evidence of one or two particularly bad examples of religious wars (or three, or four, or five...) proves virtually nothing, because as I said, the context of the discussion is the THOUSANDS of wars that have occurred over history.

Read chapters 5 and 6 of Vox Day's book for some statistics of the number of religious wars. The free ebook version can be found here:

http://www.voxday.net/mart/TIA_free.pdf

I did not suggest that anyone's thoughts would turn to "Who can I kill" if they abandoned their religion, that would be a strawman. I said that lots of people take their belief systems seriously, and that the majority of religious teaching aims for peace rather than violence.

People align themselves to groups and authority figures and have the tendency to want to hurt each other, regardless of what the group they are aligning themselves with actually is. Therefore it's simply not logical to blame the group itself for wars. If you were going to do that, you'd be far better off blaming politics as a whole than religion.

Billions of people devoutly adhere to one religious group or another and consider it a guide for their life and conduct and have done so throughout history. So given that undeniable fact, and given human nature, I think a reasonable case could be made that we should expect to see many, many, religious wars. Yet, this is not the case in the CONTEXT of the total number of wars throughout history (See chapters 5 and 6 of Vox Day's book). On the other hand, religious people have a history of setting up charities and devoting themseves to social causes. This can also be proven using statistics and all kinds of evidence. So is religion a predominantly positive influence on the world, or a predominantly negative and violent one?

You are suggesting the world would be more peaceful without religion? I claim this is unsupportable given the historical evidence, and not only that, but that the evidence suggests the world would be a LESS peaceful place and worse off without the presence of religion.