With respect, Pericles, your ongoing tirade against relijun is starting to sound like an ad hominem attack on a god or gods you profess not to believe in.
“Hindus” and “Muslims” did not partition India. The creation of the state of Pakistan was encacted by individual and exceptional humans, such as the Muslim Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who -a little ironically- broke with (the nominally Hindu) Gandhi over Gandhi's support for the Islamic Khilafat Movement.
That such exceptional and complex individuals should be categorised by just one of their beliefs is I think a tad unjust.
Undeniably religion (like guns) has played a significant role in many wars, and like guns, have probably exacerbated the violence, but to suggest:

"That religion has been, for many hundreds of years, a primary cause of wars, police actions, skirmishes, assassinations, border disputes etc. etc. can surely not even be remotely debatable...”

Is to draw an exceptionally long and dare I say, rather superficial bow; in fact, the same superficial bow which encourages theists to blame the atrocities of Stalin and Zedong on Atheism.
Incidentally, in the same post as the above quote, Pericles goes on to say:

“Incidentally, the existence of 123 wars of "religion" doesn't actually support your "canard" theory, does it. And that is even without quarreling with the definition of "religious" wars, or examining their magnitude and impact.”
Very true, but by the same token the 123 wars don't actually support your “primary cause” theory either.
Like guns, religions don't kill people, people kill people.

Trav,

If you take one of the motivations/excuses for war and terrorism out of the equation, the chances are the occurrences of those atrocities will drop.

Regardless of what this Vox Day joker, with his Swiss-cheese-model criteria for a war to be considered religious, says.

You’re happy to insist that the evil committed by some is so embedded in their nature, that it would probably occur to the same extent, even in the absence of religion. But then, when it comes to acts of good and striving for peace, you say religion assists.

Your argument that those who commit atrocities would have done so with or without religion assumes that the religious views of such people played no part in the triggering of the desire to commit such violent acts. What’s to say the tendency towards violence to such an extreme wouldn’t have lay dormant or been expressed in a different manner had they not been introduced to something as inherently divisive as the Abrahamic religions?

And what’s to say that the tribalism and groupthink necessary to proceed with these violent tendencies on such a large scale wouldn’t have been absent in some cases without religion?

Yet you’re happy to attribute charities and social causes to religion but conveniently ignore important underlying motivations behind religious charities such as proselytizing, PR, the nurturing a heavenly credit rating, and the easing of guilty consciences that result from religion’s need for its adherents to keep coming back for salvation.

Sure, some theists don’t take any of the above into account when doing their good deeds but I’d be willing to bet that those people would be devoting their time to charity whether or not they were believers.

Funnily enough, though, every time a study is done on the correlation between religiosity and societal health, religion doesn’t appear to be the positive force you want it to be:

http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html
http://www.morgantownatheists.com/797/a-chart-of-religiousness-iq-morality-and-more
http://www.sachikospace.com/english/2010/08/atheism-vs-theism-the-statistics/

Of course, this doesn’t necessarily prove that religion is bad for societies. What it does do, however, is lay waste to the ridiculous suggestion that we’d be worse off without religion.

Continued…

…Continued

But at the end of the day, I consider all this to be fairly meaningless anyway, as it says nothing about the truth of religious claims - which are yet to be supported by any reliable, objective evidence.

Although, one would think that if an infinitely perfect being really did create all that we see, then surely it would be caring enough and proficient enough in its communication skills to convey its message to us in a way clear enough to prevent us destroying each other over him.

As usual, your arguments are logically consistent AJ.

"religious claims - which are yet to be supported by any reliable, objective evidence"

Religion is not about making claims, it is about living in a way that brings one closer to God. The only possibility of a "religious claim" is when someone, by the very act of making that claim (or listening to it), brings him/herself closer to God. The actual content of that claim, including the ability or otherwise of supporting it with objective evidence, is thus completely irrelevant.

"Although, one would think that if an infinitely perfect being really did create all that we see, then surely it would be caring enough and proficient enough in its communication skills to convey its message to us in a way clear enough to prevent us destroying each other over him"

There are two hidden assumptions here, as if:
1. God is a "being" (an infinitely perfect one and a creator).
2. God is separate from us (since communication can only occur between two different entities).

Both assumptions were intended for beginners/children who are unable to worship God without the aid of some visual/conceptual notion of Him. While having their legitimate place, these are not true statements and it seems that some organized religions have erred by taking such conceptual-aids too far and mixing them up with physical reality, sometimes with disastrous consequences such as wars. Yet of course, others also caused wars by abusing conceptual-aids (such as "Mother-Earth", "Mother-{name_your_country}", "Fatherland" and "Father-Stalin").

Back to the original topic of Spiritual Atheism:

There is no contradiction!

I could technically be described as a "spiritual atheist" myself, because although I do my best to live a religious life, based on spirit rather than on matter, I do not believe that God exists. I consider that belief as an easy way to introduce religion to children, but adults should outgrow beyond such early concepts that in reality do not befit or honour God, depicting Him as a mere being.

I take this opportunity to thank Saltpetre for his/her excellent contributions.

Pericles,

You do realize that giving one, or two, or three examples of religious wars or conflicts or violence does next to nothing to show that the world would be more peaceful without religion, don’t you?

As I’ve said, you need to consider religion’s wider impact on the world and its general influence, rather than only consider the very narrow scope of the religious conflicts have occurred.

You could probably make a far more respectable and persuasive argument that the world would be more peaceful without politics, or say, communism. Although it would still be flawed because these things are not themselves “causes” of war either.

[To go back to the beginning for a moment, just to remind ourselves of the point of the discussion. I stated:

"That religion has been, for many hundreds of years, a primary cause of wars, police actions, skirmishes, assassinations, border disputes etc. etc. can surely not even be remotely debatable, let alone be a 'canard'?"

The evidence I have put forward has been simply to point out that to describe religion's major contribution to strife in the world as a "canard" is insupportable.]

No.

The “beginning” of this discussion was in my post, where I was using the war example to illustrate the inability of self-proclaimed rationalists to apply so-called objective reason. I said

“Naturalistic atheists consider themselves to be beacons of reason amongst the irrational masses of everyday society, many of whom believe in God, or miracles or at least some kind of new age spirituality. And yet, these same atheists REGULARLY come up with all kinds of ridiculous old canards, consider the following statements:

1. Religion is a primary cause of war and/or most wars are caused by religion and therefore the world would be a much more peaceful place without religion,”

(cont'd)