And this is a bit of a sidestep, don't you think, Saltpetre.

>>...God is not responsible for man's aggression, man is.<<

I can certainly accept that your definition of God would bear no responsibility "for man's aggression". But the religions that use his name most certainly do.

If nobody believed in God, nobody would have to go to war in the mistaken belief that they were "Doing God's work", and that they had "God on their side". There was a very large army going around in the 1940s wearing a belt-buckle that said "Gott Mit Uns" - God is with us. This surely wasn't just a random collection of words - they actually believed it.

Heck, it was even on the Prussian coat-of-arms

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Coat_of_arms_of_Prussia_1933.svg

And this is a bit of a stretch, I think, even for the most fertile imagination.

>>God might yet be planning (hoping?) to be able to "introduce" mankind to other of God's inhabitants of this far-flung amazing universe.<<

When an experiment fails as spectacularly as this one, you scrap it.

In fact, in an argument that there cannot possibly be an all-powerful father figure looking after us, I'd say the very conduct of the human race is clinching evidence for the prosecution.

Sorry Pericles, my mistake, meant Serb v Armenian? - ref Bosnia. (Christian Serb v Muslim Armenian)?

Thanks for your explanations of these conflicts. The plot thickens I guess. Hard to know what are the real driving forces behind so many past and present disagreements and conflicts - just how far back to delve, and how to determine the extent of any one "influence" on the depths of feelings or dissatisfaction expressed or implied as "causation". Memory, history and tradition can be so divisive, or binding, depending on circumstance and context.

Will there ever be a solution to man's tendency for inhumanity? (As it would seem that such a large segment of mankind is unwilling to dispense with religious belief, could only a universally adopted "religion" be the only way to resolve differences?)

Dear Saltpetre,

First, thank you for your previous kind remarks.

Now I think you have fallen into some new pitfalls:

To attribute God with planning, expecting, hoping, creating and introducing, is absurd, since that would have placed God within the stream of Time.

Such an attitude is excusable for beginners and if it strengthens one's devotion to God then I am all for it, but I believe that you are past that stage where you need this kind of crutches in order to walk with God.

Another common downgrading of God is to believe that He is a force or an energy. There are of course forces and energies and they are all God's, but that does not limit God by placing Him in this or another role. Yes indeed, all are imbued with God's energy and God's life force is present in believer and non-believer alike - this does not mean that there are no atheists and agnostics around: God's life force is even present in animals and plants, who as far as we can tell, do not believe in anything.

Just noticed your latest question:

"Will there ever be a solution to man's tendency for inhumanity?"

The problem is not man's inhumanity, but rather man's humanity. Being a human also includes being enslaved by the human genes, which are not that much different than any other set of genes. Aggression follows. While a solution is not possible (for man will always remain hu-man), YOU are not a man (or a woman as the case may be). YOU can transcend and go beyond the identification with being human or inhuman.

Hi Saltpetre,

If, as you were saying before, you’re starting to lose track of where we’re at, then it’s probably not a good time to jump in, sorry…

<<I think your postulation (in my interpretation) is: "the 7% of wars attributable to religion proves that religion is (inherently) divisive".>>

No, not at all.

The scriptures do that along with what we can observe everywhere in everyday life. We don’t have to be killing each other to see it. I see it in families all the time.

In fact, I had actually said, specifically, that the 7% figure, by itself, doesn’t prove anything much one way or the other.

Although I did point out that with such stringent requirements for a war to be considered religious, we can be confident that without religion, those wars would not have occurred. Trav’s only rebuttal there was an unfounded assumption that those wars (or a different 7%) probably would have been fought for other reasons had religion not existed.

Of course conflicts can occur for both religious and non-religious reasons but one thing religion has over every other cause, is divine reasoning; an “ultimate” sense of purpose that transcends all other purposes - even this life.

Trav,

Since I’m here again, one additional point I might add is that while I would agree it could be considered poor form for one to DELIBERATELY repeat arguments with the intention of eventually introducing a new line of argument when their opponent finally said that they’d no longer comment on that topic (presuming they’d even do that in the first place), I’d have to wonder what kind of a weirdo would spend so much time doing that in the hope that all goes to plan eventually.

But if you look back through the discussion it wasn’t actually that repetitious. You kept trying the same argument from different angles and I addressed those different angles accordingly. But even if we had just been repeating the same arguments, that wouldn’t necessarily put them on an equal footing; one can still be right and the other wrong, regardless of repetition.

pericules quote...""If "the theory of evolution" is a theory,
where does that place God?""

its about one claiming belief
the other claiming science underpins their disbelief

thing is belief is belief...an opinion
but those claiming non belief..by ascience method..that needs proofs

""Theory or fact?""
thats right...a fact is a fact
a theory is not a fact..its an opinion

its either or...!

""Because in order to adopt "Creation"
as your definition of how the universe came into being,
you would first need a God.""'

and thats a matter of faith

i know the science...and that claimed fact..isnt fact at all
[relivant to the theory of species becoming/evolving into an other genus...

which is what those having belief in science.
need to be able to present..
if claiming evolution...explains
or is relitive to/with anything..[scientigicly speaking]

sorry for not being more clear
but believing its god..that made each beast after its own kind
needs those claiming it wasnt..god..to prove an alternative
[ie those claiming science method/authority
to refute god creation...claim science..thus must present te science]

and as i have said
there isnt any...[for change of genus]
plenty for micro evolution of species..WITHIN their genus
but not a sceric for cold blood genus fish...*evolvibng..into warm blood beast[mammal]

have science presnt this warmblood fish
or cold blood mammal...[see its nuts]..

but the big one is science hasnt made 'life'
[thats the one thing science can never do...
without using life..only god can sustain to live]

""Upon which you rest your case...""

evolve some thing
make non life/matter live

science is great at discovery
but the tre of life project proves
its nothing like a tree of life..more a forrest

[many 'science/facts..but
no proof of nothing..*by science means]

but please feel free to suggest something
i will refute it..with facts..

name names
present your science fact

Saltpetre,

Don't you think there's a significant paradox in the nature of the "extraordinary free-thinking intelligent life-form" called homo sapiens sapiens, in his equally extraordinary capacity for slaughtering his own kind.

As intelligent and " aware" that man is, methinks there's something wrong with his wiring - might also account for his insistence on the existence of "God".