Christianity has oppressed science for over a thousand years. Islam has convinced people that it's o.k. to commit suicide and take hundreds of non-believers with you.

When will this nonsense stop? There will never be world peace as long as religion continues to control people's daily lives. It is the root of all evil.

Religion has done plenty of good. Look at all the wonderful art that has come out of the majour religions, and all the humanitarian projects. Of course, I'm thinking mostly of the Catholic church, in which action is emphasized much more than in Protestantism, but I'm sure there are good Protestant organizations too (I think Habitat for Humanity is one?).

A lot of bad has come out of religion too. Yes. Nobody is going to deny that things like the Inquisition and the religious wars of the Middle Ages, nor the atrocities of Muslim terrorists, are bad. This just makes religion like any other aspect of humanity: both good, and bad.

To conflate all evil and claim it all stems from religion is silly. "Evil" (keep in mind the word itself is relative) comes from human nature, and from myriad factors, religion being only one. I tend to think that any time religion and state are mixed, bad things result-- be this a mix of Catholicism and State, Protestantism and State, Islam and State, or religious atheism* and State.

Shakespeare, as always, gets it exactly right:

There is some soul of goodness in all things evil,
Would men observingly distil it out.
--Henry V, Act iv



[*I define religious atheism as "strong atheism"-- the belief that there is no god and the claim that one can prove it definitively. This is usually tinted with a devout anti-religious bias. Keep in mind, I'm an atheist myself (of the "weak" or agnostic-atheist variety), but that doesn't mean I can't criticize those near my own kind, like Christopher Hitchens, etc.]

But the good is trumped by the evils of things like the inquisition, the crusades, the slaughtering of innumerable amounts of native peoples, and most importantly religion has slowed the advancement of mankind, people who chose reason over idiotic blind faith were burned at the stake as heretics, that is evil.

And honestly, religion creates the kind of evil that convinces people that anyone who doesn't believe their faith is a heathen who can be killed, because the bible and the quran say so.

Hey, it provides psuedo answers to unanswerable questions for those to weak to deal with the uncertainties of life. It is a haven for the weak-minded and what would we do if all of the people actually started "thinking" instead of trusting some other idiot standing on a pulpit that's in it for 10% of the take?

And uninformed completely bullshit rhetoric like that which you just spouted off creates the evil of ignorance and blind judgment--if anyone takes what you're saying to heart. Neither the Bible nor the Qu'ran say it's "okay" to kill heathens. Both condemn killing. The Bible is full of the individual, opinionated political and spiritual rhetoric writings of men, but they are historic reference points for religion, they are not basis for "right" and "wrong." Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the topic about which you are speaking before making such generalizations. The principle of "right" and "wrong" in the Bible is the Ten Commandments, none of which are considered unreasonable or cruel by today's standards, and there is nothing in the Qu'ran that specifically condones killing "heathens" or disbelievers.

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"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."
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"Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company and reflection must finish him."
-John Locke

"What worries you, masters you."
-John Locke

Perhaps you should read a book other than the Bible. Religion is the root of all evil. Watch the documentary by Richard Dawkins, one of the leading intellectuals of the world, before you try denouncing me by spouting your brainwashed bullshit.

Quoted for truth.

Free link to a great documentary by Richard Dawkins.

The alternatives to a religious society have turned out to be pretty bad also. With religion, man killed to end free thought that there was any God other than his own. Without religion man killed to end free thought that there was anything greater than the government. As brutal as those that killed and tortured to spread religion there were still values and order brought afterward. Those that killed and tortured to expand communism or a monarchy left behind a void.

You say science was held back by religion, could you tell me the scientific advancements made in an atheistic society? Many scientists were agnostic or atheists, but they lived in at least a secular country with strong ties to a religious based law system. Scientific advancements were far and few between during communist oppression of the USSR, China, and Cuba. Just to name a few.

I would dare argue that Judeo-Christian societies have advanced science further than any other. Not Christians individually, but the societies that had laws based on the Judeo-Christian belief system.

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'Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not.'

~ Thomas Jefferson

64,999,987 firearms owners killed no one yesterday.