cant argue with you on that - no idea what you do though you do though, the 3 monotheistic religions seem to be used for both good and evil. Doesnt seem to affect the pantheistic religions the same for some reason.
I hate organised religion! It is nothing to do with believing in any deity whatsoever, rather about control and power by a few over the masses.
Murdering innocent people because you dont like there imaginary sky wizard, Barking mad. If I was sat talking to an imaginary friend i most probably would be sectioned but yet millions are spent on places........ to talk to imaginary friends. Each to their own though and such a tragic and sad loss of life
Religion is just a crutch for people who can't come to terms with the fact that this is it; there is no life after death, there is no promised land... The sooner everyone comes to terms with that the better off we'll all be. Make the most of this life and look after each other cos there is definitely no one on-high looking out for us.
Scientific proof? No. There is evidential proof however, the Sri Lankan attack being the latest evidence, that if there is a God he/she is an absolute monster.
Whatever one believes this event is another example of the perverse hatred some people have for others just because they are in some way 'different' or represent some alternative value system. Sick.
And yet the most pitilessly and self-righteously violent regimes of modern history in the West or those in other places of the world most contaminated by our worst ideas - have been those that have most explicitly cast off the Christian vision of reality and sought to replace it with a more "human" set of values. No cause in history - no religion, or imperial or military ambition has destroyed more lives then those secular movements which have shown themselves willing to kill on an unprecedented scale. Where you get the idea that if only people threw off their silly superstitions the world would magically be as one. All the evidence points to the contrary.
All the evidence points to the fact that we could solve half our problems. How about the crimes of Christianity in South America, Africa, a europe torn apart by religious wars throughout and beyond the middle ages. How about the death brought at the point of a sword by Islam against both non believers and opposing sects within Islam itself? How about the rise in Buddhist militancy? Hindhu and Sikh bloodshed? You can't hide all that little lot behind Pol Pot, Hitler and Stalin I'm afraid.
There will always be evil people in the world, regardless of religion- it is just used as an excuse to carry out horrible atrocities. Most people who truly believe in a religion condemn any form of violence.
I agree to some extent TM but I don't believe that people would currently be blowing themselves and thousands of others to bits if they weren't under the apprehension that their religion justified it and that they were giving themselves a passport straight to paradise.
I honestly think these fundamentalists would simply attach themselves to another cause. Look at how wound up people get over brexit, albeit at a lesser level. People are and always have been willing to die for a cause. Not all of these are religious. There is something about not identifying with the masses and rebelling against it.
Well, lets start with S. America, there is historical evidence that the Mayan cultures indulged in Mass ritualized murder which appalled the Spanish and was abolished, most deaths occurred due to exposure to Western diseases, its conquest, as that of Africa, was motivated by Empires and money, not God. The "religious" wars of the the European middle ages were fought by Protestant and Catholics on both sides, no one is still seriously suggesting the 30 years war was fought over the validity of transubstantiation are they? What I think is that the dogma of the Church and the death of God in Europe was replaced by something even more dead, something which was never alive - nihilism, as well as a dangerously susceptibility to new totalizing utopian ideas. It was the aftermath of God's death that we had the great collective horrors of Communism and Fascism come forward - as Nietzsche predicted would happen. As for ridding the world of Christianity, there is no special evidence to suggest that in all the places of the world where Atheist fear to tread, it would replace the shelter, the hospitals, the schools the comfort it provides - the Church is probably the biggest mover of money from the rich North to the poor South on the planet, and unless you have come up with an alternative then you condemn many millions to a worse existence for your certainty in the belief that the world would be better without it.