<p>Whats proof got to do with it? Our capacity for love, jealousy, humor, faith, etc. are what make up our personalities. In my opinion, either youre born with faith or you arent, just like any other human characteristic. I see how much comfort people take in their faith in times of trouble, and it makes me wish I had it.</p>
<p>As Serendipity says in one of my favorite movies:</p>
<pre><code> "It doesn't matter what you have faith in. Just that you have faith."
</code></pre>
<p>"Religion does not cause war/death/killing/genocide"</p>
<p>really, then I guess all those rebels in Iraq are just bombing americans because thats the Iraqi equivalent of a handshake?</p>
<p>"Being a great thinker is not an option or a wish for the vast majority of the population."</p>
<p>and that is the failure of US society where we are encouraged not to think for ourselves and accept what people tell us blindly. Are you equating religion with not being a thinker?</p>
<p> "Religion does not cause war/death/killing/genocide"</p>
<p>really, then I guess all those rebels in Iraq are just bombing americans because thats the Iraqi equivalent of a handshake? </p>
<p>"Insurgents" in Iraq are bombing Americans because they are fighting for their homeland against what they see as an unjustified invasion. And it is an unjustified invasion. I feel the sorriest for our troops over there, dying in a war begun through a tapestry of lies and deceit.</p>
<p>lol umm can someone tell me how to use the "quote" command?</p>
<p>Religion is, and always has been, a tool of the powerful. The powerful use religion in order to get the masses to go along with the most horrible atrocities imaginable. Case in point: the Crusades, though perhaps not religiously motivated, would not have had nearly as many followers were it not for the influence of the Church. Because people were told, and subsequently believed, that they would be rewarded in the afterlife for participating in the Crusades, the massive destruction and violence that took place became possible. More people have been killed in the name of God than for any other reason, even if their leaders didn't necessarily have religion as their specific motive.</p>
<p>Edit: In addition, I have always been skeptical of the term "faith." To me, it just seems like a euphemism for believing something for no reason. As Mark Twain said, "Faith is believing what you know ain't so."</p>
<p>
[quote]
really, then I guess all those rebels in Iraq are just bombing americans because thats the Iraqi equivalent of a handshake?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Most insurgents in Iraq are motivated by social identification, which includes religion, ideology, and nationalism as a subset. Some want the United States out of Iraq because they object to another state occupying their country. Others want their particular faction or sect to come out on top of the heap in the new country and dominate. Still others, particularly the non-Iraqi terrorists, have come to fight for their religion and their ideology. These are all bases. Fundamentally, they're all fighting because they believe in their particular social group over other social groups. Religion is just one of many manifestations of this group impulse, and is not a root cause of much of anything.</p>
<p>
[quote]
and that is the failure of US society where we are encouraged not to think for ourselves and accept what people tell us blindly.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It's not a failure of US society, but a failure of humanity. There's not much we can do to change that, beyond gradually making education and culture more conducive to reason and critical thinking.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Are you equating religion with not being a thinker?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>There are many people who accept religious truth in order to avoid creating their own metaphysical framework. There are a few people who accept religious truth because they rationally believe it to be correct. I'm not willing to generalize. I simply believe that for a vast number of people, religion is associated with not being a thinker.</p>
<p>Religion has undoubtedly been manipulated, but religion itself is not a bad thing. The best schools in India are run by convents of christian nuns.</p>
<p>The quote command is used with brackets [], not <>.</p>
<p>ah thank you so much.</p>
<p>I agree, it's really unfortunate. On the other side of the token, liberals are associated with being immoral and Godless.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Religion is, and always has been, a tool of the powerful. The powerful use religion in order to get the masses to go along with the most horrible atrocities imaginable. Case in point: the Crusades, though perhaps not religiously motivated, would not have had nearly as many followers were it not for the influence of the Church. Because people were told, and subsequently believed, that they would be rewarded in the afterlife for participating in the Crusades, the massive destruction and violence that took place became possible. More people have been killed in the name of God than for any other reason, even if their leaders didn't necessarily have religion as their specific motive.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Lest you forget, the fascists of the 20th century used the tools of propaganda, industrial organization, and the mass media to convince people to commit similarly evil atrocities. Fear, the universal mainstay of atrocity, is an evolutionary response independent of religion that has been exploited through both religious and secular prompts alike. Religion is, again, only one method among many, and religious persuasion in fact relies more on the basic tenets of cost-benefit-analysis than on any special emergent property.</p>
<p>The Crusades were motivated by religion because that was the dominant social paradigm at the time. If it had not been, then they would've been motivated by something else.</p>
<p>
[quote]
On the other side of the token, liberals are associated with being immoral and Godless.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Atheistic, yes. Immoral? That's a point of view. (Meaning that only some people associate liberalism with immorality.)</p>
<p>It's literallly: As in; I'm literally laughing my ass off!</p>
<p>I'm not trying to argue that religion is the only way to justify atrocities and get people to go along with them; obviously, the powerful have other tools at their disposal, as well. However, the fact remains that religion is used to crush dissent and promote blind support for the activites of those holding positions of power. After all, religion is perfect for this purpose, since it persuades people to act not because they are forced to, but because they have been convinced that they ought to. For example, during Stalin's rule, people weren't cheering, "yay, Stalin!" and dancing in the streets at the purges. Had they possessed the means to do so, they certainly would have deposed him. However, support for theocratic rule is often given freely, rather than coerced, from a religiously indoctrinated population, such as the widespread support of the caste system in India.</p>
<p>I agree that religion is a powerful tool for exercising power. What I object to is putting it on a pedestal as something so much different and stronger that it deserves its own category. I view it as simply another tool in the toolkit, another thread in the tapestry. In North Korea, for instance, total control over information and continual propaganda bombardment has allowed the government to gain the support of many of its citizens, despite its extremely oppressive rule and ineffective economic management. The cult of personality that has developed around Kim Jong-il is truly tremendous, as evidenced by people putting themselves into extreme jeopardy in order to protect artwork portraying him. In Turkey, nationalism has blinded most Turks to the truth of the Armenian genocide, both now and when it occurred. That follows a similar pattern to other genocidal massacres, were there is often widespread support among both elites and the masses.</p>
<p>Religion is a very effective tool for wielding power and control. That much is clear. However, it is only one among a number of such tools, and not fundamentally unique. If anything, I'd classify modern psychology as being more effective, since it's based on the rational science of cognition.</p>
<p>I think religion is the most effective way to get people to follow a cause or government blindly, since portraying something as "God's will" imposes a universal moral obligation on people, and they are much more likely to do something in the name of God than in the name of men, no matter how well a cult of personality is established. For instance, religious zealots are much more likely to agree to commit suicide bombings or go on suicide missions than those who act out of love for their country or a political leader. If one believes that a) he is performing God's will or b) will be rewarded in the afterlife, this is a much greater incentive than loyalty to a secular cause. I submit that religion has the greatest potential to control and regulate behavior, out of all the tools of the powerful.</p>
<p>For less advanced societies, I agree that religion is probably the strongest tool; that's why it was the predominant social paradigm until the 16th/17th century in the west, and still holds such strength in Africa and Latin America. For more advanced societies, I think that psychological manipulation and particularly raw fear are stronger. In more sophisticated societies people are much less devoutly religious and much more in touch with reality; further, the tools of propaganda and brainwashing are much more easily wielded and better developed. Empirically, fear has been the central component of a great deal of war and genocide since 1648.</p>
<p>Of course, religion plays on a form of fear (Hell), which is its most persistent and effective form (more people in the United States believe in hell than heaven, for instance). But other manifestations of fear have gained more currency than religion.</p>
<p>You'll never understand the pull of religion if you only look at it intellectually, and analyze its political implications (not that the intellectual side of religion is not important, it is). Religion strengthens people emotionally, and can do so much good.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Pseudogenes are awesome evidence for evolution because they are "true" vestigial structures. Because they lack a functioning start codon, they are never transcribed and translated into proteins, so they cannot possibly influence the activity or traits of an organism. Since they are genes that cannor be expressed, they are not subject to natural selection, and thus, they just kind of...stay there. Pseudogenes could only arise from evolutionary processes, or from a retarded God.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Purpose of several pseudogenes have been found. <a href="http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/health/Pseudogenes.htm%5B/url%5D">http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/health/Pseudogenes.htm</a></p>
<p>
[quote]
It's literallly: As in; I'm literally laughing my ass off!
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I think you fail to see my point. Unless your nether regions have physically disassociated themselves from your body, and are currently writhing in a sorry mess on the floor, then no, you are not literally laughing your ass off. You mean figuratively: it's a figure of speech.</p>
<p>[/grammar nazi]</p>