-
Decent law abiding Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Pagans etc would continue to be good law abiding people if they were secular... the scary thing is that it is their faith that can make them do awful things in the name of religion...>
Correlation is not causation. Because some religious people are violent, it does not follow that religion always causes violence. There's probably observer bias. Most religious people don't make the headlines for just peacefully living their lives.
William.-
Correct, but there's a strong link between religion and violence in some cases: (see "the blood that cries out of the earth, book")
The Red Khmer: Part of the conflict was that they didn't want buddhism as state religion
The left behind movement in the USA: Attacks on abortion doctors, lying about contraception
Islam: Wahdaism exported by SA
Christianity: Massive amounts of deaths due to lack of contraception thanks to the Catholic church.
Northern Ireland: The other is the enemy thanks to schools split by religion (luckily a lot of the younger ones think it's a pile of nonsense)
Faith schools: Spreading other religions are of the devil and blind faith is what ought to lead government.This does not mean religious people are always non secular, or violent.
It does not mean there are no other political or economical influences.It does mean religion is a wrench that can be used to twist people into accepting things bad for society, or in the case of ISIS use damaged people as living bombs.
And it also means that all the religious people that tick their religion on the census prop up a system they may not agree with (which I BTW do not blame anyone for, people often don't know how census results are used by religious groups for more power)
JWestland
I'm with you. I go round to my brother's place (his kids are at a faith school) and there is a picture on the fridge with the name of his kid inside a heart that says 'Jesus loves you best.' WTF? Seriously! These seemingly innocuous events can cause serious confusion in a child. Jesus loves me best? What about Mum and Dad? This is a 6 yar old, their minds are like putty, dont think I didn't say anything to my brother! Of course, the religious of all creeds think they have a monopoly on morality and without faith in a higher being the world would fall to shit... well that hasn't worked out to well for them in the past and it isn't now. Decent law abiding Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Pagans etc would continue to be good law abiding people if they were secular... the scary thing is that it is their faith that can make them do awful things in the name of religion...
It's an emotive topic, which in itself is strange but there we go.