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The problem with individuals trying to remove preogramming they don't like is that everyone has their own opinions of what that programming should be.

This either results in one group holding power and forcing their belief over everyone else, or a system where everything is beige and innoffensive.

Neither system is particularly useful.

Unfortunately peoples opinion of what that programming should be is a result of their programming...

We don't 'need' anything. We just want stuff, and sometimes we need other stuff to get what we want.

We generally want to live in a nice society, so we set up laws. Nobody ever needed religion to create those laws, but it couldn't have been any other way at the time.

We certainly don't need religion now. Religion gives us morality, and morality is just an opinion. Since when was it a good idea to base a system of law upon the opinions of the majority?

I have to agree with your first statement, but such is with most things. The resources on Earth can be a good thing, if people aren't ignorant about them. But look at all of the evil things that we make from the Earth's raw materials...such as nuclear bombs, and I could go on. In response to what you said about most of the time, First of all...who is (are) they? Secondly, in response to what most people think about RELIGION creating holy wars and discrimination towards other religions...LET ME SAY THIS. It is not anything in itself that is bad...it is how we use it. Let me give you some analogies...If I may, I'll use sex as an example. It is intended for people who are married (you may disagree) However, look at people who run around on their spouses, or harlots (prostitutes) Do you really think that being ravaged day and night is a fun thing....NO! Guns...Guns is another example. If we used them for hunting ANIMALS, and not for murdering people out of cold blooded hatred, then the world would be a whole lot better. No my people...it is not a Religions' fault that it is used in a wrong way...It is the people who take passages out for their greedy causes and ignore some of the other words of wisdom. With the Crusades, the Muslims and Christians got greedy. I AM A CHRISTIAN!! I DON'T DENY THAT! This was not a good period of History. This happened because the various Kings and Popes probably just wanted more land, along with Saladin and those other Muslim Kings. Sure, the Pope, or the Caliphs may have said in the Name of God (or Allah) we take control of our rightfully given land. You can't label entire societies just because of what has happened in the past. TRUE Christians would not be war-mongering and greedy. However, this has happened. Another thing...you say that religion can be bad because of all of the atrocities commited "in the name of God". Well...how do you respond to the atrocities that have been done in the name of atheism? Look at Lenin, Hitler, Stalin...alot of people. Hitler HATED Catholics, Jews, Black People, the Retarted, Jehova's Witnesses, Gay People....and Wrongfully so. But you know what? He made a reference to Darwin, about how Superior Races would whipe out the "Inferior" Races. Guess what ???? He took that to heart!!! Because he thought that the Germans were superior, he tried to whipe out the Jews and other groups...all because of his hatred, and his Darwinian beliefs that he would not be accountable to God because there is no God...so I guess he figured he could do whatever he darn-well pleased.

Mao Zedong said something along the lines of ridding China of Christianity and all of it's stupid worthless icons. GUESS WHAT MAO!?!?!? There are people being converted to Christianity every day in China, and there are thousands of Churches in Honk Kong alone. Boy, was he ever wrong.

Do you get wha I'm trying to say here? The belief that there is no God also causes problems, because if there is no God, then when you die, you die...so do whatever the heck you want.

Lenin picked Stalin because...one of the things he saw was that Stalin hated the Church and Christians...Look how Russia ended up? That paranoid old fool killed MILLIONS, and one of the things that contributed was his atheistic belief that there is no God.

If you have read this...Please respond to what I have said.

I concur with the post-noon pre-evening time period.

I've read that in Stalinist Russia, teaching of the theory of evolution was banned. Could someone confirm this for me?

Oh, and Dr. Mark:

1.) Hitler was a Christian. He hated Jews because he had grown up on the belief that Jews were responsible for Jesus' crucifixion.

2.) Lack of belief in God can also serve as an impetus for one to be moral, 'cos immorality--severe immorality, such as mass murder--will usually result in the murder's death. Or life sentence. Since the atheist does not believe in an afterlife, he will want to live his life to the fullest, and would not want punishment for crimes to interfere with his enjoyment of life. If a theist is convinced that his immoral acts are in the name of God, however, he will commit those acts because he believes he will be rewarded with an eternal afterlife for them. But, of course, these beliefs only reside within some people--there are moral theists, more atheists, immoral theists, and immoal atheists. It is wisest to judge them as individuals.

3.) Lenin didn't choose Stalin as his follow-up.

4.) Communists reject religion becuase they are communist. They don't reject capitalism because they are atheists (actually, one of capitalism's most vigorous supporters and communism's most vigorous opponents was an atheist--Ayn Rand). Communists have a irrational set of beliefs about what is best for society, and believe that religion is detrimental to society's growth, as it consumes potential working time and makes people concentrate on a potential afterlife instead of on the life that they are living now. Society, in their view, will function more efficiently if everyone's efforts are concentrated on working for the mutual benefit of "society" (or, rather, the Communist Party which had enslaved the populations of communist countries).

Actually, the communists are probably right in one of their points: religion causes people to concentrate too much on a potential afterlife. To the extent where they will paranoidly refuse to listen to reason because they're afraid they'll go to hell if they don't unquestioningly obey their faith. I know one person with such an attitude in person.

5.) Darwin's Theory of Common Descent with Modification, or Darwinian Evolution, is a paradigm meant to explain phenonoma in nature. It doesn't promote any social system at all, and saying it does is like saying theories of gravity promote pushing people off cliffs and that theories of electromagnetism and electrodynamics promote electrocuting people.

Hitler believed that killing the Jews was morally good. Morality is not a good thing. Morality merely determines what you believe is right, and what you believe is wrong. Any particular morality cannot be proven correct, hence any moral individual has made a mistake.

I don't try to do the 'right' thing, because I know that that is impossible. I try to do what I want, and I am a nice person.

I don't blame bad things on religious people. Rather, bad things arise from mistakes, which may or may not be related to religion. Obviously, I think creationism is a mistake, and bad things can arise from that. (Though, I will not say this in the creationism guild, as I have banned myself from doing so.)

People can never see their own mistakes straight away, it takes time. In my experience, particularly religious people actually consider admitting those mistakes is evil, and whether or not they do, they are very stubborn and refuse to admit it.

As an example, the gullibility which is required to have faith in something can be seen as a character flaw. But since many Christians believe that it is 'evil' to doubt God (which constitutes a lapse in faith) they won't doubt God, even if it is rational to do so.