Bill Quick pointed out an article where some religious people are being silly pacifists, and then goes on to say "Religion makes some people murderously violent, but with others, it seems to cause blind idiocy." Now, it is pretty easy to interpret that as saying for those whom religion doesn't make murderously violent, it causes blind idiocy (though I believe Bill meant it as a condemnation of some religious people). Understandably, the comment section erupted with a lot of people arguing at and around each other. I just wanted to tackle one point brought up, which is the atheist assertion that religion is responsible for lots of wars and killing. Usually, I hear a tally of body counts, but that proves religion makes people more violent as much as it does that having ten fingers makes people more violent. Just as most people have ten fingers, by far, most people throughout history have been religious, so of course religion is going to be a factor among the killers. The difference between religion and finger count, is that religion is often used as a reason for violence while having ten fingers is not so often used as a one (except maybe if they are wars about mathematics). But wars have goals that are valuable to nonreligious people who are evil such as land, wealth, and power, and I haven't seen any evidence that one wouldn't have just used a different reason for violence if, by magic, a religious reason were not available, same as one might use a bomb to kill people if a gun isn't available (religion doesn't kill people, people kill people). As we've seen in the past century with things such as communism, people can just as easily latch on to nonreligious beliefs as a reason for killing. And there are many atheists who are just as fanatical and irrational about their beliefs as any religious fundamentalist. All I've seen proven is that religion doesn't always prevent violence in all cases (well, a lot of cases), but that's hardly a very strong condemnation of it.

Sorry, that wasn't very funny, but I have to indulge myself sometimes. Now, an unrelated question I'm quite curious about: Are there atheists who think religion is a good thing? I.e. that the existence of a supreme being is a silly thing, but still it's a useful fantasy?

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