Citation? Let's try "delusional," "willfully ignorant," and "gullible."

Yes, get past someone's beliefs. That means that you seem to be unable to consider people as individuals. You prefer to judge them as a part of a group. You call people who disagree with you names, tell them that passing on their beliefs to the next generation is "abuse," and make no effort to see someone past their beliefs. Ridicule and call out beliefs all you want, but give individuals some credit. They believe (or don't) because they choose to.

That "evidence" you cite? It's not. I requested evidence that suggested that the people's beliefs who perpetrated those atrocities were responsible, yet you merely employ circular logic and assume your conclusions.

At this point, we're clearly done. For all that you speak of using logic and "thinking correctly," you've failed to demonstrate much capability at doing so.

Please refrain from name-calling. I have afforded you that courtesy. Also, could you please format your posts in a better way? I've found that double-spacing after paragraphs helps. Also, I'm more than capable of reading your posts. There's no need for capitalized letters on points you want to emphasize.

"Anyone that posits imaginary friends, like you do, contributes to the degradation of society/mankind," you say.

That's quite a statement. People believe all sorts of things. I don't particularly care about what they believe so much as what they do. If two men are Christians and one is an upstanding member of the community while the other is a member of Westboro Baptist Church, the onus of responsibility is on the individual, not their religion, all other things being equal. The inability to get past someone's beliefs as opposed to their actions is a form of prejudice. I can point to the differences between individual actions as direct evidence of my point. Do you have any evidence that faith is directly harmful to humanity, as opposed to the actions of individuals?

Reality doesn't care about what I believe so long as I don't try to impose my belief on it. I can believe all day long that gravity doesn't exist and reality won't care until I try to jump off of a building. So it is with my faith. If I choose to believe something such that my existence makes sense to me, what business is it of yours, or anyone else's, so long as I don't force it on others?

The post I was replying to could be read that way. I did qualify my statement. :-)

If you never said it, fair enough. I was just saying that was certainly one way to read your post because you expressed your opinion in such an absolute way.

Religion, like any belief system, does not force anyone to do anything. Choices are made by individuals. Just because a religion may say "thou shalt not kill" or "smite the unbelievers" or "Cthulhu ftagn!" does not mean that each follower of that religion will never kill, shoot some infidels, or await the return of the Great Old Ones. Religion influences, I'll grant you...but to assign to it the kind of control you seem to be doing ignores the capability of an individual to choose, and thus reality.

You say that lying to people about reality is never a good thing. In general, that's true. To speak it in absolute terms, though, is a step I hesitate to take. Further, your equating "lying to people about reality" and religion is fallacious. I'm a Christian, but I believe that evolution happened. To me, and many other religious people, faith isn't about telling people how the world got here but about answering questions of "why?" I'll tell someone why I believe what I do, but refrain from saying "this is the way it is, deal with it;" thus I avoid being deceitful. It is these kinds of believers that you denigrate when you speak of religion the way you do.

You say that it is not religion that has contributed to art. I agree. My post said that religion has done wonderful things for its believers. The contributions to our body of knowledge I mentioned came not from religion, but by people who believe in it. That's why the musical piece is called *Handel's* Messiah. I am glad that we agree here and that you can give credit where it's due for the good works. Why can you not do the same for the bad?

I believe in things that are real to me. Who are you, or anyone else, to tell me that I'm lying to myself? If I try to convert you, you're within your rights to ask for evidence. Otherwise, live and let live, right?

I don't have kids, but if I did one day, I would raise them to reflect my beliefs as I'm sure you would yours. Fundamental to mine is the ability of right of all men to choose. I was raised in a very, very conservative fundamentalist sect, yet here I am talking to you instead of screaming at you about Hellfire. I was raised one way and eventually chose another. Give credit where credit is due.

I have never flown a plane into a building. Most religious people haven't.

It's not okay to tell anyone to believe in anything without questioning. Religion isn't the only thing that engenders blind faith.

Do away with religion, and you'll remove a critical piece of the human experience. You say the world will be a better place for it (between removing religion and education), but the truth of the matter is you don't know that. No one does. You *believe* that, for sure. There's a difference, however, between knowledge and belief.

Non-religious men have done terrible thing in the past, too. To say that religion is the sole force that turns good men bad ignores history. I'm not sure if that's your intended implication, but your post can certainly be read that way. You also completely ignore the good things that religion has done for it believers as well as the good things that its believers have done for the world. Contributions by religious men and women to the fields of science, art, music, medicine, philosophy are incalculable. the religious do not have a corner on the market of good deeds, for true, but pretending they're not even there is dishonest. This is not to exalt the religious and tarnish unbelievers: rather, it's meant to help one understand that there are good and bad on both sides of that divide. The implication there is that good and bad is a function of men, not necessarily of their beliefs.

You know, I could put in some other belief systems in place of Christianity in your first paragraph and it still hold true. Lots of belief systems...or just greed. I'm inclined to believe that it's people that cause the evil that you're talking about, and that belief systems such as Christianity are merely tools in the hands of men who would do those things.

"Gentlemen, we cannot allow an I Ching gap!" -Gen. Buck Turgidson

Please, please tell me you're being sarcastic, ironic, or employing a similar literary device with which we've all been heretofore unfamiliar. You don't think "genocide" is something that has ever happened in the real world? Really? What the hell do you actually know about World War II, the Armenian Genocide, Darfur, Bosnia, or any kind of history at all? No, it wouldn't make for a better world; it would make for an ignorant world.

2 million deaths during a time of war when you're expecting people to die versus a still as-yet uncounted number of people who die of starvation because of the government's standard operating procedure? And the export controls? We've given them food in exchange for promises to not build nukes. When you give someone something, you have every right to put strings and conditions on it. If they renege on their end of the deal (which they demonstrably have), you can't blame the people who were trying to help the situation. If you'd rather live in North Korea than Iraq, that's all you. Don't pretend that it's because the U.S. is some horrid monster of a superpower keeping others down, though.

Re: Home-schooled kids and social awkwardness, I have never seen anything to support this. I know many home-schooled kids (a lot of them went to my alma mater), and I've never known any who were any more socially awkward than anyone else.

I see what you did there. Your logic break down at a couple of points, though. First, you assume an equivalence between nations and an individual citizen where none exists. Individual citizens have rights. Governments do not. Second, when those individual citizens consent to form a government and police force, that force is not beholden to any one private citizen. There are citizens who are not cops. When nations agree to international law, they are expected to uphold it themselves; they're supposed to be their own cops, in other words. There are no nations designated as "cops."

And what force does international law have behind it? The idea that it exists by itself, independently of the power granted it by the consent of its signatories, is beyond laughable. No country is going to submit to international law if it perceives that submission as contrary to its interests.

And why is it cheaper to outsource manufacturing? Labor cost, which unions drive up, is a huge part of that. With nuclear energy you're a little more on, I think, but environmentalists and their legislation have increased the cost of doing business in the oil and nuclear industries both. Because we've been scared shitless to build new reactors in forever and a day, the advances in construction and maintenance techniques have (surprise!) not materialized out of thin air.