Murder in the name of the state or in the name of religion is about maintaining power .

I am personally an agnostic but I cannot say that religion has not brought civilizing influences as well .

I just don't see where any atheist state has been successful .

In France it brought the guillotine . In the Soviet union it brought the gulags . In China it brought the reeducation camps and we know what it did in Cambodia .

 

Killing innocent children is an act worthy of eternal damnation. I'm not religious but right now I hope hell exists and is the depository for anyone who kills a child for whatever twisted and sick reason.

 

So what is everyone's point who disagrees with me?
YES - Many millions of innocents have also been killed through the ages by despots - so who is arguing - not me!
All it does is add weight to my argument that there is NO God!
For if he does exist he is far from the loving God we have been told to honour and worship -
and to be honest I would far rather 'believe' his NON-existence than the obvious alternative,
that he is not so loving and protective at all, and that if he IS there - he just doesn't give a damn!

Sorry, if YOU want to worship a God who stands idly by while innocents are slaughtered, whether in HIS name or not, then by all means do so - but don't expect 'thinking' beings to follow your example.
I prefer to 'believe' that he is not there - it makes much more sense.

 

Actually we are not in fundamental disagreement .

I have no idea whether God exists or not but there is absolutely no empirical evidence that he does .

If we are looking for God or evidence of God in nature then all we can do is look at his creation and what his creation does . Yes it does appear to sit idly by when people are behaving extremely badly .

There are more beetles than any other animal on earth .

A famous biologist once noted this saying that "if God exists then he must really like Beetles." So looking for God in nature just creates more nonsense .

There is no honest answer as to the existence of God other than to say that there is no way to prove it or disprove it so I don't give the matter much thought. And there is also the deist View that God created the universe and then moved on to other things and didn't look back

Maybe.

I'm certainly not going to get into the emotional realm of whether people should practice a religion or not .

But I am saying that making faith a pariah is not helpful to the debate .

And I cannot reiterate this enough .

Instead of blaming The homicidal view of human nature on specific groups it's better to attack concentrations of political power .

I don't care if it's Soviet Russia Nazi Germany or the medieval Catholic Church or modern radical Islam.

The Mongols were highly tolerant of other religions but I don't think any of us would like to live under that system either.

And I can't reiterate this enough either . Religion is a veneer used to unite people toward a specific political persuasion when all else fails .

There is but one God (Jehovah/Allah/Buddha/Ahura Mazda) and power is his messenger.

But now I can expect to be immediately stoned should I come in contact with a fundamentalist Islamic state. Because to a Muslim this would be a blasphemy.

I might as well have just drawn a picture of the prophet Mohammed