People have the freedom to believe what they want. You can't police thoughts. Only actions. So forbidding religion won't work, but prosecuting people who use religion to discriminate will work.

(August 15, 2016 at 3:52 pm)Arkilogue Wrote: You must be joking, religious have been the reason for humans' grouping into larger city-state/tribes since the dawn of civilization.  They all rise and they all fall....and look what time it is.  People need a unifying vision and context for their lives.  Religions have provided that for better and worse.

No, man. Religion is the backdrop, not the reason. Humans- and those species most closely related to us- are social species by nature, it's our big evolutionary advantage, and the findings of anthropology bear that out, even before the advent of religion. Our reach and knowledge increased such that larger tribal groups could be formed, and religion functioned as a pretense for that, but it did so by parasitizing extant human traits. But it would have happened, religion or no; all religion did was step in front of our already extant desire for community and cooperation, asserting "see? That's me! I did that!"

Quote:Determine what?  That it's better to push a giant rolling boulder from the side rather than stand directly in front and expect to stop it?

Determine that humanity will never be free of religion.

(August 15, 2016 at 4:43 pm)Esquilax Wrote:

(August 15, 2016 at 3:52 pm)Arkilogue Wrote: You must be joking, religious have been the reason for humans' grouping into larger city-state/tribes since the dawn of civilization.  They all rise and they all fall....and look what time it is.  People need a unifying vision and context for their lives.  Religions have provided that for better and worse.

No, man. Religion is the backdrop, not the reason. Humans- and those species most closely related to us- are social species by nature, it's our big evolutionary advantage, and the findings of anthropology bear that out, even before the advent of religion. Our reach and knowledge increased such that larger tribal groups could be formed, and religion functioned as a pretense for that, but it did so by parasitizing extant human traits. But it would have happened, religion or no; all religion did was step in front of our already extant desire for community and cooperation, asserting "see? That's me! I did that!"

Quote:Determine what?  That it's better to push a giant rolling boulder from the side rather than stand directly in front and expect to stop it?

Determine that humanity will never be free of religion.

So then Religion would work as a catalyst accelerating tendencies already in motion.

Well you certainly have your work cut out for you in the world at large. But until you get past the spears and arrows of amazonian tribes that eschew all outsiders, pockets of indigenous religion will continue.

(August 15, 2016 at 3:11 pm)Fake Messiah Wrote: Well what do you expect from people that cling to book (Bible) that tells them world is flat, satyrs are real and of course magic tricks apparently prove God's existence. I mean just imagine what abhorrent things schools like that teach kids.

I went to a catholic school for 1-8 and got a great education. (We were even taught evolution!). There's a reason why people pay to send their kids to catholic, and other private schools, rather than put them in worthless public schools.

(August 15, 2016 at 4:49 pm)Arkilogue Wrote: So then Religion would work as a catalyst accelerating tendencies already in motion.

You have a tendency of vastly overstating your case, it seems: how on earth could you say that religion accelerates those tendencies, when you only have one sample group and no way of making a comparison?

Quote:Well you certainly have your work cut out for you in the world at large. But until you get past the spears and arrows of amazonian tribes that eschew all outsiders, pockets of indigenous religion will continue.

"It's hard," is not the same thing as "it's impossible," and frankly, given the shrinking demographics of western religions, it might not be as hard as you'd think.

(August 15, 2016 at 5:10 pm)Esquilax Wrote:

(August 15, 2016 at 4:49 pm)Arkilogue Wrote: So then Religion would work as a catalyst accelerating tendencies already in motion.

You have a tendency of vastly overstating your case, it seems: how on earth could you say that religion accelerates those tendencies, when you only have one sample group and no way of making a comparison?

Quote:Well you certainly have your work cut out for you in the world at large. But until you get past the spears and arrows of amazonian tribes that eschew all outsiders, pockets of indigenous religion will continue.

"It's hard," is not the same thing as "it's impossible," and frankly, given the shrinking demographics of western religions, it might not be as hard as you'd think.

The root meaning of the word "religion" (from re ligare') is to bind together into a greater unity. That's what it does. It forms and propagates an in-group that works for the increase of that group. Egypt is a prime example of civilization from religion.

(August 15, 2016 at 4:53 pm)Lek Wrote:

(August 15, 2016 at 3:11 pm)Fake Messiah Wrote: Well what do you expect from people that cling to book (Bible) that tells them world is flat, satyrs are real and of course magic tricks apparently prove God's existence. I mean just imagine what abhorrent things schools like that teach kids.

I went to a catholic school for 1-8 and got a great education.  (We were even taught evolution!).  There's a reason why people pay to send their kids to catholic, and other private schools, rather than put them in worthless public schools.

And somehow you failed to absorb a few simple lessons anyway. Correlation is not causation. Schooling comes down to funding.

(August 15, 2016 at 5:26 pm)Arkilogue Wrote:

(August 15, 2016 at 5:10 pm)Esquilax Wrote: You have a tendency of vastly overstating your case, it seems: how on earth could you say that religion accelerates those tendencies, when you only have one sample group and no way of making a comparison?


"It's hard," is not the same thing as "it's impossible," and frankly, given the shrinking demographics of western religions, it might not be as hard as you'd think.

The root meaning of the word "religion" (from re ligare') is to bind together into a greater unity. That's what it does. It forms and propagates an in-group that works for the increase of that group.  Egypt is a prime example of civilization from religion.

What binded together people into civilization was agrarian revolution. Religion was created to take people's money and to build castles for priests, later these temples were proclaimed as national treasure so that people are obliged to pay for it indefinitely.
But of course I'm talking to a person that only learned about the world from some particular religion that branding it to believe that their God and religion is source of everything and that every other source of information is false and from the devil.
Just like your claims of etymology of the world religion:  Cicero derived from relegere "go through again" (in reading or in thought), from re- "again" (see re-) + legere "read. But then you have Augustine who connects it with religare "bond between humans and gods."

In the ancient times it didn't matter to people what you believed in, there were no "Nation under one god", although they didn't like atheists. Only with the arrival of Christianity did people started looking at other people as enemies because they believe in other god then stupid Jesus.

Look how they're binding:

(August 15, 2016 at 4:31 am)Arkilogue Wrote: So the aberrant actions of one form of religion abnegate all other and possible forms?

It's not just one. There are so many examples that religion kills: http://www.google.bg/search?q=faith+heal...nCgkBzlK8U