(April 10, 2012 at 10:53 pm)Shell B Wrote: Elitism. Racism. Patriotism. There are a lot of isms that do not have to be connected to religion to justify hate.
Hate doesn't really have a reality check, either. I could find a logical reason to hate anyone, if I wanted to. I could even find good reasons to hate myself, I'm sure. Sure, religions fosters the fuck out of hate. It gives people an omnipotent being on their side. That is one hell of a delusion. People don't need it to hate, though. They don't need it in the slightest. We still have borders and nationalities to hate over.
Well, that gives it shelf-life, for sure. I simply don't believe that lack of religion will lessen hate or "evil" in the slightest.
My point is that without religion, a lot of that hate would be impotent. You can rationalize your hate to yourself however you want, but in order to do any effective damage, it needs to be a part of a systematic organization. People don't need a reason to hate - but they do need to give a good one if they want to spread it around.
And looking at the difference in violence and crime rates between secular countries and religious countries - I'd say that not only lack of religion would lessen the "evil", but it has.
