Is atheism a liberating and good experience?

[Vincenzo Vinny G.]

Most of the people who fight and die are poor. Isolated. Alienated from the culture. Unemployed. Uneducated.

That's true. It's easier to find a better way to resolve a situation if you have a better education than just your holy book, no question there. I think the big problem with religion, though, is that not only do their fundamentalist branches tend to be uninformed, they specifically resist any attempt to educate them. Look how the far right here is fighting any attempt to educate anyone about overpopulation, climate change, psychological science on sexuality, palentology or any one of several other fields of science. And they use god to shield their wrongness; they claim "God says _____ and since God is always right, ____ must be true!" You can't get any further than that unless you're going to debate them their own holy book (and in the case of the Bible, it's a holy book that kinda constantly contradicts itself anyway).

They will listen to any bullshit, get emotionally invested into any cause as long as they love the leader and trust his message.

Yes, a charismatic leader can do that. There have been plenty of charismatic leaders who didn't use religion, but there have been far more who did use religion. It just gives them an extra layer of armor; you aren't just questioning the leader, you quetion god himself.

Surprisingly, if you build enough love/hate in someone, they will willingly fight and die for a cause, afterlife or not. Look at the IRA. Look at the Palestinian civilians who willingly choose to die. Look at the US Army, kids joining to fight and die.

Wait a minute..... are you actually saying that the fighting in Palestine and Northern Ireland doesn't have anything to do with religion? Really? Have you paid any attention to either conflict? 'Cause from what I see, religious differences are a central theme to why the people are fighting each other in BOTH cases.

Vinny, you're either stupid or you're a troll who knows he's losing and doesn't want to admit it. Either way, it's really sad.

I'm convinced that the fighting in Palestine isn't motivated by religion. Granted, the people in power love to use Allah's name because it gets the people to follow them. But in that sense people and religion are being manipulated for ultimately social ends. Religion is a factor, but not a driving factor. Palestinians and Israelis are not fighting because of Islamic or Jewish ideals.

Same with NI. It was more about hatred in the end, and money and politics and power than Catholics and Protestants. naimless said it best.

PS- what's with the personal insults? I demand apophenia comes here to rescue me.