End all Suffering now? you have the power.

[Brian37]

Wow I really wish I had written that, soooooo true. You could say the same about nationalism and politics too.

The only downside is that we still need common law so in that rightful condemnation of squatting rights to authorship, you still don't want that to be hijacked by any anarchist or fascist.

Yes indeed, which is why I consider religion a method for disseminating the morality that we required for society to continue. In the past, it was probably necessary- that fear that kept people honest and so on, because there simply wasn't the kind of infrastructure in place, nor the technological means to properly execute it. And I think that, had religion never existed, something else would have filled that void.

But we've grown past the need for edicts from on high to lay out our morality for us now. We have the capabilities to define and protect the laws that allow our society to function. When theists claim that god is the source of all morality, they're just being dishonest, and that's the part that gets me. Religion functions by taking credit for great things we already had. We never really needed it to define anything.

Well, while the need for a god is much like a child's need for Santa, I wouldn't say that placebos will ever go away.

Evolution does not depend on fact finding or pragmatism, and when we lose sight of the diversity that evolution is, both good and bad, that failure can and far too often leads to the chase of utopias, be they worship of a state or a god. When we forget this, even atheists, we are just of capable of cruelty as those we condemn.

Our modern understanding of science is creating a road where superstition and myth can no longer hide. But we cannot lose sight of our common existence which we are all part of.

One word solutions in the form of labels does not work anymore than evolution is monochromatic. "One size fits all" has never worked and cannot work. Life has always been diverse and always will be.

Clubs and boarders and labels will always exist, we are still a social species and always will be. I am simply suggesting a priority shift to what we have in common while still allowing differences to exist, and only through questioning, not force, can we ween people off clinging to bad claims or bad data.

Atheists are not a separate species and we are just as capable of doing any good act or bad act as any other label.