(July 11, 2015 at 9:45 am)IATIA Wrote:(July 11, 2015 at 3:08 am)Parkers Tan Wrote: Greed kills religion in terms of violence, suffering, and evil promulgated. Greed.
What's scary is that greed lies deeper in the human psyche than religion. You can eliminate religion altogether, and you will still have wars over resources, land, financial systems, market strategies, productive zones, slave labor, food supply, and so on -- and all of those devolve into greed when you really boil it down.
I disagree with your notion that religion is the biggest factor in violence and poverty, and I look forward you essaying your support for it.
IMHO, religion is just the most common excuse, not reason, for the greatest catastrophes. Without religion, 9/11 would still have happened, the Inquisition would still have happened, the Crusades would still have happened and so on. Bad people are just bad, without rhyme or reason. The biggest problem with religion is the effect of my personal liberties.
I agree that it is often a fig leaf, but I do think that it fully instigated several wars. I don't think you should have included the Crusades in your list, myself, and the Inquisition's inclusion seems questionable as well. Both of those instances had deep religious motivations, although the Inquisition also had greed as a factor (stemming from property seizure).
