Nomenclature isn't the cause.

yeah religion is the cause.....

Denial is not a river in Egypt.

Interesting. I don't know of a religion that has deployed nuclear weapons and drones.

Oh wait, that's done in the name of religion, right?

not even in the same ballpark....

Oh and I do seem to remember going to war to stop those "Godless Commies"....its why "in God We Trust" was added to our pledge of allegiance and money!

Let's test that.

How many people in history have been killed by religion as opposed to those in the name of religion?

Any cites will be helpful.

If you like, I'll provide the numbers for deaths caused by governments throughout history.

It is a fact....

Ask those godless Native Americans who were reduced to 1% of their numbers (and still have only recovered to 10% even now)..... because they were "godless heathens" and considered sub-human by those who called themselves "religious".

That is the reality.

Now perhaps you'd like to return to the topic of the OP.

and still is the reality...see the Middle East for details

I'll wait.

(BTW, if you think the history of the Middle East in the last 70 years is fundamentally about religion, you are politically naïve.)

I know some religious people of all faiths that really are spiritual but religion overall has been poisonous to mankind. FACT period.

It has far less to do with it than you're try to claim, without support.

Typing "fact" in all caps does not establish that it is.

The Jews Muslims and Christians all fighting over the joint. DO NOT try to tell me it has nothing to do with religion. That is Malarkey.

Contrast the socioeconomic situation in the Middle East over the last 70 years. Pay close attention to the casual events of World War II, the Holocaust, the dismemberment of the European Empires, the Cold War, the development and positioning of nuclear weapons and ICBMs and, last but not least, oil.

Now weigh those facts against a biased opinion that "The whole problem in the Middle East is biblical in nature.The Jews Muslims and Christians all fighting over the joint."

If the ludicrousness of that statement still fails to penetrate your poorly informed world view, contrast that with the 700 years of history that preceded it, when under stable Moslem governments there was significant harmony between the minority Jewish population and the majority Moslem population. (The Christian governments, after losing the Crusades, were too busy consolidating into nations, developing capitalism and embarking on overseas imperialism to be heavily involved.)

If you have a single fact to offer, I'm still waiting.

Is bullshit......I stand by that...

and they have all been fighting over the Middle east for a Millennia!

!

But, no.

Here's a sandwich to sustain you while you do.

Cats cover it up.

Native Americans were killed in the millions not because they were '"godless heathens" and considered sub-human by those who called themselves "religious" but because the white population as represented by the U. S. Government wanted to expropriate our land and other resources. This is still going on, and it still has nothing to do with religion.

It may shock you to know that the Baptist Church filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of the Cherokee nation to try to prevent the Removal when Jackson ordered the Southeastern nations off their lands and forced the long march to Oklahoma. You're spouting talking points, not citing history.

No I have actually BEEN to the Cherokee museum in North Carolina AND I have two grandparents who were Cherokee. Don't tell me I don't know my history please! I am from the North Carolina Band....

then you have another THINK coming!

Do you even know it was called Trail of Tears?

My great-grandfather had horror stories to tell that had nothing whatever to do with religion and everything to do with greed. But good for you that you've been to the museum. It's a start.

Actually, it's called "The Place Where They Cried."

if you think the Whites at the time didn't use religion to support their looking the other way.....you don't know White people very well then!

for the nations that were force-marched to Oklahoma is not an anecdotal, individual story. It's part of Cherokee (and Choctaw, and Creek, and Seminole) history. It's one of the reasons that so many Cherokee who are Christians are Baptist or Episcopalian.

And it's quite a jump from your original statement that Native Americans were slaughtered and forced into concentration camps because of religion and your statement here that whites "use[d] religion to support their looking the other way. . .."

so it didn't require your "correction"

Because I have been informed by many here that each baptist church is different, so you can't judge one by the acts of another. So in that case maybe one did what you say, but you cannot speak for all.

before the Civil War split it and so many independent congregations developed. The then-Baptist Church as a corporate entity, in other words.

between, as a crude guide, liberal and conservative congregations has a connection to which side of the war they were on?

Southern Baptists supported it; Northern Baptists (now generally referred to as American Baptists) did not.

they are not just one little old chapel out in the woods are they?

If you want to know how religion is undermining our democracy, read Marie Castle's new book "Culture Wars" SeeSharpPress 2013 in which she documents with names, facts and dates just how the US Catholic Bishops organization planned and guided most of the current anti-women bills through most of our state legislatures (Chapter 4: Religion and women: an abusive relationship). The bishops organization is highly organized and deeply financed and has intimidated most of our media so that these facts are unknown by the American public.

is to suggest that something is being done with religion as a pretext.

Just a guess.

he at least is questioning some of the positions of the church and it seems he working to change somethings. luther was the last person that challenged the church and he lost.

I don't really even know where to start with it, because it just wanders all over, and doesn't seem to have a coherent line of thought, beyond 'grrr atheism bad'.

What can someone do with that?

Doesn't it seem a bit illogical and ironic that he would cite someone pointing out the "offensive" position of the Catholic church regard women and homosexuals, while at the same time ragging on atheists for being too "aggressive"? If you're not going to get angry about that, and confront it aggressively, then what?

I see an awful lot of columns on places like Salon and Huffington Post by self-styled atheists who seem determined to divide atheists into "good" atheists (into which category they, coincidentally, always fall) and "bad" atheists. They pay lip service to condemning the negatives of religion, but spend just as much time running down those "bad" atheists whose crime seems to be that they are not as wishy-washy in confronting them as the author is.

a distinction between those who don't believe in a god or gods and those that are hostile towards those that do.

It's not about not being wishy washy, it's about being hostile or even bigoted.

The same could be said for theists. There are those that condemn and attack non-believers and those who see it merely as an aspect of who another person is.

Confronting the things that some religious institutions or individuals do or say that runs afoul of the values and causes most people hold here is quite different than broad brush attacks like "Religion is a disease".

and less and less from the anti-theists who liken religion to a disease.

Diversity is what makes us thrive.

Most atheists I know are realists who want to deal with reality, not fantasy. That takes hard work, hard thinking and lots of analysis and rethinking. That is not at all utopian.

you should a) get new friends, b) consult a dictionary for the definition of reality.

Firstly "New" atheism does not want people to stop talking about religion and how it affects them and their businesses or politics; it does want the religious to keep that religion out of the political and judicial sphere.

Secondly Harris did not sat that Malala was not Muslim, just that she was braver than millions of (other) Muslims.

Thirdly, as to "New" atheists directing their hatred (of obscene and primitive practices) primarily at Islam the author has not seen the attacks made against similar obscene and primitive practices of the Christians.

Get this man the Whaaaaam-bulance.