Hitch is dead

Little noticed in this twisted excuse for a thread but the most fitting tribute of them all. Thanks, Phat.

Wrong one.

Just tweaking your tail. Couldn't help it. I'll leave now.

This one is close.

quote:

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We keep on being told that religion, whatever its imperfections, at least instills morality. On every side, there is conclusive evidence that the contrary is the case and that faith causes people to be more mean, more selfish, and perhaps above all, more stupid.

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Christopher Hitchens

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Stile, ringo,We all know the horrors religious thought and organization have perpetrated on this species for the past 100,000+- years.I agree that religion has helped some individuals cope with the harder realities of life.But to go all Godwin on you, IHO giving any credence for good to religion, any religion ever, is like saying the Nazis did good by making the trains run on time.In the long term the good has been so outweighed by the bad as to be non-existent.

Reality does that with subjective evaluations.

Guilty as charged. But doesn't change the result.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

We'll disagree on that. I cannot find enough of anything significant in religion's good side to elevate it above insignificant. Any good seems a mere trifle to the rest of the body of work.

All very nice. Kudos to the givers.But, as with most things one "Ah, shit!" negates 1000 "Attaboys", and religion has some of the biggest baddest "Ah, Shits" ever perpetrated, so no, I'm fine, thank you.

So for you religion has a stronger good side that counters much its bad side?I cannot agree but so be it.

So that one drop of Jewish blood is not considered as non-existent. Got it.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

Except I don't think I am wrong.Isn’t that one drop of blood, that one minor sin, so insignificant as to be called non-existent?Word games?IMO, the same for the whole body of religious work.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

Pedantic word games. OK. I'll stop here.

In a cost benefit analysis with the human spirit/capability in the balance as I would perceive one, religion has been and continues to be a yoke around the minds of huge numbers of our people.You have given me an opportunity to expound a bit and I am much obliged.How many wars? And of those how many may not have been for religious reasons but were presented as such to a believing populous? Lots. And we all know them. Worldwide.My speculation is that without religion such wars MAY have been seen for what they were. That would seem more difficult to succeed at with a more aware population unafraid (to the depths of their condemned souls) of critical thinking.Religion was the hammer used to crush the human spirit to such an extent that they could gather their religious zealots into massive armies to go out and kill in massive numbers breaching no challenge to some god’s will as determined by them, the elite, the Tabernacle, the Temple, the structures behind the strong man’s will.This continues today. We know this. We see it ... now that we are mentally free to both notice and object.And then there is religion’s stifling of scientific inquiry setting where human knowledge could have been back by 500 years+- (your mileage may vary). Kudos to the Arabs for such a fruitful science culture until Islam slammed the door on their Golden Age in the 1100’s. After the ancient Greek culture of freely mixing philosophy, art, mysticism and science, the Europeans never allowed a science culture until the Enlightenment in the late 1600’s when the straightjacket of the church over society and over thought began to crumble.But on the other side of the ledger religions today do comfort some needing a crutch to deal with reality and they have some nice useful charities so there is that, isn’t there.History may move one to view these good things in religion as insignificant against the full body of religion’s effect on the human species. So insignificant as to be considered non-existent in the comparison. Bad math? No.Non-existent? For the pedantic, no, but as a literary device it sure gets the point across rather well.Religion has been a disaster for this species.Thank you, ringo.

No. Just spouting off. Thanks again for providing the opportunity.