in which case, 1 less tool is better than 1 more tool, no?

The one "less" tool is imaginary, and inevitably there will be another tool.

You see, the "tool" is a symptom of mankind's disease of causing wars.

But if you were to find a "cure", you don't just cure the symptoms, you cure the disease.

That disease, is human emotions, and human nature itself.

Can you remove human nature?

There will be a new debate going on if people are focusing on that instead of religion.

What's funny is, instead of blaming human nature's superstitions and imaginations, they blame ON the superstitions and imaginations.

Whether religion is man-made or not, it has been used, modified, for misinterpretations.

To blame on religion for being making humanity stupid is to exempt the infinite possibilities that humanity can be stupid in many ways, i.e. human nature.

Why blame religion for making people stupid, ALLOWING people to believe that the removal of religion will also remove their stupidity as well?

This is how it'll happen:

Remove religion, and mankind's will find a NEW religion:

It is called utilitarianism. Will mankind be so stupid to use this a new tool like how do they do it in religion? Oh yes. It is called, the evolutionary imperative, the best excuse for the superior to have TOTAL power over the inferior, justifying MURDER and KILLING as a NATURAL RULE for the survival of the fittest, esepcially the rule of "good and evil" are beset among those who in the majority who THINK it's good because it serves their purpose, and to those who studied psychology, the emotion of FEAR, will finally have NEW excuses to think that "necessary evils" are completely justifiable by utilitarianian rule. And will that start another war? You bet.

And those who like NUMBERS, and think religion caused the most deaths in wars, Y'ALL OBVIOUSLY HAVE NOT HEARD OF GENGHIS KHAN'S GENOCIDES, which is completely non-religious.

This post has been edited by Deadlocks: Nov 16 2010, 09:11 AM

No...i was stating an example of a religious war. Ive said earlier that religion is not a cause for all wars, some caused by it and some caused by other things.
I do not share religion as 'a perfect guidance' or as a 'moral compass'. As in my quote earlier, I said that it WAS a good kick-start but it has passed its time.

Of course its human phsyce. No denying that. But what provoked such is another factor - it can be religion or race or other things.
Human phsyce is the tool of manipulation to cause violance. U provoke ppl to hurt another by spreading war propagandae, or spread hate into one race or religious group. Hence trigger emotion n reaction.

Bolded - u may see in most cases, that is not the case. Religion mostly become the fuel to the fire. Im not denying it but the evidence around us speaks for itself. All I need to have to stop getting angry and being provoked. If im not in the religion in the first place, others wont have anything to provoked me abt, hence save confrontation.

Some people need religion, some people don't. I used to have none, but now I have one, and it works for me but not sure about other people. NOthing wrong to have none, and to have one, or have some too.

This post has been edited by soul2soul: Nov 16 2010, 10:18 AM

Remember it is also human psyche that make us decide not to cause war as well. Human phsyce is not all negative.

The new religion will not work because we as a civilization learn from our past and its time for us to move on as a better species. The new religion is as simple as to embrace new ideas and leave the old and obsolete. But many will stay in the old premise of religion, trapped in time and fear. Which is their choice, which is also human pshyce to be able to choose.

I never state religion as the BIGGEST KILLER OF ALL. Religion IS one of the reason, but not all the time. If u wanna compare Genghis Khan and the Crusades, Conquistadores, The Inquisition, the Witch Hunt and the 911, all involve killing. It is what motivates them to do it matters here. U cant remove human psyche. But we all have a choice.

Very true. Religions, esp organized ones, can be distorted by charismatic fanatical preachers who cleverly see religion as a tool of power. It's very easy to be seduced into such realm when you don't have enough knowledge of and be influenced by them. In a way, religion can be a thinly disguised propaganda.

You must be quite naive about the human psyche to think that mankind are more inclined to do good than evil. Human nature is not all negative, but most it is. Only a few are able to see through their own vices, and live beyond it, in comparison to the masses of other humans. If you have studied social psychology along the history, you will realize that most of humanity are always enveloped in fear, laziness, and stupidity, leaving only a VERY FEW smart an wise ones who are often taken for granted.

If u wanna stay n be engulfed in the negativity, its ur choice. One thing u should learn from ur study and history is try not to repeat it. One reason why there are still negativity is because there are people thinking like u.
Im moving forward. Change, if u desire for it, comes from within, which is also the human psyche.

This post has been edited by maranello55: Nov 16 2010, 11:46 AM

Look around you, and tell me negativity isn't in the reality of humanity. You and I may not be negative about certain things, but I'm sure you're old enough to understand why there are more stupid people than smart ones in life.

Where did i say theres NO negativity?
If theres more stupid people, then there is alot of positive things to do abt that, rite?

Not when you trace back the human psyche back to its roots and origins.

It is like questioning black matter and the Big Bang itself.

Neither that i argue the negativity in the past DIDNT HAPPEN.

Wut im saying is move on and advance as a better civilization and species.

It is not naive to think human does more good than harm, where human nature is concerned, to borrow from what you seems to say about evolution, we prosper and grow because by being good allows us to multiply quickly. To put it simply, being good "out-evolves" from being bad. Another way to look at this, how many people around you that talks about love, compassion, kindness, happiness, gratitude etc than people that talks about hate, revenge, killings, torture etc ...? Or how many people commit crimes and how many don't? It's the masses of humans that build cities and civilizations, which are not possible without law and order that come from the good natured side of humanity.

http://www.comw.org/socbio899.html

Love, compassion, kindness etc ... are also part of human nature and to accept that religion has somewhat amplified these behaviors, we should also accept that negative behaviors found in these religious texts, translated and interpreted to mean something that form the basis of certain actions, can be attributed to religion as well, does it not?

Are you sure? Have you sit down and observe how humans behave? Do you actually see MORE LOVE than HATE? Are you sure that they are not sufering from SILENT HATRED, and SILENT MELANCHOLY, all stucked in the middle class struggling to get through society's expectations? Have you not notice tiny muscle twitches on a human's face that might as well be sobbing?

People will always tell you this, that life is not all about rainbows and sunshine. It is a mean, nasty place.

agreed.

All the negative feeling you speak of stems from a less civilized era, the caveman brain or reptilian brain, so to say. so long as it remain in control, you require a santa claus to keep your actions in check when you are young. or stick and carrots for horses and donkeys.

now, the question is, now that you (as in the personal you, forget about other people) are an adult, are you mature/civilized/well-trained enough to make your own decision based on your own views of positive/negative without consulting a guidebook?

Yes i am very sure. Otherwise i would not be able to sit down and type a reply to you, would I? I will be full of hatred, bashing my laptop yelling obscenity at people around me ... How many times do you see people blow their top, screaming and kicking at some small provocations? How many times you see people enter into some stressful negotiation, like in some minor car accidents, tearing at each other throat? Out from 6 billions people, you can hardly read more than 10 crimes commited per day, given there is another 1000 you did not read, that's a staggering 99.999% of the times people are peaceful and accomodating.

So what is your definition? How do you know people think about hate more than love if it does not manifest in the real world? I am begining to think what you are philosophsizing is disconnected from the real world ...

You really are quite shallow to think that hate = VIOLENT demonstrations.

Haven't you checked the subtlety of hatred? The knife behind a smile? The politics in an office? The politics of a country? The troubles of a family? The social repression? The self pity? The insecurity of modern youths? The "politically correct" deception? The stress of the modern world that made people cold? The instant gratification that society seeks in sex and violence? All these melancholy are seen subtlety and subliminally, they are not expressed blatantly like how you've explained.

And while you have your point of not havng people shouting at the top of their lungs in rage, NEITHER DO I NOT SEE PEOPLE HUGGING EACH OTHER, HELP, LOVING EVERYONE FOR WHO THEY ARE UNCONDITIONALLY AND WITHOUT PREJUDICE, AND GIVE EACH OTHER OUT OF SELFLESSNESS FOR THE SAKE OF PLATONIC LOVE. Blatant demonstration examples calls for another blatant demonstration examples.

This post has been edited by Deadlocks: Nov 16 2010, 11:14 PM

More sounds like u are the one unable to understand my previous main point.

What i said about resident evil and the story u said earlier are "IDEA",
how can u assume that the story is the truth in the future?
Thats why im saying that if u do it that way we can all conclude that technology advancement cause resident evil, swim deeper into the sea provoke piranhas, etc.

Too bad,
there are many places without religion while war dont happen.

Do u have more supporting fact for that?
Dont say something like <country name> is now having war because lack of religion because it is not relevant.

Dude, as a researcher in past history of social psychology, let me tell u certain facts.

Not all patients that deal with psyhoclogical problem or any mental disorder face with hatred, melancholy and other negative thingy deep inside their heart.
And those are not the main problem that cause all these.
Aside of that, i can tell u that most cases i studied, they are very normal human being that face psychological problem and thats all,
there is nothing hollow or devilish like how u sound.
Plus, always bear in mind that, the newspaper never report any happy news that happen all around us,
this means, the newspaper is not telling u that this world is full of sadness and tragedy, it is just reporting some of the news happen in part of this world.
Same thing.
Lets say, 10,000 people in one country, 30% may have psychological problem, this is what we concern.
But dont forget that 70% of those are normal people.

Next, talk abut observing human behavior, i must know do u have any qualification to ensure that u got the proper method and skill to understand how to understand human behavior?
If the answer is no, whatever u saying here is simply prejudice and ur negative thinking of humanity.
Try to answer this question, in what sense u think u ensure that people have lesser love than hate? Can u ensure most people suffer silent hatred or whatsoever?
If the answer is "no" or "not sure", again u are just doing prejudicial talk and judging things entirely by surface.
I bet no one can give a good answer of yes or no for ur question, dont sounds like u may know it by any chance either.

Quote the post above, and give me your views, and I'll tell you what I think.

Generally, humans need religion in nature. It's introduced for a purpose because human can make decision and differentiate what's supposed to do.

Anyway, humans also tend to pave their way thus resulting in different views and groups. Some will decide to worship, some just leave alone.

Religion is something out of human made technology & theory.