A repudiation of the historical argument against religion

I don't think this is a repudiation of the historical argument.

The most consistent historical argument - the one proposed by ancient Greek atheists - had little to do with religion's utility as a tool of war and more to do with the lack of evidence to support supernatural beliefs.

This would seem to me to be atheism's longest and most consistent beef with theism.

There is also the long standing suspicion among certain non-believers that the very essence of organised religion is that of a con job, the village witch doctor relying on the credulity of his followers to earn him a crust, as evinced by this Roman joke:

JESTICUS MAXIMUS: I say, I say, I say - what does a haruspex say when he meets another haruspex?
AUDIENCE PUNTERUS: I have no idea, do tell.
JESTICUS MAXIMUS: Nothing - they are both too busy laughing. Boom! Boom!

This would strike me to be the historical case for atheism. Stuff like the inciteful character of certain religious types is just window dressing really.

As a second point, to say that "some things are just as bad" is not a repudiation - it is more like an acknowledgement of the argument alongside a claim that theism is no worse than other ideologies.

So what? Is it in religiousity's favour that it isn't any worse than other methods of war-mongering?

The reason this point comes up so often, I think, is that religion is so often touted as a path to moral superiority. Theists often say of people with different beliefs than their own that they do not have a moral code - clearly an insulting and rather dubious claim. An easy way to repudiate this claim is to point out how often religious beliefs have been manipulated to motivate people to wage war on one another (or repress women, or pervert education, or justify terrorism, or cover up sex crimes committed by clergy, or execute putative blasphemers and heretics, or other morally rebarbative things religious institutions have allowed or encouraged).

Hence why it comes up so regularly.

This is not to say that atheists think religion is the ONLY motivational factor in such issues, or that it is even the worst such factor.

It is just to point out that, if religion really enlightened people as to good behaviour, or admirable moral qualities, or a peaceful way of life - it surely wouldn't be so easy to associate it with it's uglier side and adherants.

By historical I meant the argument using history as an attack on religon, not every single argument ever made in history against religion. I feel like saying 'dah' here but I am just going to have to restrain myself.

Since you don't really have any evidence for that beyond 'there have been people who've made stuff up' I don't really think that one can fly. For a start there are infinitly simpler and less difficult ways to con people than making up entire cosmologies.

Also I don't quite see how you square your view of on the one hand people being naturally faithless, and on the other of being totally credulous of anything they are told.

No my point was that all idealogies have been used as an excuse to do evil at some point- I can name evil democratic leaders, unpleasent feminists, fake charities and corrupt societies. All are twisting somthing good to ill purpose.

Well to this I will simply point out that my own countries problems (the UK that is) have increased even as religous belief and church attendance has waned. Obesity, people drinking just to get drunk, drugs, knife crime, gun crime, divorce, child abuse and the gap between rich and poor have all worsened since the decline of religion in the UK. Do I think that atheists are inherently less moral than the religous? No. But I think that even atheists need moral societies, and no secular principle has helpled form such a society.

There is also the long standing suspicion among certain non-believers that the very essence of organised religion is that of a con job, the village witch doctor relying on the credulity of his followers to earn him a crust, as evinced by this Roman joke:

In the same breath, I would add that most all belief-systems that humanity has come up with to date, have cultivated a general state of social disposition which has historically been more negative and less productive in outcome than what a simplier educational form emphasizing the basic social bonding traits--such as altruism, reciprocation, and self-constraint for the common good, and so on--could have done.

I realize that you may not actually feel that clergy are conmen but this needs to be said about this example.

Given the, (simplest) known forms of human government the somewhat egalitarian band system, Why would anyone consider any occupation a 'con job'. Bands do not have superfluous roles in their communities, and said witch doctors are not reputed to have been the equivalent of paid clergy. They work for their food like anyone else. But this is not a rant on shamanism or medecine people. What I'm saying is that cultures do not really create lasting structures and systems that lack necessity. Just like any other system it is subject to corruption and manipulation, but religion/Spirtuality and its esteemed positions of authority at one point filled a need in people and likely still do.

Then how do you respond to the fact . . . social bonding traits such as altruism, reciprocation, self constraint, concern for the common good, and so on? . . .

My understanding (and argument) is that these, especially H. sapien traits, have developed before the major belief-systems that have been created and spread among social demographic groups. I would not say--as I had hoped to have expressed the concept clearly enough, but may not have--that these traits are of a non-religious fabric, but rather, that the belief-systems did adopt them, emphasize them, and urge their members to apply them (most especially to the in-group) does not have rating creditability for any particular belief-system.

If we were to strip all the belief-systems of everything other than these natural H. sapien traits, we would have a single, world religion. And I do hope that it is clear enough now, that by the term 'religion,' I am not talking about a belief-system, but about an emotional, behavioral propensity that we find most strongly (not only, I might add) in the H. sapien.

I would go on to add, nay, recommend, that we do just this--strip the belief-systems of their individual, negative (as regards a number of non-natural social restrictions) and less productive-in-outcome tenets, and arrive at that 'near-John Lennon's-Imagine-scene.' [not no religion, but no belief system beyond that of a most natural understanding build]

What traits of religion are necessarily not natural to our species? I emphasize necessarily because . . .