Well, it does matter sometimes--sometimes that killing is whipped up by coteries of venal men or women for their personal ends.
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In his "Religion versus human dignity" thread, Fresco posted the following, which i think in germane at this point in Eorl's thread:
fresco wrote:Here's another comment about the pathological potential of religion.
Quote:You do not disprove religion, you cure people of it. It has repeatedly been shown that religious people believe in the face of contrary evidence. Religious fantasy is always more real to the religious than reality. Religious people are therefore no more subject to persuasion that they are wrong than the man in the madhouse who thinks he is Napoleon. Both require psychological attention not logic.
Of course, in the modern age, in the UK at any rate, most religious people are quiescent, but elsewhere we have seen that all of them are not. Religion therefore can be an extremely serious delusion, and the fact that most religious people today are law-abiding should not fool us into forgetting the witch hunts, and the Inquisition
(McGee reviewing Polkinghorne
http://www.askwhy.co.uk/truth/330Polkinghorne.html)
