Would the world be better off without religion?

It would really help if you'd read past the first sentence.

Unless you have the assumption of an old earth, the most reasonable interpretation of the major phyla represented in the so called Cambrian explosion is that their sudden appearance as fully formed critters with diverse, sophisticated and functioning organs, systems etc is due to them not having evolved, but having started their history in just that way. It is totally consistent with creation.

Use of the word 'all' makes it an absolute statement. The fact that you consider it your subjective opinion doesn't change the absolute nature of the statement.

Asking a question is not a straw man argument, Chumly.

This charge of 'straw man' seems to be a favorite of A2Kers who toss it out there without substantiation when they are uncomfortable with answering the post as written.

Instead of substantiating WHY a straw man has been employed (i.e. why the argument as phrased is substantively different than the argument being referred to), the accusation is simply tossed into the ring as a useful dodge on many occasions.

It's kinda like the little boy who cried wolf; and the frequent use of the 'straw man' charge, without documenting how a substantively different position was set forth, merits the same response.

About as close as i expect you'll ever come to comprehending this is if you understand that my remarks about "morality" are absolutely subjective. Although i may state what you allege to be an absolute, that does not move either morality, or my statement, into some universal, absolutist realm which exists independently of my thought and my expression of my thought. And that differs drastically from your continued idiotic contention that your imaginary friend, floating around in some vague "heaven" somewhere, is responsible for a universal, absolute definition of "morality."

No amount of your feeble attempts at logic chopping will change that, either.

Here, let's put this in terms so simple, that even you might understand. I've never denied that there are absolutes, i just deny that there are any moral absolutes, because all moral judgments are subjective. That is not a moral statement, it's just a statement about morality. I realize that even simple concepts such as this tend to escape you, because you are willfully blockheaded about morality, so let's indulge one of your favorite dull-witted methods.

Name for me just one moral statement which all people will agree with so that we may deny that all moral statements are subjective. Think you can come up with one?

What is your evidence that this is so? How do you know that the apparent appearance of phyla without ancestors was real rather than apparent? You yourself use the expression "little or no 'ancestry'," so it were entirely possible even your terms that there were ancestors, and that the evidence of them is either not available or as yet unrecognized. How do you know that the Cambrian "explosion" is not simply a product of a rather sudden growth in the potential for fossilization? Given that the Cambrian duration was about 45 million years, why do you allege that this was sudden?

Your thesis has a great many holes in it, and as you advance it to "prove" a creation, you have a burden of proof in which you have failed. As has also been pointed out, referring to the Cambrian explosion also does considerable violence to your oft stated thesis that the earth is thousands, or tens of thousands of years old, as opposed to billions, or even merely millions. This is typical of the manner in which you attempt to argue. You will at one point assert that the earth is no more than, at the most, tens of thousands of years old--yet you seek to claim you have proof of creation by reference to events which are asserted by radiometric evidence to have occurred more than 500 million years ago.

It is hilarious to see you dance, though. Dance some more for us, "real life."

There were lots of life forms before the cambrian. The cambrian explosion wasn't an explosion out of nothing, it was an expansion from existing forms, very evolutionlike. If there had been no life before the cambrian, then you would have a point. In this case you do not.

Ok, that was your first try. Obviously a pitiful failure to demonstrate your point.

What have you got for us next?

Hi Setanta,

I can understand why you seem uncomfortable defending this. You feel as if you have arrived at your opinion subjectively. And that is fine.

But I don't have to allege the statement itself to be an absolute.

The use of the word 'all' makes it an absolute.

Moreover, it is an absolute which seeks to prove a negative, i.e. there are no moral absolutes.

Proving a negative can be very difficult unless one is omniscient.

The statement itself is a moral judgement. It seeks to define what is and is not moral by denying the existence of moral absolutes.





So if no one agrees with a statement , or if just one person disagrees with a statement, then that statement cannot be true?

The existence of an absolute does not depend on whether people agree that it exists.

Nonsense--morality seeks to state what is "right" and what is "wrong," what is "good" and what is "bad." I've not claimed that it is either right or wrong that morality is subjective, or that that is good or bad. It's not a moral statement, it is simply a statement about morality. Your having made a claim to the contrary is not evidence that it is a moral statement. You are making a puerile attempt to claim this is so by applying the term morality in so vague a manner as to make it meaningless.



However, it would serve to at the least suggest that not all moral statements are subjective. You are otherwise left to fall back on your assertion that there is morality, as decreed by your imaginary friend. However, since you cannot demonstrate (or to date have never demonstrated) that your imaginary friend actually exists, we are left to consider "morality" from a human perspective. If you allege any other provenance for "morality," you place upon yourself the burden of proving that provenance.

I'm not uncomfortable at all. The burden of proving that "morality" exists independently of human subjectivity falls on you, as you are the one who asserts that there are moral absolutes. As i've already pointed out, i don't deny that there are absolutes, or that there are absolute statements. I simply deny that there are moral absolutes. I have made a subjective statement about morality, and have not alleged that i've proven anything. You, however, assert that there are moral absolutes, and you therefore take upon yourself the burden of proof. You have consistently failed to prove your case. Nothing obliges me to disprove it. Which is why i am perfectly comfortable with the course of the discussion.

Your objection that 'there were existing life forms prior' to the existence of the major phyla represented in the Cambrian explosion rests almost entirely, as I indicated earlier, upon so called dating methods that give wildly inconsistent results and depend on unproven assumptions.

You state that the Cambrian was an 'expansion' of existing forms, yet there is scant indication of any 'ancestry' of these unique forms. Just assuming that they MUST exist (even if they haven't been found) isn't proof that they exist.

Not only should we expect (if evolution were true) to see numerous predecessors of the surviving phyla, but many multiplied more examples of 'failed' evolutionary dead ends and rejects.

The dearth of so called transitional fossils (which must account for not just tiny steps, but great leaps in development) is something that you can't simply brush aside by saying, 'well there was SOMETHING living before these critters existed so they MUST HAVE evolved.'

Assuming evolution to prove evolution won't cut it , ros.

And, no, the Cambrian is not 'very evolutionlike'. Rapid change and development of major organs, systems and body plans is the opposite of what evolutionists consistently sell as 'slow gradual change over a looooonnnnnggggg period of time.'

Your rebuttal really fails on all counts.

April 12, 2007








THE NEW CRUSADERS
As Religious Strife Grows,
Europe's Atheists Seize Pulpit
Islam's Rise Gives Boost
To Militant Unbelievers;
The Celebrity Hedonist
By ANDREW HIGGINS
April 12, 2007; Page A1

CAEN, France -- With 40 minutes to go before show time, the 500-seat Alexis de Tocqueville auditorium was already packed. A fan set up a video camera in the front row. A sound engineer checked the microphones.

The star: Michel Onfray, celebrity philosopher and France's high priest of militant atheism. Dressed entirely in black, he strode onto the stage and looked out at the reverential audience for his weekly two-hour lecture series, "Hedonist Philosophy," which is broadcast on a state radio station. "I could found a religion," he said.

1
Mr. Onfray, 48 years old and author of 32 books, stands in the vanguard of a curious and increasingly potent phenomenon in Europe: zealous disbelief in God.

Passive indifference to faith has left Europe's churches mostly empty. But debate over religion is more intense and strident than it has been in many decades. Religion is re-emerging as a big issue in part because of anxiety over Europe's growing and restive Muslim populations and a fear that faith is reasserting itself in politics and public policy. That is all adding up to a growing momentum for a combative brand of atheism, one that confronts rather than merely ignores religion.

Karen Armstrong, a former Catholic nun and prominent British author on religion, calls the trend "missionary secularism." She says it mimics the ardor of Christianity, Islam and Marxism, all of which have at their core an urge to convert nonbelievers to their worldview.

Mr. Onfray argues that atheism faces a "final battle" against "theological hocus-pocus" and must rally its troops. "We can no longer tolerate neutrality and benevolence," he writes in "Traité d'athéologie," or Atheist Manifesto, a best seller in France, Italy and Spain. "The turbulent time we live in suggests that change is at hand and the time has come for a new order."


As with many fights involving faith, Europe's struggle between belief and nonbelief is also a proxy for other, concrete issues that go far beyond the supernatural. In this case, they involve a battle to define the identity of a continent.

Half a century after the 1957 Treaty of Rome laid the foundations for the now 27-nation European Union, Europe has secured peace and prosperity. But it is deeply uncertain about what binds the bloc together beyond mere economic self-interest. Says Ms. Armstrong: "There is a big fight going on to define European civilization."

In London last month, leading British atheists squared off with defenders of faith in a public debate on the motion, "We'd be better off without religion." Tickets cost nearly $40 but so many people wanted to attend that the event was moved to a bigger venue with over 2,000 seats. It still sold out. The audience declared the atheists the victors, by a margin of 1,205 to 778, with a few score abstentions.

In Germany, a wealthy furniture manufacturer is funding a "think tank of Enlightenment," a group of scientists and others committed to debunking religion. It is named after Giordano Bruno, a 16th-century philosopher and cosmologist who was burnt at the stake as a heretic. In Italy, one fervent nonbeliever has gone to the European Court of Human Rights with a claim that the Roman Catholic Church is guilty of fraud: Jesus, he says, never existed.

Prime Catalyst

Alarm over Islam has acted as the prime catalyst for much of the polemic. Europe's Muslim populace, estimated at between 15 million and 20 million people, is growing more numerous, more vocal and, in some cases, more religious. The clash also feeds on a deeper confrontation that dates back to Europe's Enlightenment, the 18th-century intellectual movement that asserted the primacy of reason over superstition.

"The battle over religion is restarting. It is going to be a difficult one," says Terry Sanderson, president of Britain's National Secular Society, an organization that was founded in the 19th century but has now gained a new vibrancy. Membership has doubled in the past four years, to around 7,000, says Mr. Sanderson. For converts from Christianity, the society provides a certificate of "de-baptism." "Make it official!" urges the society's Web site, www.secularism.org.uk2.

The atheist cause won a big-name endorsement late last year when pop star Elton John, in an interview, said organized religion turned people into "hateful lemmings" and should be banned.

The backlash against religiosity has even seeped into Europe's Muslim community. In February, Mina Ahadi, an Iranian-born woman in Cologne, Germany, set up the Continent's first Muslim atheist group: the National Council of Ex-Muslims. She immediately started getting death threats and was put under police protection.


"Our main message is: 'We don't believe,' " says Ms. Ahadi, talking in a coffee shop next to Cologne Cathedral, a towering tribute to faith that took 600 years to complete. A police guard hovered nearby.

Atheism, Ms. Ahadi says, must confront religion head-on -- and adopt its methods. Her group started with just 30 members in February and a month later had more than 400. It is lobbying European Union officials for restrictions on the veil and organizing a public meeting at which ex-Muslims will explain why they quit. "If you want to work against Muslim movements, you have to be like them," she says. "We have to go outside and say what we're fighting for."

Europe's atheist campaigners have also made a splash in America. "The God Delusion," a book by Oxford Professor Richard Dawkins, has been on the New York Times hardcover nonfiction best-seller list for 28 weeks. Another British atheist, U.S.-based writer Christopher Hitchens, has written his own antireligious treatise, "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything," due out in May.

Christianity, once the bedrock of Europe's identity, has been losing worshipers on the Continent for at least half a century, though some opinion polls suggest the downward trend has bottomed out. Around three-quarters of Europeans still describe themselves as Christians. But only a small minority go to church. In Western Europe, according to polls, fewer than 20% do.

The number of atheists is hard to pin down. Some surveys put the figure at under 3%, but others say it is much higher.

When the European Union asked citizens to rank values representing Europe, religion came last -- far behind "human rights," "democracy," "peace," "individual freedom" and other choices. Only 3% chose religion.

Religious leaders are pushing back against the assertive unbelievers. The Church of England's Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, complained in a December statement about "illiberal atheists who have joined forces with aggressive secularists." He was responding to demands that Jesus be removed from nativity plays and that Christmas parties be called "winter festival" gatherings.

Mr. Onfray's atheist tract, recently translated into English, has prompted three book-length rebuttals by angry Christians and a flood of articles. To counter Prof. Dawkins's "God Delusion," an Oxford theology professor wrote his own book, "The Dawkins Delusion."

Both atheists and their foes agree on one thing: God -- declared dead over a century ago by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche -- is making a comeback, at least as a focus of controversy. "Faith is on the public agenda in a way that is unprecedented in recent times," proclaimed the founding manifesto of Theos, a new British-based Christian think tank.

Europe's atheist movement has no Vatican-like central command and springs from many different sources. Some adherents have personal grievance. Mr. Onfray spent part of his youth in a home run by Catholic priests, who he says mistreated him and abused others. Ms. Ahadi, head of the German ex-Muslims group, says her first husband was executed by Islamic revolutionaries in Iran.

Secular Europeans voice dismay at American religiosity and worry that faith-based reasoning is spreading in Europe, too. Many Britons, for example, believe the Christian faith of Prime Minister Tony Blair helped lead him to entangle Britain in America's war in Iraq.

Deep Suspicion

There is also deep suspicion of Poland, a devoutly Catholic new member of the European Union. Its deputy education minister late last year urged the teaching of creationism, the Bible-inspired alternative to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

Celebrations last month to honor the 50th anniversary of the EU's founding Treaty of Rome were marred by squabbling over whether Christianity, among other things, should be mentioned in a declaration defining the bloc's basic principles. Atheists and secularists who believe religion has no place in politics campaigned hard to prevent any nod to Christianity and drafted their own so-called Brussels Declaration affirming Europe's secular moorings.


A demonstrator holds a banner that reads 'No God, Atheism is Freedom' outside St. Peter's Square in Rome, at a 2003 protest against the Vatican's condemnation of gay marriage.
The faithful lost, and the EU marked its birthday in Berlin without any mention of Christianity. Pope Benedict XVI was furious. "How can they exclude an element as essential to the identity of Europe as Christianity?" he asked at a conference organized by European bishops. Europe is committing a "peculiar form of apostasy."

The most potent force driving activist atheism is concern that Islam, Europe's fastest-growing religion, is jeopardizing the principles of the Enlightenment -- and emboldening other religions to raise their voices, too, and re-fight old battles.

"I have a big problem with Islam," says Mr. Onfray, the French philosopher. Last fall, he offered sanctuary at his house in northern France to a high-school philosophy teacher who had received death threats from Muslims. The teacher had denounced the Prophet Muhammad as a "merciless warlord" in a newspaper article. But Mr. Onfray says his basic beef is with all religions, not just Islam.

Europe's disquiet over Islam soared after the November 2004 murder by a Muslim militant in Amsterdam of Theo van Gogh, an irreverent Dutch writer, filmmaker and antireligious polemicist. Then came a global furor over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad published in a Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten.

A French court in March ended a long legal campaign by Muslim groups to jail the editor of a satirical weekly that republished the cartoons. The court ruled that the editor had committed no crime. One of the groups that initiated the case immediately vowed to appeal.

"There is an identity crisis. We have to answer the question: Who are we? One answer is to say we're atheists," says Flemming Rose, the Danish journalist who first commissioned the drawings and now gets invited to speak to atheist groups.

Muslim activism is encouraging other faiths to be more assertive. University of London professor Anthony Grayling cites violent protests by British Sikhs that forced the cancellation of a play in Birmingham in 2004, and Christian protests against the television broadcast of a London opera that featured Jesus dressed in diapers. Christians and Muslims both campaigned vigorously, but without success, to torpedo elements of a new British law that bans discrimination against homosexuals. Such faith-based agitation, says Mr. Grayling, threatens a "dark ages for free enquiry and free speech."

Atheism in Europe dates back to the ancient Greeks, who coined the word "atheos," meaning godless. Socrates was convicted of atheism and poisoned. Early Christians and their foes each branded the other "atheist."

Atheism as a philosophical system first took root in the 17th century. British philosopher Thomas Hobbes dismissed religion as "lies." He fled to France. There, Voltaire and other French thinkers took up the cause with gusto, though many did not entirely reject the possibility of some sort of deity. The Soviet Union enshrined atheism as a state creed.

Mr. Onfray, the French philosopher, says he believed in God as a child in the same way as he "believed in Santa Claus." His impoverished parents, a farm laborer and a cleaning lady, put him in a church-run home for orphans when he was 10. He developed a loathing of Christianity and now embraces what he calls "ethical hedonism." He's not married but has had the same female companion for 30 years. He says they have a "hedonist contract," which does not require monogamy. But, he says, hedonism is not "about cigars, vintage Bordeaux and expensive cars."

'Foundation of Morality'

"To enjoy and make others enjoy without doing ill to yourself or to others, this is the foundation of all morality," he says, citing an 18th-century French writer, Nicolas Chamfort.

After nearly 20 years teaching philosophy at a Catholic high school, Mr. Onfray in 2002 set up an experimental college in the Normandy town of Caen, near the beaches of the 1944 D-Day landing. Called the Université Populaire de Caen, it has no exams, no degrees and consists of public lectures by Mr. Onfray and a few friends.

The local government helps cover costs, and Caen's public university lets him use its main auditorium -- to the chagrin of its philosophy department, which is headed by a devout Catholic and takes a dim view of Mr. Onfray's diatribes against God. "Frankly, we think he talks a lot of garbage," says Emmanuel Housset, a philosophy lecturer.

Caen's Catholic theological college has tried to fight back. Maurice Morand, a priest, went on local radio to denounce Mr. Onfray's work. "He is a fundamentalist who hides behind the ideas of the Enlightenment," says Father Morand. "We can't defeat him, we can only denounce him."

Mr. Onfray's popularity shows no sign of flagging. At a recent lecture, the 100th so far, an adoring audience held aloft lit candles and cigarette lighters in tribute. A middle-aged man took the floor to praise Mr. Onfray for providing "the key to life."

Pierre Andrieu, a 63-year-old former executive with BNP-Paribas, a French bank, travels up to Caen each week from Paris for the lecture show. He makes the trip, he says, because he shares Mr. Onfray's take on faith -- and fears that religion is making a comeback. "It is far more present than before," he says. "This need for religion is very, very strong. Religion is like magic. It is all about tricks."

Ahead of France's presidential election later this month, Philosophie Magazine arranged a meeting recently between Mr. Onfray and the front-running candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy, who sometimes attends church. They argued about faith, politics and philosophy. As a gift, Mr. Onfray gave Mr. Sarkozy several books, including one by his favorite philosopher, Nietzsche. Its title: "The Anti-Christ."

Can you provide a series of convincing quotes of major evolutionary biologists which will support your statement to the effect that they claim that evolution is always, on only ever, gradual change over a long period of time? Do you assert that the 45 million years of the Cambrian is not a long period of time.

I note that you continue to dodge the contradiction embodied in your reference to events which took place more than 500 million years with your consistent statement that you believe the earth to be tens of thousands of years old, at the most.

Your moral judgement, which you stated as an absolute denying the existence of moral absolutes, is inherently contradictory.

Moreover, the statement seeks to prove a negative, whether you choose to acknowledge it or not.

No contradiction at all. I stated plainly that the dating methods (plural) which seek to establish the 'old age' hypothesis, yield results which are inconsistent and therefore unreliable. Moreover they are based on unproven assumptions.

Evolutionists generally consider evolution to be slow change over a long period because postulating rapid change and the quick development of major phyla (the 'Hopeful Monster' thesis of Punctuated Equilibrium) makes it even funnier and more ridiculous. I won't say that there are no proponents of PE still around, but they are the minority, albeit an entertaining one.

Real Life,

You have strayed into the wasteland of "Russell's Paradox" here. Similar statements to the one under discussion (like "the only truth is that there is no truth") merely serve to exemplify the limits of "language" in descriptions of "reality". Perhaps such de-mystification of "The Word" was contiguous with Russell's staunch atheism since it is certainly a point "fundamentalists" seem to be incapable of grasping.

You lose at the outset. It's not a moral judgment, because i have not asserted that the subjectivity of moral judgment is good or bad, right or wrong.



I have nowhere made a "value statement" about the subjectivity of morality. I have nowhere said that the subjectivity of morality is good or bad, right or wrong. I have simply pointed out that "morality" proceeds from human subjectivity, that it derives from what people assert is right or wrong, good or bad. If you wish to assert that morality exists independently of subjective human judgment, you assume the burden of proving your contention.



Your "logic" is breathtakingly feeble. You assert that my statement is a "moral judgment" without proof, and a definition of morality, such as i provided, refutes that assertion on your part. Therefore, there is no contradiction.



No, i have attempted to prove nothing. I have stated that moral judgments are subjective, because they derive from the beliefs individuals have about what is right or wrong, what is good or bad. I have made a statement, and given my reasons for making the statement. Rather than attempting to refute the basis for my statement, you make a false claim about the nature of my statement, in a pathetic attempt to avoid your burden of proof. If you assert that there are moral absolutes, you assume a burden of proving your case. You consistently fail to do so.

What moral absolutes exist, and what is your proof that this is so?

There seem to be two lines of discussion going on here, and Real life is short on both.

The evidence for the Big Bang is pretty conclusive, but even that is subject to revision as scientists continue to gather information looking for anomalies in the data. The evidence for the age of the universe and the earth is overwhelming. Even if science is wrong by a billion years that is closer to the truth than the supposition that the earth is less than a million years old.

Evolution is a scientific description of observed phenomena. Again there is a lot of very solid evidence to support the notion that species change over time to meet changing circumstances. We know that some species can adapt in a single generation, and adaptations can be cumulative over very long periods of time. As scientific techniques become more sophisticated, so to the evidence for the adaptability of species increases. DNA has already helped us understand the lengthy family trees of both our own and other species.

Abrahamic believers have to deal with the increasingly obvious problems that divide their faith from the observed nature of the Perceptual Universe. If those religious folks want the world to abandon science for blind faith, they have an uphill battle on their hands.

Secondly, there is the question of whether there are any moral/ethical absolutes. This is a question for philosophers, not scientists, and so our conclusions can seldom be established by observable phenomena. That certainly makes the conclusion that morals and ethics are more subjective than not. How can we "prove" that one society's moral/ethical code is better or worse than any others? Each society holds beliefs that were at some point important to the groups fundamental concepts, and perhaps even its survival.

The problem with this is that moral relativism bothers most people, a lot. Enslaving females and killing them when their husbands die, may be in accord with ancient tradition and expectation, but real people suffer and die from the custom. If we accept moral relativism, we are in effect also accepting that "might makes right". Perhaps it does, but that reduces the difference between Hitler and Mother Theresa to zip.. "Greed IS good!" Are mercy and charity weaknesses? What difference is there between cowardice and heroism? What compass do we have when lost in the sea of moral relativism? None? It seems to me that the ability of humans to distinguish between different courses of action is important, and that some directions are inherently less admirable than others, but that ultimately is a subjective judgment and can not be absolutely demonstrated.

The best yardstick that I know of to weigh our thoughts, words and actions is the degree to which those thoughts, words, and actions are intended to increase or decrease the amount and intensity of suffering. Suffering is universally regarded as "not a good thing". If suffering is "bad" then anything that we think, say or do to relieve suffering is "good". To cause suffering is bad, and to intentionally cause suffering as an end in itself is to me the extreme lower end of the scale. To sacrifice one's self to relieve or mitigate the suffering of the many, is the top end of the scale.

For this "system" to be effective, we have to closely discipline ourselves and remain constantly aware of the effect of our thoughts, words and actions. That is really tough to do, and even the best of us will react thoughtlessly to our emotions. Few set out to be greedy, domineering, angry and hurtful, but it happens anyway. The best we can do is weigh carefully each situation we encounter, and then choose that course which seems to mitigate the suffering that naturally follow life in the perceptual world. Because we are not omniscient, our best efforts to reduce suffering can go wildly astray. When that happens, we have to forgive ourselves and move on.

Yardstick be damned, where is the consensus or the enforcement? And does not the enforcement of a moral code lead inevitably to suffering?

If in fact there were moral "absolutes" to which one could appeal, how are we to know what those absolutes are? Are we to poll the religiously devout, and especially when the religiously devout are so often indistinguishable from the religiously fanatical?

Conservative Christians rail against abortion as murder, and consider the blastocyst which results from conception to be human life, excluding all possibility that abortion is acceptable at any stage. But they then proceed from moral outrage to immediate contempt of the unwed mother whom they have abjured from abortion. They condemn that woman to 18 to 20 years of personal misery, and her child to the strong possibility of a lifetime of suffering. You'll be hard pressed to convince me that their concern is to " . . . decrease the amount and intensity of suffering." Small wonder that there is such an expression as "cold as Christian charity."

You address neither how to determine what is ultimately moral, nor how to enforce morality. If Hitler's armies had rolled through the Ukraine, through Azerbaijan, through Persia, through Afghanistan, through the Punjab and to the Malabar Coast--would a Mother Teresa type of "saint" have been "morally" correct to counsel non-violence, and to speak against resistance in arms of the invader? Would not the National Socialists have been content to turn machine guns on non-violent protesters? Did not the English themselves turn machine guns on non-violent protesters in the subcontinent?

Appeals to a moral code and contemptuous references to "moral relativism" do not answer the questions of human behavior, and the control of human behavior which arise from a review of that behavior over time and across the globe. The question of this thread, "would the world be better off without religion," is to my mind a silly one, because my experience in reading history is that there will always be religion, whether or not one sought to outlaw the practice. But to turn the question around--"is the world better off because of religion"--brings one face to face with the failure of your thesis to address the core problems of human behavior and the concomitant human suffering which arises therefrom. Do you assert, Ash, that any example of religion has ever lessened human suffering, while not at the same time increasing it? If you do, you may be assured that i would dispute that, and that includes the example of Buddhism.