Interesting points but a couple of thoughts on what you say:
I do not agree that there was a time when a non-religious “philosophical” standpoint was not available. There have always been non-religious people. These people have been just as violent as religious people. But this is not what I was talking about

Religion was invented in primitive times to calm fears about death and to explain the unknown. It appears to very quickly have been high-jacked by fanatics and people who used/use religion to gain or justify activities.

I probably shouldn’t have said religion “caused” wars, but should have said people use religion/god to justify wars and other atrocities as you say, and religion has been a primary excuse for these activities throughout history.. As was stated in a response to this thread, even Hitler used his own wacky religious views including the search for the Hoy Grail to justify his Aryan ideas.

It seems that the very existence of religion allows its use as a tool to create/justify the atrocities we have been talking about. That is what I mean when I say religion caused/causes wars etc. You are right when you say people just do bad things, but people also need to justify their actions and without justification may temper their actions. For example, the debate about gay marriage going on where I live now, the primary reason people who are violently against gay marriage give is that it is against God’s will. They can’t give any other reason even when pushed very hard. Without their religion telling them gays are bad, would they still complain about them? Some would, others wouldn’t care. In this case at least in the US, strong religious ties to government and society have kept many people from throwing away their old prejudices. In the EU where religion does not appear to play as much off a controlling role in government and society, people are much more accepting of this what in reality is a non-issue with prejudices kept alive primarily by religion.

Religion has caused a lot of harm. It is also interesting that the philosophies espoused by the Stalinists/Khmer to justify/excuse their actions have similarities to fanatical religious actions with the state or some other entity substituting for god. Really another type of religion but religion as well.

Sorry for the length, I'll shuit up now!
(MichaelS wasn't picked again, Tue 24 Mar 2009, 14:16, 1 reply)

Well, that's pretty mcuh what I was saying :)
My point exactly; people use excuses. The homosexuality argument is a good example; I think some people have a problem with gays and the fact that it's in Leviticus is just handy for them to justify it. I reckon that those same people eating pork and shellfish, cutting their hair and using pillows is evidence of a single-issue problem here.
There was a fascinating experiment carried out many years ago on race; experimenters set out to deliberately challenge racial assumptions (They're stupid, they come over here and take our jobs, the tribe of Ham justified slavery, etc etc). the idea was to systematically strip away people's assumptions and excuses and the experiment ended with one person, bereft of their safety net of knee jerk apologia, screaming "I just don't like them, okay?!".

Blaming people's belief set or set of excuses for their behaviour will never change their actions - it's been demonstrated often enough. You have to engage with people on their own terms and change is a slow process. I accept it's very easy simply to despise people for reasons of "they think XYZ, the wankers", but if there's one thing the world doesn't need, it's more reasons for people to hate each other. *g*
(davywavy, Tue 24 Mar 2009, 14:41, closed)