Secular Café: A Poll with a self-selecting audience?

Secular Café Discuss atheism, religious apologetics, separation of church & state, theology, comparative religion and scripture.

A Poll with a self-selecting audience? May 11th 2012, 18:34 http://atheism.about.com/b/2012/05/1...-evil.htm?nl=1 The questions are reasonable, but given the venue, and the likely audience, the pool results are pointlessly unsurprising...... Quote: A common criticism made by atheists against religion is its record of violence, warfare, bigotry, prejudice, and hatred. Many religions proclaim that they are peaceful and opposed to violence, but these same religions generally have traditions in which violence, war, and aggression not only exist and are not only permitted, but are in fact sanctified. To be "sanctified" means "to be made holy" -- thus violence becomes a form of religious devotion like prayer or reading sacred scripture. This suggests that the problem for religions goes much deeper than a contradiction between theory (proclamations of peace) and practice (violent behavior), but is instead a conflict between two important and fundamental aspects of religious theory: one part that treats peace as holy and another that treats violence as holy. Religion is definitely a mixed bag. There are aspects which inspire goodness in people, but also aspects which inspire the worst sort of atrocities. Although many religious believers continue to claim that religion -- or at least their religion -- is a force for good and peace in the world, it should obvious that religion is at least as much a force for evil and violence as it is for good and peace. In the end, it is difficult to tell whether religion is ultimately a force for good or a force for evil. What do you think?

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