Alisa, I want to discuss your comment in two parts.
First of all, you personally may have harmed no-one, however, the greatest evils of human history have been committed in the name of god.
What has been done 'in the name of God', by people, has also been abhorant to me. The crusades, the spanish inquisition, the current use of religion to discriminate against people who are gay, the 'religious' war between catholics and protestants in ireland, the list is pretty long. But stop and think about it. Do you really think all these were driven by faith in God, or by other darker motivations that exist in the hearts and minds of men regardless of belief in God, and religion was twisted and used as a more palatable motivation for the gullible masses?
Let's take just one of those events and analyze it. Consider the first crusade in its historical context. After centuries of viking raids and terror throughout europe, the viking threat had recently ended. The vast numbers of trained militia men and 'knights' who had been recruited and trained to combat the viking menace were left without anything to do except boring guard duty. History shows that incidences of violence by these trained fighters against helpless peasants and unarmed monks/monasteries escalated hugely during this time period. The church intervened by using their influence to try to reign in the bad behaviour (for example, there was a meeting of many of these fighter's leaders where the gathered relics of hundreds of 'saints' were used as witnesses to force many of the troublemakers to pledge not to commit such violence). However, the problem of thousands of armed, dangerous men with nothing to do throughout europe remained and it would undoubtedly have continued that way for decades to come. The first crusade, in my opinion, was more truly conceived as a solution to the vexing question as what to do with all these soldiers in the absence of the viking threat, as well as an opportunity for the church to plunder wealth and increase their worldly power. Sure it was clad with all the trappings of religion, but to say this was solely the result of a belief in god is vastly over-simplistic. There's a canon in science that says 'Seek simplicity but distrust it'. I say blaming religion itself for the actions of mankind is a convenient soundbite that has little relation to reality. Get rid of religion and people will still behave abominably toward each other.
Do you really think that an atheistic world won't obtain some moral lesson about right and wrong from evolutionary theory in the absence of religion? Here's one that conforms to such a worldview (but is abhorant to me). ra** is a valid method to increase the chances of engendering offspring by males. There's no real cost to it from a parental investment standpoint for the male. The only negative to it is the socially-mandated punishment for what is deemed to be morally wrong. Reduce morality to evolutionary expedience and social opposition to ra** is reduced only to women who have to suffer the consequences of the behaviour. (Please, do not think for one second that I'm supporting this idea but it makes sense for males from an evolutionary viewpoint). What about blind nationalism? Rascism? Tribalism? Greed? Lust for Power? You don't think these will go away just because you've dispelled the concept of God do you?
People commit atrocities for many reasons: religion often gets used as a screen but the essence of mans inhumanity to man stems from our own greed and stupidity.
For myself, I strongly believe in the separation of Church and State and this is my response to the issue you've mentioned. My reasons for this are not to protect the state from religious influence, but rather to protect my faith from the corrupting influence of worldly power. Whenever worldy power, wealth, and authority are on offer they draw in people who are motivated by these things. God doesn't need worldly power. Jesus rejected it. Who the heck are we, as believers, to take up that mantle instead of following his example? The problem with the church today, and historically, is that so many of its leaders are truly wolves in sheep's clothing.
That is why I argue and continue to argue with people who claim it is there right to believe in god.
Alisa, I'm sorry, but this comes across to me as if you don't think anyone else
has the right to believe as they wish (if their opinion differs from yours). As a matter of principle, this is no different than the religious right-wingers forcing their opinions on Gay rights down the throats of everyone else. Dangerous territory, Alisa. Morally, you're only one step away from using force/politics/education to enforce your worldview on others. Arguably, folks like Dawkins have already crossed that line with respect to education.
