The World Would Be A Better Place Without Relegion

Thank you for the quick reply. Pro should understand his has taken on a massive Burden of Prove. It is Pro's job to prove his proposed theory of what a world without Religion would look like.Rebuttal I: Death Counts:There are many issues with Pro's case. This involves massive generalizations of large and complicated events. The first being the 30 Years War. Despite common belief, this wasn't much of a religious war. While the conflict started as a religious issue, no more than five years in and it was a war of politics. This is seen with the entrance of Catholic French on the Protestant side, and the fighting that took place between groups of the same religion. The Habsburg Dynasty ruled both Spain and the Holy Roman Rmpire, causing tensions between them and France, and ultimately the 30 Years Wars was between the France and the Habsburgs. Most of the war had little to do with religion, but was a war of governments (1).The Crusades were much the same. The war wasn't religious, even if the cause was. In reality, the war started because of the constant invasions of Byzantine by the agressive Turks. The Turks, in turn, came into the region after the spread of the Mongols forced them to find a new home. It would have never mattered if the Arabs weren't Muslim and the Europeans weren't Christian. The Mongols led to a line of events causing the Crusades. The idea of fighting in the name of God was more a ploy to unite Europe against someone other than themselves. Another ploy would have been found, otherwise. And even then, only the First Crusade was tied to religion in any notable way. The rest were fighting to maintain as much victory as possible. Some didn't even include a second Religion.Discussing death counts, most deaths "in the name of God" merely used God has an excuse. Religion didn't cause most 'religious' death, but was instead used as a scapegoat. But let's discuss Atheism. In the past century, almost 12-20 million are believed to have been murdered in Stalin's attempts to spread Atheism (2). This doesn't mean that the world would be better without Atheism. It simply means that Religion is not deathlier than Atheism. Pro may try to blame Religion, since it was a War against Religion. This would basically be blaming the victim, and saying "It's not the rapests vault there are rape victims. Perhaps if there weren't rape victims, rapists wouldn't rape people." Hopefully one can see the flaw in that logic.That being said, we have no way of knowing how many deaths would have not happened if Religion didn't happen, as religion was not often the true cause of death. Nor was Religion worse than Atheism. As for 9/11, it wasn't any worse than a number of non-religious terror attacks. In fact, Leftist groups have made up a massive portion of Terror Groups, some worse than anything Islam has ever created, such as the IRA (3). [1] http://tinyurl.com...[2] http://tinyurl.com...;[3] http://tinyurl.com...[]Rebuttal II: Hitler Was Catholic:So? If he was atheist, he would have still wiped out 6 million Jews. This isn't a religious thing. Pro has basically said:A is B.A did C.A did C because A is B.Hitler killed the Jews because they were doing well after the depression hit, and Hitler could blame them for everything and create a common enemy for Germany. His religion wasn't involved in their deaths. While we are at it... Martin Luther King Jr. was a baptist. Buddha and Confucius were also religious, and their legacies may just be two of the largest sources of peace and charity in the world. So Pro's point is rather mute.Rebuttal III: PrisonsPro brings up a fallacious claim. He assumes that because 99.93% of prisoners are religious, that 99.93% of crimes must have been sparked by religion in some way. In reality, only 0.00011% of all crimes are religious hate crimes (4, 5). So why is the prison population so religious? An extremely high rate of conversion in prison. Prisoners often look to religion to aid in rehabilitation and/or to find a niche or group to be apart of.[4] http://tinyurl.com...[5] http://tinyurl.com...[]Argument I: The Benefits of Religion:Western Education was a major accomplishment of Religion. After the Fall of Rome, most pre-modern schools were founded by the Catholic Church. These include Oxford, Harvard, and Yale. Pro might say that these groups would have been founded none-the-less... But it would have taken much longer, by entire centuries. The Church didn't found schools for the fun of learning. They had reasons that are built into their history... After the Fall of the Roman Empire, it was, in fact, Christianity that saved Europe from a dark age. The Catholic Church preserved the knowledge of Rome in libraries and Monasteries around Europe. Without the vast reaching church, much of Europe would have lost the knowledge that Rome left behind. After so many centuries, the Church put this knowledge to work in the form of schools like Oxford, that began an age of learning and education that Europe would have otherwise not known for centuries (because of a lack of a massive central group and the loss of so much knowledge). The Church was also the only group strong enough and organized enough after Rome to mass produce manuscripts, preserving the accomplishments of Rome and keeping Europe modern. The Church lead to the funding of much of the Middle Age's science, and was a crusial part of the era's intellectual salvation (6).Christianity also lead to an almost immediate increase in charity and public aid after it got a foothold in Europe. No other group at the time was large enough or capable of such actions (7).The Muslims also accomplished much. It was religion that led to incrible strides in numerous mathematical principles we know today, such as algabra and trigonometry, all for religious perpuses like Islamic Inheritance laws. Islam helped create a prospering civilization of science and medicine never seen prior, and opened the Middle East to a tolerance and cultural revolution it wouldn't see again.Many assume Christianity was responsible for increasing life expectancy through out Rome. Christianity also revolutionized the culture at the time, and began a major force for peace. It's often believed that Barbarians from Germany adopted Christianity because the war-like ways they had prior had led to the death of too many sons in the ongoing conflict with Rome. This conversion to peace is seen when the Visigoths invaded and sacked to city of Rome. Religion was the main cause behind the lack of slaughter and the surprisingly restrained destruction. Such restraint was unbelievable at the time. [6] http://tinyurl.com...[7] http://tinyurl.com...Argument II: Religious Charity in the World Today:While Pro attempted to list off bad things he believed religion was responsible for, Religion today is responsible for a great deal of good. Christian NGO's alone are responsible for over $8 bn in international aid (8) while the US gave over $96 bn to religious causes in 2014 (9). This doesn't include the amount of donations given to non-religious groups for religious reasons. The NGO's alone make over half of all international Aid from the US. "Faith-based and secular humanitarian organizations have a long history of responding to people in need and today are important players in the international community’s response to emergencies." - ICRC"Faith-based organizations are unique players in the international humanitarian community in that they are rooted in their local communities and yet have global reach. Their large constituencies give faith-based organizations the potential to play a powerful role in advocacy and public awareness. With their presence on the ground, in the most remote parts of every country, they are well positioned to take action when emergencies arise." - ICRCReligion is a major player in helping in the healing of places like Africa.[8] http://tinyurl.com...;[9] http://tinyurl.com...;