Religion: force for peace

I believe that the pope orderd the crusades because he rightly feared the new muslim leader, also there was trouble brewing in Europe and the crusades united the kingdoms of Christendom agains a common foe. So in my opinion it was tactical rather than spiritual. Not to sound cold, but your opinion doesn't matter; the people of the time who criticized explicitly mentioned it was purely religious in their criticisms. The people of that time should have known what the crusades were about.After all, Jesus' message was peace and love and the popes' where not warmongerers. Also, wars are expensive and drain the countries resources. I do not believe that the pope did not consider the dangers of a hostile superpower, and a need to unite a simmering Christendom, when he made the descision to launch the crusades. Also the crusades did not play as big a part in our history as most people assume, as they are continuasly romanticised and lots of tales and characters come from them times, exaggerating their significance and existance.See above.You list phrases in the bible that concern witchcraft, note these are in the Old Testament that is overturned 2000years ago by Christ: the belief in witches goes back thousands and thousands of years, though they are under different name and guise. You use this as an example of religion causing trouble. I understand, but this does not disprove my theory which I will explain in the next paragraph again, after I make this,point. We do not know what it was really like in them days, there is a book, written in the Middle Ages, called the 'devils bible' (by us). This book is clearley made by someone very powerful and it speaks of how to do incantations, spells and witchcraft, it also appears to worship satan. So devil worship and witchcraft when hand in hand and it was not always paranoia.Yes it wasn't always paranoia but in many cases it WAS paranoia. Also the man who wrote the first book standing against the idea of witch hunting, Reginald Scot, said: In fact, there were very few trials of witches during the Middle Ages, and the Inquisition was often the accused witch's greatest friend and defender. Witch trials were overwhelmingly an early-modern phenomenon and Protestants were just as likely as Catholics to try, and to execute witches.The old testament may have been over ridden by Jesus but the last part of your argument: Also the man who wrote the first book standing against the idea of witch hunting, Reginald Scot, said: In fact, there were very few trials of witches during the Middle Ages, and the Inquisition was often the accused witch's greatest friend and defender. Witch trials were overwhelmingly an early-modern phenomenon and Protestants were just as likely as Catholics to try, and to execute witches; invalidates your argument because catholics and protestants whose beliefs are based on the teachings of Jesus executed "witches" and those quotes in the old testament about witches are the only biblical reason for killing witches and we know they did it based on religious beliefs.My point is that one cannot say religion is harmful or un harmful because it is always there, we do not know what humans are like without religion. I'm talking on a deeper level, yer, you may know some atheist that are nice, but they are brought up in a country that has been Christian for nearly over 1000 years. Nobody knows what human society would be like without religion. Maybe by order of natural selection, the best attributes survive, and thus religious societies have been more stable and sucesfull.This is an example of the argument from ignorance fallacy.In this world where power equals: do what you want. And life equals: whatever the closest more powerful person wants to do with you. There is no moral limit to the powerful people, religion reminds kings that they will go to hell if they are wicked. In the bible when people were especially religious powerful kings would disobey God even if they believed him. For example Solomon, David, and Saul all believed in God and all of them disobeyed God because of their power. So religion won't always stop even religious kings.Imagine you are a peasant girl and you have been abused and had your baby killed for sport and fun by your 'landlord'. You have no power, no justice, nothing. you must simply continue to work and be abused when he felt like it. There is none telling that man off for everything he has done. Would you be opposed to that man having a fear of being sent to hell for his deeds? Many land lords in feudal times (which I assume you are talking about) believed in the christian God yet that didn't stop them; so this point is non-applicable since even those who believed didn't change their ways.Could a modern, free world develop without the fear of god?Yes in fact it could; secular humanism is a non-religious philosophy that with the morals that made the modern, free world. http://en.wikipedia.org...Why would anyone give up their power freely?Why would a God change their mind?What point would their be in being good in such a cruel, dog-eat-dog world?Survival which happens to be the main goal of most living creature. It's a little counter-intuitive but people who are good (nice) are "selected" by natural selection. It probably has something to do with the fact that if you are good to other people then they will help you when you need help; so those people are more likely to survive than those who are "bad."