Religion (in general)

For the sake of clarity, it seems proper to very briefly sum up my opponent's thesis. Essentially my opponent purports that religion's net sum of good is far outweighed by its net sum of evil. In fewer words, religion has done more harm than good. Let us assume that my opponent does not have a faulty premise and that religion does indeed use intolerance, not the other way around (intolerance sometimes uses religion). Let us assume that a person's religion can be blamed for the atrocities done, and not the person of the religion. "A lot of people have been persecuted for their religious belief, millions died this way, and no matter how you color it, that has a negative outcome on the world. " I find it somewhat amusing that my opponent can somehow blame the persecution of the religious faithful on religion. Had they not been religious nobody would want to kill them. That seems to be a secular problem to me. It is like blaming the child who was raped – had they only not existed the problem would have never occurred. Not only have Christians operated under the mandate of Jesus Christ to heal the sick and feed the hungry since the Crucifixion, but to this day, relief work around the world is dominated by Christians. The fact that the name "Red Cross" is synonymous with disaster relief is not exactly a coincidence. So the same people you hold responsible for major atrocities are ironically the same people bound to mitigate them. Also, It was the Bible-believing Christians in England in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries — not the nonreligious of the day — who tackled the illiteracy problem, adult education, abolition of slavery, prison reform, and treatment for alcoholics. Also, the YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association) was formed in 1844, the YWCA a decade later, and the Salvation Army launched its multinational welfare organization based on Christian ethics and precepts (six years after the release of Darwin's Origin of Species if that informs). "The Crusades destroyed historical evidence, killed people, and increased tension between religions. " "The religious wars in the Middle East between Jews and Muslims, and also Muslims and Muslims, have not only caused death and terror, but are destructive to the whole world. " It should be understood that out of the 1,763 wars chronicled in the encyclopedia, only 123 of them could in some way be tied to religion. That is only 6.98% of all the wars recorded. It should also be noted that 66 of the 123 wars were waged by Islamic-regimes. In light of such evidence - the fact that a specific religion is currently sparking a great deal of conflict around the globe - one cannot reasonably use this to indict all religious faith, especially when one considers that removing that single religion from the equation means that all of the other religious faiths combined only account for 3.23 percent of humanity's wars. If my opponents premise is correct, and it's the religion that is responsible and not the person of the religion, then logically a similar case can be made against science. The five major religions have been around a collective 11,600 years and have over 4 billion adherents – that was approximately 72% of the world's population in 2007. The world has not once been in danger of destruction. But in 350 years science has been around (dating from Galileo), the world has been in danger of overpopulation, global warming, atom-shattering bombs, designer diseases, radioactive waste in large quantities and etc. In 3% the time of religion, science has managed to create numerous threats to the continued existence of the human race. Among other things, the earth's most barbaric and brutal atrocities were not committed hundreds and thousands of years ago, but within our own time, by secularist – Mao, Stalin, Hitler, and etc. You will find there are no Skeptics' or rationalists' hospitals, charities, or aged-care homes, no evolutionists' orphanages, welfare agencies, or relief agencies, or any other life-improving institutions such as those founded and funded by Christians who have followed Jesus' teachings. Also, it is the I. D. proponents that are marginalized and persecuted for their theories, not the evolutionists (as is documented in the new documentary by Ben Stein, EXPELLED. And if one does not think there is valid criticism of evolution (macro) then he or she does not read much. Even a game designer known as Vox Day poked holes in the anomalies of evolution in a debate with an avid evolutionist: . http://trueanomaly.blogspot.com... Here is what must be shown before the premise is accurate: 1. It is the religion that is responsible and not the person of the religion. 2. The net sum of bad must outweigh the net sum of good 3. That all religions should be held responsible for the actions of another religion. As an ending note, even the most vitriolic atheists or "anti-theists" (i. e. Christopher Hitchens) believe that religion was at least necessary for the evolution of morality.