Religion has had a positive effect on society on balance.

To summarise I want to first try and show how religion was not the reason for the events that my opponent has put forth. I believe that every one of my opponents points is false, the only legitimate argument made on his side was the one I made for him:that religion makes societal integration more difficult, because it gives people more to make them different from each other. So rather than just living in different places and having different customs, they have different Gods. So I will begin this summery with a list of all my opponents points and a quick explanation for each. You say: 20,000 people killed in Nigeria, purely religious. I have looked at your source for this point, and you do quote exactly what's said so you annot be blamed for your misunderstanding. However, using such a bias website is only a fault of your own. There was no specific conflicts that caused these deaths over this period. Indeed there is nothing in Nigerian history that corresponds to these dates, its as if they have been plucked out of the air by this website. What has been going on is political unrest and a string of military dictators and revolutions. For instance, Sani Abacha was the dictator from 1993 to 1998, he seized power from a democratic leader who had only ruled for 3 months. Nigeria had been ruled by military leaders since Muhammadu Buhari seized power from Shehu Shagari in a 1983 coup, since then these military dictators ruled. Where these leaders motivated by religion or personal gain? Lets see... Sani Abacha stole 5 billion of the countries wealth during his 5 year dictatorship-this doesn't sound like a man devoted to Islam, this man goes against all that Islam stands for. Therefore we can conclude he was not a religious warrior by any standards, indeed his religious beliefs where probably the only thing telling him otherwise (like what happened to William the Conqueror). Also, Umara Musa Yar'Adua was of the same faith, and yet he "was one of few serving governors with a spotless record, devoid of any suspicions or charges of corruption". So to blame religion is incredibly short sighted and false. For not only is personal gain the ONLY motive, but religion actually has a counter-effect on such selfish pursuits. Don't listen to those bias websites. I like this argument you make, because it demonstrated to me how unaware you are of my argument. You say they called her a witch, but that they where really jealous of her. So are you not seeing a reoccurring theme here? Don't you think jealousy was their motive? I mean I don't know, but presumably this was about jealousy. Also, witches aren't strictly religious, they are superstitions. Superstitions are not religious, indeed they often come in place of religion-Jesus didn't say good will come to those who don't break mirrors! Where the crusades because of religion? No. But I can understand why many laypersons think so. If the crusades where a response to the rise of Islam, then they would of happened in the 7th century. Indeed Christians lived happily in Islamic empires, so did Jews, and pilgrimages by Christians to the 'Islamic owned' Jerusalem where good for the Islamic economy. However the Turks sacked the city of Jerusalem and ruled tyrannically, killing pilgrims, and then threatend Byzantium. Byzantium, being Christian, asked the Pope for help, and the Pope wanted to unite Europe to maintain his personal political strength, so he agreed to help. He put it too the countries of Europe as a holy war in order to sell it to them, not because it really had anything to do with religious conviction. So even the most famous 'religious conflict' of all time, is not clearly religious. This is the role religion has played in society: The religion in a society represents its morality. Its our attempt at institutionalising our conscious. Now morality can be misguided but non-the-less, without it there is only those who rule and those ruled. Religion is the only thing with power who's agenda is not exclusively self interest and ownership. Yes the church owned land, but it wasn't driven by the wayward nature of human dominance, but rather a higher moral code. Without religion, inequality would just be normality because there was nobody to question authority. So therefore the leaders would never have been challenged. Even with the church, things where awfully unequal. If one studies history, they will notice that rulers seldom give up power if ever. The religious institution was the law above the law, and that law was the bible or Quran. Everybody can also accept that the bibles message is peace and love (despite the odd line that suggests something else). This message of peace and love (ten commandments etc) is revolutionary in the medieval world and its place cannot be ignored Its hard to fathom what religion has done for us that's positive, because its all around us and in the very nature of our culture. Those who view religion as a source of conflict are ignoring the big picture. Also, conflicts are always far more complicated, to narrow the causes to one is again to loose sight of the big picture. My opponent has recited events that he doesn't fully understand, I'm sorry if this is offensive, but its true. It's the reason you cannot see the real role of religion, because you don't have an understanding of history. You don't know how society has developed over the years, nor do you recognise the importance of self-ambition, power and greed in the deeds of people and nations. To blame religion is dismissive and reductionist, also it legitimises our actions and makes them seem more honourable than a purely greedy motive. The same can be seen today in the spreading of 'democracy' rather than Christianity. People just want to put their culture on everybody else, if you studied history you would have seen this and realised that religion is not specific in this phenomenon, its innately human. That is indeed why religion is there in the fist place! To say 'all men are equal' and lessen this natural human instinct to be racist and tribal. Just like the police, they get it wrong sometimes. But the overwhelming majority of the time they are a force for peace, and we cannot quite fathom how chaotic it would be without them, for there good goes largely un-praised. Religion is like this. It does get it wrong and can make situations worse, but the benifits to humanity are overwhelmingly positive. Thank you for a good debate. http://en.m.wikipedia.org...