Religion has had a positive effect on society on balance.

Before we begin, I would like to point out that yes, it is arguable that human rights came before Jesus.If you like, I could present evidence supporting that statement. I do agree that we are going a bit out of context on the entire Hitler thing. I am not going to perform any rebuttals in regards to Hitler for that sole reason. However, before we do move on I would like to state why I presented the Hitler argument in the first place. The reason was, it stated in the Mein Kampf, which explained some of the hatred for the Jews. This is not a reason for WW2 however it does present us some evidence that religion was not beneficial for society. Rebuttals: " I want an intelligent debate that considers the grand story of mankind, " ->This implies that this debate is not intelligent. This is quite absurd and insulting from my point of view. My opponent is more than welcome to drop this debate if he/she feels this lacks intelligence. However, if my opponent wants the "Grand story" so to say, I believe he/she would like to extend my argument. I would like my opponent to clarify that, and I shall drift away from most my opponent's points regarding the context of this debate going off topic. " All my opponent is doing is spouting 'events' that he does not fully understand, and trying to blame religion for them." So apparently, my opponent's intention was to compare an unpredictable imaginary world without religion, to a world with religion. He/she had not stated that in the resolution at all, and expects me to know his/her intention. This is very illogical. However, what I am doing is taking negative events that involve religion, and show how religion was not beneficial for society. The rest of my rebuttals are going to be in a form where I presented my argument. I. A few "good" churches does not mean religious people are morally superior I will present in the following paragraphs where I go more in depth of the events of religion. However, it is likely to come across churches that do good for their society. However, this is not a strong point. For it is not religion that the sole cause of people to do good. In fact, if you look at the American prison statistics only 0.07% of America"s prisoners are Atheists. (1) The rest are religious. This does not mean that religion is what causes people to cause crime. But this does not mean you being religious means you are good. II. Religion and violence In Nigeria from 1990 to 2007, 20,000 have been killed specifically in the name of religion (2) Ladies and gentlemen, 20k slaughtered in the name of religion. What does this mean? Religion does not cause a beneficial outcome on society. My opponent wanted to know a world without religion. Well for starters, it would mean 20k would still be alive. 2. "In early 2007 Mrs [Ranjita] Basumatary was driven from her original village after her neighbours accused her of being a dain - a witch. Around 100 villagers surrounded her home and beat her with sticks, leaving her badly bloodied and bruised. After receiving death threats, she fled with her husband and three children. [...] Local jealousy seems to have prompted the accusations of witchcraft. Her family had prospered, leasing livestock to other villagers. It led to resentment. When children in the village fell sick, the ojha accused Mrs Basumatary of casting spells - his own charms and potions having failed. Her case is not an isolated one. At least 17 people were killed in witch-hunts in the area last year." (2) If religion was not there, it would mean 17 people alive and and other people that have common sense, like not to kill someone just because they are casting so called "spells" 3. Crusades (3) Some historians see the Crusades as part of a purely defensive war against Islamic conquest; some see them as part of long-running conflict at the frontiers of Europe; and others see them as confident, aggressive, papal-led expansion attempts by Western Christendom. Whatever the reason, the crusades were almost completely religious. 4. List of religious atrocities. http://www.skeptically.org... III. Religion and intelligence Imprisonment is linked to both poverty and lower intelligence. These are also linked to religiosity; and in the case of intelligence, low intelligence is a known cause of adherence to a religion. As crime is also linked to inner city populations, and this is also, again, where religion is found to be strongest, it seems that the religious have always been bound to find themselves over-represented amongst prison populations, such as Muslims and Catholics. The liberal thinker Barbara Smoker remarked on in a (UK) Government discussion group that Catholics have a greater chance of being found in prison than many other social groups. (2) This is an image to show religion and IQ level. http://500questions.files.wordpress.com... Sources: http://www.alternet.org... http://www.humanreligions.info... http://en.wikipedia.org...