On Balance, Religion is a Positive Social Force

Thanks! I hope you're doing well. I'll get right to it. Religion has no doubt done good things in the world; I suggest, however, that the shadow of religion will always reach farther than it's deeds. Casualties of religion: 1. Division in the name of religion. Religion divides us from one another, and then divides inwardly upon itself. Religion, by very nature, provides humanity with another layer of division for us to contend with. Religions can no better tolerate each other than they can stop infighting among themselves. To offer support for this claim, I would point out that even among Christianity alone, there are 41,000 denominations. That's 41,000 different interpretations of a single book. These seemingly insignificant differences have led to grave and tragic endings I'll address later. (1) Another example of religious intolerance would be the persecution of Shia Muslims. Anti-Shi'ism has resulted in imprisonment, torture, and death for centuries, and has continued well into present day. These crimes have only been carried out due to the dogma of religious principles, carried out BY the religious against the religious, and would have been entirely non-existent otherwise. Hate crimes against Shia have been carried out across much of the world: Turkish Empire - Thousands have been massacred during the course of the Ottoman Empire. (2) India - Societies plundered, people slaughtered, and holy sites desecrated over the course of more than 300 years. (3) China - Sold into slavery by their Muslim brothers. (4) Egypt - Shia murdered in 2013 by a rioting crowd after being preached into a frenzy. (5) Malaysia - Shia arrested for practicing their faith in 2013. (6) 2011 Uprising - An estimated 1000 Behrainis had been detained in 2011, hundreds of watchdog groups made claims of torture and abuse as an attempt to "psychologically humiliate the island's Shiite majority into silent submission." (7) These events continue worldwide, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia and on and on. The situation never changes, and responsibility lies squarely within religious context and the disagreements over religious history. Religion divides us from one another, and when there can be no more outward division, it begins to then divide upon itself. The examples listed above are almost exclusively between the Shiite and Sunni sects of Islam. Suffering, terror, and misery administered to practitioners of Shia simply because of what they believe. 2. Atrocities committed in the name of religion: Human and animal sacrifices have been exclusively religious ceremonies for millennia. Disregarding the staggering amount of human and animal sacrifices made in the past, let's take a look at more recent events: Bangladesh 2010 - A 26 year old man murdered for the promise of wealth that would be acquired by supernatural means pending the sacrifice. (1) India 2003, 2006 - Reported sacrifices in western Utta Pradesh, followed by "dozens of sacrifices" in a 6 month period by followers of Kali, the goddess of power. (2) Africa - The "Money ritual" in Sub-Saharan Africa committed for the singular purpose of procuring wealth. Another incident in Liberia in 2008 required "finding and killing an innocent child and plucking out the heart, which was divided into pieces for us to eat". (3) UK - in 2005, a BBC report claimed uncircumcised boys were being smuggled in from Africa to be tortured and murdered for a slew of reasons involving witchcraft, racism, and intolerance. (4) Chile - In 1960, a 5 year old boy has his arms and legs cut off from him, and he was stuck in the sand at a beach like a stake, to be carried out to sea. This was done by his family at the request of their local shaman. They faced no charges even after admitting to the deed because "they acted without free will, driven by an irresistible force of ancestral tradition." (5) Mountain Meadow Massacre - Mormons slaughter unarmed civilians in Utah, 1857 with the intention of blaming Native Americans. (6) Christians targeted in Rome, gruesomely murdered. After which Christian teachings was banned, followed by imprisonment, and eventually execution. (7) 3. Massacres committed in the name of religion: What stands as most evident today is the idea of Islamist Jihad. This is by far and large the most aggressive, most successful, and most prominent form of destruction fueled by the singular source of religion. (8) What follows is a list of casualties by Islam from 1915 to 2012: Turkey 1915 to 1923 - 750,000 Assyrians, 500,000 Greeks, and 1.5 million Armenians killed. (This holocaust was considered the first in the modern era, and actually coined the term "genocide" to describe such actions.) (9) Israel 1920 to 2012 - 24,500+ killed, 35,000+ injured, and 1,900+ Arab casualties. (10) Sudan 1953 to 2005 - 3,500,000 (11) Papua New Guinea 1963 to 2012 - 100,000+ (12) (13) Nigeria 1966 to 1970 - 3,000,000 (14) Lebanon 1970 to 2000 - 300,000 (15) (16) Bangladesh 1971 - 3,000,000 (17) Uganda 1971 to 1979 - 300,000 (18) East Timor 1975 to 1999 - 200,000 (19) Iraq 1979 to 2003 - 300,000 (20) (21) (22) Iran 1979 - 80,000 (23) (24) Iran-Iraq War - 500,000 - 1,500,000 (25) I have listed just a few events, with a total death toll of more than 14 million people. I make no claims that Islam was always the absolute direct cause of each listed, however the evidence that these conflicts were strongly influenced by religion, if not a direct result is very clear. (I would take a moment to emphasize I'm not singling out Islam, it is just the first subject of discussion.) 4. Fear and selfishness in the name of religion: Every major religion has an unprovable reward for believing and an unprovable threat for not. However, the punishments for refusing to believe here on Earth are very real. Every major religion has a concept of a supernatural punishment for those who may challenge or resist the faith in question. The idea of unknown consequences, who's only solution is the religion that claims them is the most basic method of psychological control. The application of authority derived out of fear of the unknown. And is used to establish a firm grip on our most basic fear from ignorance. Unprovable punishments and rewards like "Heaven and Hell", or "Jannah and Jahannam" for those who succeed and fail to blindly follow their respective divine edicts. This system of control is to ensure that power remains firmly in the hands of those wielding religion. Aside from hell, however, there are very REAL threats to non-believers. Aside from the staggering amount of slaughtering, rape, pillaging, and destruction I mentioned above. There are many examples of groups acting within the good faith of their respective religions. Specifically, I'll discuss the Inquisition. Whose only goal was to combat "heresy" which is simply a denial of faith. Men and women were gruesomely tortured and executed at the behest of the Catholic Church on the principle that they didn't believe in the Christian God. These sick organizations lasted well into the 19th century. The final execution happened in 1826, a schoolteacher who was teaching deism. The inquisition demanded he be burned at the stake; however he was mercifully hanged for daring to have different deviating thoughts from Christianity. (1) Much like our police force in America, the world of Islam has a designated police force to act in defense of violations of sharia law. These crimes involve unrelated men and women socializing. (2) Enforce dietary laws, store closing at prayer time, and censorship of media. (3) They have the legal authority to arrest, flog, and imprison. (4) I list ALL of these examples before you to suggest that religion has most definitely caused (and continues to cause) near irreversible harm to the world. I claim that religion by very nature seeks to control our thoughts from fear of reprisal, control our actions from fear of social pressure and physical suffering, and control our lives from fear of torture and death. The various examples I have listed are not ancient incidents from foregone civilizations. These things are happening daily across the world, and will continue as long as religion exists. In round 3, I will cover the transgressions of religion upon women's rights, homosexuality, contraception and STD's, and finally, science and critical thinking. For lack of space, I'll post all of my sources in a comment for confirmation. I've coordinated the numbers already for convenience. Thank you for reading, and I give the floor back to my opponent, Hierocles.