Motion: Religion makes the world a better place.

My responses have been outlined to demonstrate the compatibility of your arguments to the Religious Scriptures, in this case the Baha'i Faith. I don't know how clear I can be, because I just told you that your comment about "Religion being the cause of war", exists in Religious Scriptures like my own, and in fact tells us that "If religion becomes a cause of dislike, hatred and division, it were better to be without it, and to withdraw from such a religion would be a truly religious act." This itself should be heavily confusing to you as an Atheist, that Religious Scriptures contains guidance of this nature. But I will leave that up to you to investigate what that truly means and I will not bother interpreting something that in the end will have no affect on your view of Religion, i.e. I encourage you to do some homework, my friend :) As a side note, the Baha'i Faith is most definitely not Unitarian but I will leave that discussion for another time (message me if you would like any questions answered) From reading your arguments, it seems that you have a problem with Religion because it is apparently the cause of the world's conflicts, and I will answer it in hopes of touching on the other sub-issues you brought up. But I have a question for you, "Are you Atheist because Religion supposedly causes war?". It seems that every Atheist I have ever talked to, has their mind set on this unsupported and highly uneducated notion that religion causes war and destruction, therefore society is better off without it. Does that mean society would be better off without nuclear mathematics because it caused the deaths of thousands in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Chernobyl, etc? Or, wars are fought over the dominance of natural resources, so if we got rid of natural resources, would there be no more war? Or the Buddhists are supposedly vandalizing homes in the south of Louisiana, so to cure the disease of vandalism, should we get rid of the Buddhists? (Im not prejudice at all btw haha) Simple answer is no. We contort science in ways to give us the recipe to make bombs or medicine, similarly we contort religion in ways to give us the recipe to make wars or everlasting society that rests on the foundation of Progressive Religious Laws. So in the end, it's up to us, to define what is beneficial for the advancement of humankind. Just for food for thought. :) So "religion causes war" utterly false and historically inaccurate. Why? Because the Encyclopedia of Wars states that of the 1,763 major conflicts in recorded history, only 123 of them were classified as having been fought over religious differences. That's just under 7 percent. More specifically, if we look at the most modern wars we learn about in school, such as the American Revolution, The French Revolution, The Russian Revolution, Chinese civil war, World War I and II, Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria; None of these wars were fought for religious reasons. In fact, the casualty count of World War II is estimated to be somewhere between 50 and 70 million, making it the deadliest conflict sparked for nonreligious reasons, in all of human history. The Buddhist Massacre that you mentioned, was because of a forced transition of power from the ruling father to his son and heir, and power-hungry politicians saw the massacre as a necessity to keep the kingdom stable and free from revolts, so again it has nothing to do with religion. The Spanish Inquisition occurred because it was meant to discover and punish converted Jews and Muslims who were insincere to the kingdom's state religion, so again this is political because of the Monarchy's vision of maintaining a devout nation to the King belief's. The subject of Islamic Jihadists is currently the hit topic right now, and if you view them as representatives of the Religion of Islam, then from one brother to another I truly feel sorry for you. There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world as of today and a few thousand radicals should be viewed as a quivering mouse in the shadow of the entire devout Muslim population, and the reason why we view this "mouse" as the dominating force, is because the media and governments make it out to be. The situation in the Middle East can be summed up into 4 words; black magical liquid stuff. I'll let you figure out what that means. So religion being the cause of war has no foundation in history because the end result of every conflict perceived as a religious war, has had personal benefits for the politicians in power. I don't care if they were Cardinals, Bishops, Bus drivers, Mullahs, Senators, Shepards, Janitors, Viceroys, Rabbis.....They were not "chosen" by any deity and they all have money in their pockets at the end of every conflict masked with religion. So again, Religion doesn't cause war, Man does. I will now answer your questions: 1)How is one to question teachings without questioning the teacher? I would argue that the answer of this rests in individual investigation. But it all goes back to motive and quality of your questioning. Why are you questioning religion on some particular issue or doctrine or direction? If it is simply because you're are trying to stall your obedience to a set of Divine Laws, then you should probably stop; if it is coming from a prideful heart that says, I know better than these Laws, then why are you looking for an answer in the first place? If, however, you're asking because you desperately want to know the answer, or because you desperately want guidance in your life, then I believe it is appropriate to question God and His progressive teachings to Mankind. I think there is a huge difference between questioning what brings wisdom and a fuller understanding of the Laws, compared to the kind of questioning that simply seeks to validate man and man's ways, whatever they may be. Relating to Atheism, you can't question the theory of Evolution without questioning Darwin himself, because either way it falls back to Darwin, sincere or not. 2)Are the answers to these questions given to the one asking by the teacher? How not, without questioning authority? Read above paragraph. If you're truly seeking then you MUST question validity of authority, but a thorough investigation must be a prerequisite before a conclusion is drawn. 3)Whoever gives the answers, are those answers considered "qualified" or "unqualified" interpretations? I'd ask you the same thing. How do you decide the authority of the teacher at question?. Because it doesn't matter what I say, I can't make the criteria of validation for you. I'd be wasting my time telling you my criteria because mine has no connection to yours. For example, when your sick, you show up to a doctors office. You can't tell me to trust the medical advice of a doctor that I have not read about or investigated. So what makes you believe the things they have to say?; is it the paper on the wall of the white coat that makes you say his advice is valid? So it boils down to a thorough individual investigation. 4)Who decides whether a devotion of the Writing has been full and unbiased? Please elaborate.... 5) Spiritual Purpose As a Baha'i, my answer is filtered through the Baha'i Scriptures, but in this case I will provide a general outlook on spiritual purpose and hopefully you can related to it too. There are multiple purposes of each existence rather than a single purpose, however there is also an ultimate purpose of a things existence. For instance from one perspective, the purpose of a single red blood cell is to survive, from a greater perspective its purpose is to fulfill its own small task, from an even greater perspective, it is meant to sustain the life of a living being. Similarly in the life of man, there are countless lesser purposes when looked at from varying perspectives, for example from the lowest perspective the purpose of man is to survive, at a greater perspective his purpose is to care for and nurture the happiness of his offspring, from an even greater perspective his purpose is to find his talents and contribute to the welfare of his society, and at an even greater perspective (which for Baha'is it is the ultimate object of man's creation), his purpose is to attain the honor and joy of finding and loving his Creator, and in being able to reflect his Lords divine qualities such as love, kindness, Wisdom, Bounty, Forbearance, Benevolence, and Mercy. This is my purpose. Note: the minor purposes we as humans generally work through, although limited in their effects, they are not without value but shouldn't be the focus of our lives. Thanks for this great debate, and I'm learning a lot :) your turn