Religion has caused more violence and divide than would otherwise be without it

Thank you, Con. I would like to make the potential voters of this debate aware of the following, through clarification: (1) My point was, overall, that religion's malleability in the favor of one agenda being surged is exactly what makes it dangerous and easy to use as a pretext for wars, division of the people, or hostile takeovers of institutions. For instance: Let's say we have a made-up religion of Wixism. In Wixism, the general belief is to be peaceful, free of judgement, and to lead a health lifestyle [as laid out in the holy book of said religion]. Yet, a small political organization in the nation in which the religion exists, has hijacked the faith and enabled it to become the exact opposite; using the religion as a tool for recruitment and exercising terror upon the people of the community. Because of this, Wixism has now developed much more of a negative connotation. One could argue that the political side of things was the source of violence and the division of the people (i.e those who are in Wix extremist groups v. those who are not), but one might also argue that the ability of people to take the religion and skew it for political purposes is the source of violence and religion. What this also comes down to is historical reasons for destabilization which leads to pockets of terrorist uprisings in various areas of the world: When one is to look at the Middle East, a place of prevalence for Islamic extremism, they might observe that organizations such as ISIS became of western imperialism wherein superpowers reigned in new eras of regime change in exchange for capital (i.e oil pillaging). Because of the impending destabilization that resulted from this display of imperialism and hubris, religion can be used to "unite" people for revenge through violent attacks against even innocent people. "My point being: People can think up of all kinds of excuses to justifying conflicts, regardless of whether is present or not. If oil or influence is up for grabs, heads of states can think up of all kinds of lies to fool people into accepting the engagement." Following such a claim, one might also conclude that the very existence of capital itself can lead to conflict, because if the interest of profit exists in the world, people will always use it as a pretext to put others in danger. But this assertion would be false, because money sustains a society wherein people may thrive according to their labors and how well they are capable of contributing to the general public's successes. If money were to suddenly disappear, economic functions would grind to a halt, and the corresponding aspects of innovation and research likely would as well. Profit is not the reason terrorism happens, if that were true ISIS would have stolen millions from each place it has attacked. But this is not the case. The case is that ISIS wants to make a statement in that western powers [even if they did not cause destabilization] should suffer, and they use religion to help push their efforts and recruit followers with a "martyr" mindset. "Now you see ISIS, an extremist, fundamentalist, hostile, pariah state, a product of a conflict for influence and resources." Yet even then, an enormous part of many international conflicts for years now has been religion: people use it, alongside a whole plethora of differing factors among people, to excuse genocide and invasion - when in reality, these excuses do not suffice. The truth behind this claim is that it is somewhat wrong: while it is true that the USA did pillage much of Iraq and did reap the benefits of stealing resources of theirs such as their oil, it is also true that a large part of the War on Terror has been using religion (i.e Islam) to inflate the problem for popular support. Politicians will often speak to exaggerate how big of a threat groups like ISIS are to the world, only for them to wind up inciting more problems and feeding more propaganda to the organizations that are causing instability overseas. Political stamina in such predicaments can often stem from the manipulation of religion (ethos & pathos). (2) Con makes an outlandish claim that China is irreligious - and therefore unique - but experiences rates of homosexuality among itself similarly to the rest of the world. Con is therefore giving homosexuality a bad connotation without further explaining why, and also glossing over that by doing such they would potentially derail discussion. For these reasons, I will only provide a brief response to the general statement: China appears predominately irreligious, but in fact is not. Of the 90 percent of Chinese citizens who are not particularly of religious affiliation, only an estimated 6.3 percent are atheist, says an article from Wikipedia. This interesting religious statistic raises questions, because while many citizens in China do not have religious affiliation, they also might have [agnostic] beliefs, which would incline them to possibly still believe in a higher power or being, just not necessarily to conform to a religion in particular. Now, being forward minded is a point I was not exactly going for, although one could logically argue that in a world where humans depend more [statistically] on science than they do on religion, it would only be fair to say advancements in their society would be so much more fluid. The point about homosexuality has my head spinning, so I will abstain from responding to it until further clarification is given. (3) I will agree that religion can be unifying, but would also think it is quite dividing in society. There are common practices in religions that are inherently negative: for instance the practice of homophobia by many religious organizations or people who practice popular monotheistic religions (i.e Christianity, Islam and Judaism). While isolated, underground communities within each of those religions exist, it is rather sad that they are not as public and vocal about their rights to unify through religion as they can be - simply because their religions' organizations would not tolerate the "sin" of homosexuality. This sort of collective xenophobia is a large contributing factor to the divide among people solely caused by religion. (4) It is true that the Israel-Palestine conflict was initially sparked by land, but it has also become characterized by religious intolerance. Whether or not pro-Israel activists are just in saying so, many feel that anti-Israel activists or political participants are anti-Semitic; this use of intolerance as a shield has played a big role in shaping our perceptions of tolerance v. intolerance, and has helped to identify some of the argumentative fallacies that engulf the issue; many people feel that one side is Jews and the other is Muslims, and therefore more evangelical people would tend to fall in line to support Israel. (5) I agree that terrorism is the product of western troops destabilizing and senselessly invading other land, however, this does not allow us to omit the fact that many of these terrorist militias hold religion key to their efforts. I will refer to my points made earlier for further explanation. Sources Cited: (2) https://en.wikipedia.org...