Religion has had a positive effect on society on balance.

Before I begin I must say: I was puzzled when I reached the end of your text, perhaps I misunderstand, but did you says its arguable that all human rights came from Jesus? Because if so, that's more similar to what I'm saying, is it not? I would not go so far as to say that myself, but its the same thing in principle. I'm sorry, I'm going to find it tricky to respond to all your points in an orderly fashion. For many of them are statements that you have taken out of context, or misunderstood. Or I find you address an argument that I have made, that is often complex, and shoot it down with a small phrase and little or no explanation. For instance. You dispute all of the causes of WW2, war that are accepted by historians; such as; the treaty of Versailles, which lead many polititions to actually understand, and see as justifiable, what Hitler did (1); the failure of the League of Nations (1); Hitlers society and exposure to anti-Semitism; the positions of Jews in German society, Hitlers experience of Jews, and the social conditions of the German people; not to mention the Atheist insipred idea of ugenics that was rife at the time. You dispute all this complexity and mearly quote one line on Mein Kampf, and leave it there. Not considering the fact that its said "Hitler is an keen propagandist, making it difficult to draw definate conclusions from what he says" (1). This is not proper debate standards, I think your style is quite laid-back also in this regard. I may add as well, that Hitlers faith was in Nationalism, Racial superiority and Himself. It's absurd to think he was motivated by Christ, a Jew, who preached peace and tolerance above all, and equality between men. The three things Hitler openly disagreed with. Also, spending so much time on such facts as Hitlers faith, is exactly what I didn't want in this debate. This is petty and meaningless, not least because even if he was a Christian, the war had nothing to do with it, but because its not going to help us get closer to the answer. I want an intelligent debate that considers the grand story of mankind, and religions place in it. And then try to decipher, from what we know about society, psychology and nations, how mankind would of developed had religion not existed. Then see which world is better. All my opponent is doing is spouting 'events' that he does not fully understand, and trying to blame religion for them. We could do that all day my friend, and the winner would be the one who could find the most examples. However this is boring and not a true test of skill, nor indeed a legitimate way to decipher the argument. I want you to try and understand my main point and dispute it, not just quote lines out of context and disagree with them based on inaccurate assumptions of their meaning! It's so wearisome going through each one and correcting it. I was to discuss the true role of the religious institution in society and mankind as a whole, I don't think you have enough knowledge of history to do this, am I correct? This is what I contented in the beginning, but you reassured me otherwise. Here is another example, where I feel you take something out of context: You quote me saying "religion is rarely the cause of the action" and respond by saying: "My opponent's first paragraph gives NO evidence whatsoever. He makes a blind assumption that I have clearly proven ". This is bad conduct in my opinion, as I clearly stated two examples in that very paragraph, not to mention some theory. That paragraph was also the prelude to four lengthy points regarding the very issue. My opponents use of language implies that didn't give evidence, misleading the voters. This style of debate makes up a lot of your last arguments content, and I fear you have not fully understood my main point as I don't feel it's been addressed sufficiently. I don't want to get caught up in specific events for three main reasons: one, its never clear how much influence religion had on those events, and two: human history is so full of 'events' that its impossible to accurately weigh up the 'bad' and 'good' because there is so much that's happened around the world in the last 5000 years that trying to do a 'body count' or score list would be impossible. And three: All of these 'events' have been actions of men(/women), the bible (for instance) tells that men are sinful and there are wolves in the church, So Its not the religion itself then doing bad, its somebody actually who pretends to holy, but is in fact not. In regards to point two, because I wish to elaborate, there are examples of religious violance, such as the crusades and violence in the Middle-East, but there are also thousands of religiously based charities and aid organisations around the world. Not to mention the political role the pope, and most religious leaders play and/or have played in bringing nations together. So what I'm trying to say is, although I dispute that your examples are indeed entirely religious in origin, there are hundreds of examples of people of faith healing and helping people as well. Did you know the church, in medieval England was also an orphanage, school and hospital? These are examples of people of faith doing good. They are just not as interesting as be-headings and wars, so we forget about it. So getting bogged down in specific events, in which people did stuff that may or may not have be inspired by religion, and too use it to try and weigh up the amount of suffering caused by religion is actually vain. So I don't wish to start looking up loads of stats, only to have them ignored and responded with loads of other stats from yourself. To decide wether religion, which is basically a non-scientific belief that every human culture originates with and makes their world view part of, is detrimental to humanity, or positive to humanity, we have to talk theory and historical context. Not throw figures around. Your point about the enlightenment era made me worry about your historical understanding. This is what it was: I pointed out that throughout the Middle Ages, the church was the only thing that was allowed to do anything besides work as a peasant, or rule as a nobleman. Because of this, I argued, the church was the only 'go-between' between the nobles and everyone else, and therefore the only platform by which society could have a chance at developing. In response to this, you said that the enlightenment era was largely scientific. My friend, the enlightenment era was after the middle-ages and without the social conditions that existed previous, the enlightenment would have been impossible. If conditions didn't improve during the Middle Ages, then the enlightenment era would have been impossible. This is an example of you taking a historical event out of context, like you have done so on several occasions during this debate. You don't see the positive role of religion, because religions role is so enormous and yet so subtle, it goes unnoticed by most. Also, most people are merely aware of the sensational news of beheading and violence, not charities and aid. So for the sake of argument, I will respond to some of these points you have made. But I implore you to focus on what comes after, as I will try to reinstate my main argument to try and bring things back to base. Rather than focusing on all this. You ask me to correct you on this: The 'rights don't exist' quote means that they don't exist in a physical form, nor a definite form. And I argue that what we understand as our 'rights', come from religion ultimately. What I am saying is, the concept that everybody has rights is not obvious. Even social revolutionaries in democratic Greece believed people where born slaves. You don't seem to understand society, history or psychology very well. The world you live in now was not inevitable, nor the only right way. People didn't always know what they do now either. Rights for all men, is not obvious, and only came from religion, until very recently. Even recently, rights haven't come from nowhere. They have come from only the societies that have been religious at their heart for centuries. And have the values of Christianity indoctrinated into them, even if they as individuals reject the faith! That's why atheists can't get their head around the fact that they are good, and yet don't believe in god. They are very proud to have not needed God to be 'good'. When indeed, the society they are in is the reason they are 'good', and the reason why they have values such as equality. And indeed, without religion preaching equality for thousands of years, its quite possible that you would not have had it indoctrinated into your society (and thus you might not know it). I don't have many characters left so I will re-instate my argument as clear as I can. Although hardly any 'religious conflicts' have come too violence solely because of the religious disputes, I accept the following facts: Two nations having different religions can make communication, friendship and integration more difficult than if there was no religious differences. However, cultural differences also account for this. But more importantly, on the grand scale, we know that humans struggle when it comes to authority: Here are the systems we have come up with: Democratic societies (Greece, Rome, United States). These are prone to corruption, and by no means inherently fair, for in all three of the examples democracy was limited to males of a certain racial group. Kings - with religion. Dictators, with a check on their authority in light of morality. (Majority of old world) Kings (or equivalent) - no religion. Dictators, they where the religion, these are the worst people of all. (Few who rejected religon as they became more tyrannical). These people had too much power, and we all know what comes next. No space left. No systems are perfect. " (1)http://www.historyonthenet.com...