Religious doctrine of inherent evil is incredibly harmful to mankind.

I believe this to be one of the most important topics facing mankind, and believe exploring it through debate is essential for all of us. It will be fun to debate it with such a capable and reasoned debater. I will address my opponents retort in the order that he brought them up. 1. The burdens argument. - I appreciate the opportunity to provide specific examples of how the doctrine of inherent evil harms mankind. A quick review of history shows countless examples of the utility of the doctrine of evil, for motivation to kill others in war and genocide. As one example I would like to submit: The Drogheada Massacre, Ireland September 11, 1649. Oliver Cromwell leads soldiers through city streets murdering civilians and lighting up St. Mary's church, burning alive those who had taken refuge in it and then butchered women hiding in the vaults below. The Irish campaign was religious in nature, in that Cromwell believed that he and his men were chosen by God to rid the world of evil behavior. (. http://www.olivercromwell.org...). The doctrine of inherent evil motivated Cromwell and led him to accept, if not encourage the slaughter of civilians throughout the Irish campaign. The justification for this slaughter, was that they were evil. Cromwell's actions led to the 'Troubles' in northern Ireland, which have been continually supported by the doctrine of inherent evil. Both sides believe in Christ, and should be able to utilize that commonality to avoid conflict. However they also share a belief in the doctrine of evil. That belief compels them to view each other with disdain, because, if the doctrinal disagreements must be a result of an acceptance of evil over the perfection of God's will. Therefore both sides are convinced that the other side is embracing evil verses the will of God. This belief justifies the horrific behavior they each adopt towards one another. A more modern example can be shown in the 'war on terror'. The United States, chose to take this war to Iraq and have been involved in a military campaign there for 5 years. During that time 95,459 (. http://www.iraqbodycount.org...) civilians have lost their lives. A quick look at the justifications and actions of the American people leading up to that war, shows how intricately the doctrine of evil was involved in supporting it. It started with "God Bless America" being uniformly sung at all communal events. Then Bush's rhetoric reflected and supported American sentiment that we were the good guys and the others were the bad guys: Axis of Evil, Get the Evil doers. American Christians started calling Islam a religion of violence and evil. Basically America was flexing its moral muscles and displaying a deep belief in inherent evil, that would be justified in exposing other sovereign countries to war. One can still see examples of this when asking proponents of the war in Iraq why they believe it to be just. "Better to fight the war in their back yard than mine" is a common theme heard when asking Christians why they support the war in Iraq. This stems from a religious belief in the evil of those who don't share belief that is taught comes directly from God. It is no surprise that Conservative Evangelical Christians were the biggest supporters for war in October, 2002 (. http://www.commondreams.org...) despite the proposed Christian doctrine of peace and love for humanity. As it turns out, the doctrine of inherent evil, is stronger than the doctrine of turn the other cheek and benevolence towards others in a majority of cases. 2. Division leads to good things and isn't harmful to mankind. - While division based on learning and empirical evidence can lead to benefit and growth, the Division that results from faith based reason like the doctrine of inherent evil, rarely result in benefit to mankind. I challenge my opponent to establish a case for religious division being more beneficial than detrimental to mankind. I submit that faith based division historically and evidently leads to war, torture, divorce, murder and hatred. As examples I submit, Jonestown, Nazi genocide, Bosnian genocide, Numbers 31, Christian divorce rates, and every single Christian forum that allows inter denominational debate. The doctrine of inherent evil resides as the base motivator for all of these things. 3. Family dispute doesn't effect all living inhabitants of the earth. - This argument is Religious doctrine of inherent evil is incredibly harmful to mankind. It does not require every family to fall apart or the actions of families in China to effect the actions of families in Russia, simply proof that family division, which we both agree is harmful, is caused by the inherent doctrine of evil. As examples of this, I submit, the Jehovah Witness practice of shunning. This practice is responsible for countless suicides and hurt and anger and is a direct result of belief in inherent evil. I also submit Christian divorce rates, which are consistently higher than those of Atheists and Agnostics. I submit that this is a result of division caused by a belief in evil. For instance, Divorce is justified because of religious differences, those differences are exacerbated by the belief that those who don't adhere to a specific flavor of Christianity are evil, or are submitting to temptation and evil in belief. Divorce rates amongst people with different denominational beliefs is over 50%. Source (. http://www.religioustolerance.org...) 4. Negative Expectation. Realistic expectation can be beneficial in helping us avoid the negative, but negative expectation, in spite of reality causes harm. As an example I submit, Christian perspectives on global warming, and what humanity should be doing about it. sources: . http://www.evangelsociety.org... . http://www.christianpost.com... . http://www.cbsnews.com... . http://www.mattfarina.com... The majority view amongst Christians is that Global warming shouldn't be something that we as humans should try to correct. Many of them hold a position, that the impending return of Jesus and his predictions of the degradation of the earth are supportive of Global Warming, and that there is nothing that humans can do to stop it. The negative expectation of the degradation and destruction of the world, encourages them to fight against scientists and politicians attempting to find ways to remedy the situation. The negative expectation, that evolves from the doctrine of inherent evil, supported by biblical prediction, then becomes a self fulfilling prophesy. As the religious choose not to do anything to stop the degradation of the earth, predicted in the bible. This is INCREDIBLY harmful to mankind. 5. Focusing on the negative at the expense of the positive. The doctrine of inherent evil causes adherents to focus on the minority negative because of the expectation set by said belief. As examples I submit the following articles written by believers: . http://www.godandscience.org... . http://www.schneier.com... . http://www.arune.com... . http://feartomorrow.blogspot.com... Character restraints are forcing me to cut this topic short in this round, but a quick evaluation of examples utilized by adherents of inherent evil shows a propensity to utilize examples that are relatively rare to support their belief that mankind in inherently evil. For instance, they point to genocide, murder, school shooting etc, all rare events to support their expectation of evil and the degradation of the earth.