Debate: Has religion had a net positive or negative influence on humanity?
Side: negative

1. To my ability to know if one would do good without belief in a god... there are people who do good without belief in god. Now, I understand your point that I have no way of looking through a crystal ball and seeing different scenarios play out. You are demanding a far greater burden of proof from arguments against a god than for one though. This is typical of the religious and you do it a couple of times here as I will point out. For the sake of any meaningful debate, that those who are not religious do good sometimes is proof enough, the onus for evidence to the contrary would fall on you, not me in this instance given that fact.2. About nihilists... An example of a very small subset of a belief system (or disbelief system or ideology) is not proof of the whole. I'm speaking in broad terms. I could cite groups like "God Hates Fags" and indeed I think the number of these religious groups and their influence far outweighs any harm the comparatively small group of true nihilists have or could do. That's not the argument though. It is if I said something to the effect "Vegetables are better for you than candy" and you said "People who ate bad Brussels sprouts got sick" without even giving an example of one being cured because of candy. I never deny that someone who does not believe in a god could do harm, or even a group in individual instances, I'm talking about a trend.3. About statistics on whether atheists are as charitable as theists... My proof is in the lack of statistics to the contrary. Asking for statistics of non-existent statistics creates an endless and meaningless cycle. Meanwhile as with point 1, you are asking for more proof from this position than you are willing to provide for yours. You provide nothing to the contrary of this. That argument when taken out of the touchy context of religion sounds like this--Me: "There's no proof people with green eyes are more charitable than people with blue eyes" You: "There's no proof people with green eyes are not more charitable therefore people with green eyes are more charitable." 4. This would be an argument against government too then.It could be a good argument about some governments. It is not a good argument against governments where individuals (instead of a god) have a say, and where laws can be changed to adapt to humanity, instead of written in stone demanding humanity change for the chiseled rock. It is a horrible argument against democratic governments actually.5. About most of humanity being incapable of atrocities without "divine" influence and your claim that this is an argument that a god exists and you thought I was an atheist... Good job not following earlier inclinations to mistakenly counter general statements of human psyche with individual examples of the opposite, like citing some atheist serial killer or something. Hopefully it is a sign you accept that where most humans' mentality lies is in a place where, unless extreme circumstances prevail, they in fact would not burn someone for being a witch or fly a plane into a building or similar example. That these people would need to justify it. My point being that only a god could be justification in the minds of most is very relevant. However, being atheist I realize belief in a non-existent god is just as powerful as the real thing. It is not a god influencing people who commit atrocities in the name of god in reality, it is only in their head. Thus it would have been better if they did not believe in this god.“The tragedy of modern war is that the young men die fighting each other - instead of their real enemies back home in the capitals.” ~AbbeySometimes. However it is not as if young men (and women) would not also die fighting eachother in this instance as well. They simply would not have to travel as far. Perhaps Abbey meant petitioning their government to avoid war? Instead of actually waring with the government... I certainly hope so.6 About an inability to take away religion without genocide or war... Maybe. The number of those who do not believe in god is growing somewhat relative to population, but very, very slowly. Since I was not threatened with death myself in order to catalyst my switch from indoctrination to freedom, I can only assume other humans are capable of the same. At risk of a demand for statistics, I'd say it is fair to guess most atheists were once religious, the logic being A-theists have more kids. B-theists more often raise their kids to be theists. C-The number of atheists is growing. It seems mathematically impossible that most atheists were not once religious, and that they changed their mind without threat of violence.