Debate: Would you sooner let your faith rest with science or God?
Side: Science

Religion gives people answers to things which science cannot: moral values, death and the afterlife, the meaning of life, and other spiritual issues.You really want to use moral values again? I already attempted to explain why morals based on rationale thought are superior to those based on thousand year old religious texts interpreted literally and dogmatically (as most western religions have done).Don't make me laugh about the whole death and afterlife thing. I guess we shouldn't tell our children that Santa Clause is made up either, because it'll make them feel better.The benefits of science, logic, and objective attitudes are wonderful. But these are not discouraged by religion today.Seriously? Did you not see the graph I showed you about public acceptance of the theory of Evolution? Are you aware of the state of the science education in our public schools, especially in states like Alabama or Texas where religious fundamentalists run the school boards.But today, even the Catholic Church has acknowledged science, as in Darwin's theory of evolution.Wow, only a couple hundred years later.But yes, the Catholic Church has conceded that evolution is correct. They have recognized the fact that they stood in the way of knowledge, and have now stepped out of the way.On the other hand, the current pope recently took a trip to Africa, and while there he said that condoms were not an acceptable way to combat the AIDS epidemic. Let me repeat that so you can get the full impact. One of the most influential leaders in the world, visited a place where AIDS kills over 1.5 million people a year, and where more than twenty million people are infected, and he said don't use condoms.I consider myself a calm guy, but what the fuck? Does he not care at all? Think about the implications of that. He would allow millions to die simply because of his religious beliefs.But the misdeeds of the Catholic Church cannot be blamed on another religion, Buddhism for example.Buddhism is the rare example of a religion that has been almost 100% peaceful. However do you know what the reason for this is? Because Buddhism encourages the acceptance of other beliefs. I am in fact taking a course on Buddhism in college this fall semester.Once again however, I must repeat that the non violent religions are the exception whereas you seem to insist that those religions that have committed atrocities are the exceptions, even though virtually all of the major religions are guilty of it (the top two religions in the world are Islam and Christianity).And the misdeeds of the Catholic Church are not unique to that institution. The Nazis burned books too, and this is a modern day non religious example. As I said before, what I am saying applies to nearly all ideologies. Just because other ideologies are also guilty of causing atrocities this does not let religion off the hook. In fact, what I am advocating is a move away from blindly following ideologies. Obviously this particular debate is about religion, but obviously I am not saying that religion is the only type of institution that represses individual thought: merely one of the most common.And modern non religious wars have caused much more death than any war that might be blamed upon religion.That's like me saying: you can't say that the huns are bad, because the Nazi's killed people after all the huns were gone. Your argument is invalid.But today religion and science can and do coexist peacefully. If people choose to follow religion, why try and stop them?When did I say I was going to stop them? As I've said one hundred times already:I am merely encouraging people to think for themselves. If they want to keep believing story book fantasies then they can go right ahead.Now allow me to address the quote that you have tried to use in this debate a million times already, and why it's not a valid argument against what I'm saying.The quote says:-Religion has not historically been the cause of the majority of wars.I am saying:-Religion has lead to lots of deaths throughout history, and continues to do so today.As you can see, the two points are not mutually exclusive. In his argument Major Conway even admits that religion was the cause of wars during Europe's reformation period. These were known as the Wars of Religion. Wars, because their were many of them, and religion because that was the root cause. You claim that more people have died in recent wars, but that is only because there were more people on the earth to die. Something like a third of the population of western Europe died during the wars of religion. That is significantly more percentage wise, than any modern war.Let me also briefly mention some other conflicts that had religion as the primary basis.-The burning of witches in both Europe and North America-The killing of Jews in Medieval Europe-The attacks on September 11And countless other atrocities that I could mention.So, like I said, your quote isn't "a counter point to your saying that religion has killed lots of people"... at least not a very good one.