Study: Religious belief can cause damage to a society

[The Man]

You hit the point, exactly. RELIGION IS USED. Exploited. If religion wasn't there, they'd use darwinism to bash gays. Or some economical bull**** (like atheist homophobes do). Whatever, they'd find an excuse. After all, the bible doesn't even have anything against gays, except in a section that is nulled by the bible itself. Hate looks for excuses, it doesn't like little things like "fact" getting in the way. And hate exists wherever diversity exists, and diversity exists wherever freedom exists. Hence: FREEDOM is the cause of crime.

I strongly disagree with this. If God says something, you can’t argue with it, and God says in the Old Testament that homosexuality is an abomination. Also, I believe a lot of Paul’s writings in the New Testament were critical of homosexuality, so it’s not really nullified by Jesus’ statement that the Old Testament laws no longer applies. At any rate, under some people’s reasonings, God says that homosexuality is an abomination, and there’s nothing that can contradict for that. No reasoning, nothing. God is above reasoning. However, Darwinism is based entirely on observation. Observation points out that animals often exhibit homosexual behaviours. That simple reasoning would invalidate their argument because there wouldn’t be a God to hide behind.

Oh, and where do you find less religious societies with less violence? Ah, yes, places that DON'T have nearly 100 seperate cultures within their borders. Of course the United States have that conflict.... we have the KKK and the Panthers living in the same neighborhoods. If you can't see that creating violence, you need help.

I don’t doubt that diversity doesn’t help matters much. However, England is nearly as diverse as America, and as far as I know doesn’t have anywhere near the violence. On the other hand (again, I’m relying on memory here), Scotland doesn’t have nearly as much diversity as England, yet is the most violent region in the United Kingdom. So if diversity is a contributing factor, it’s not THAT much of a contributing factor.

Also, here again you’re focusing on the “violence” part of the study (which I honestly believe to be the least important part) to the exclusion of the sexual promiscuity, abortions and suicide.

I am Catholic and I have never heard a priest say that. They talk about forgiveness in the churches I have visited. This is not to say that there are not a few wack jobs in the bunch.

It’s a lot more than a few. Trust me, I live in the South.