[Starhawk]

Timstone said:

Religion is not always the believe in a higher power, it can also be a strong believe in a certain way of live (Hindoeism), confidence in a leader of a country (Thailand) or an absolute dedication to the realisation of something (the progress of technology). Core of this is my definition of religion. I define religion as a very strong believe in something, for examples see the text above.

As stated already that's Ideology not religion you described
BTW Hindos (sp?) Do beleive in various Gods/Godesses and monor deitys so I don't know how you brought them into the [not believing in divinity] Category

Too many kill in the name of some god or deity. The only way to eradicate acts like this is to banish all the beliefs. Unfortunately that isn't an option. So maybe it's possible to do as the Roman did; absorp all religions and adpat them slightly to accomodate everyone. Then the only problem you have is tolerance or extremism (depending how you want to translate it). So then you must find a way to let those "people" change their mind.

People also kill far more often in the name of:
Money
Land
Ideology (independent of religion)
Nationalism
Raw Materials
Gold
Political SNAFU
Revenge
removing a political enemy
Buisness
Spite
Desperation
Women
Men
Animals (not falling into the Category of women and men lol)
Conquest
"Self Defense" (most empires claimed self defense)
Security
Fear
Mistrust
Theft
Cars
Drugs
Toys (yeah I actually heard of a six year old who killed a girl over the fact that she broke his toy)
Fun

So you want to remove every single thing on that list before you blame religion for most of the "problems" of the world's disunity?

At risk of sounding offensive to you, "in my opinion", faith is something that a person needs to think that they have a purpose in life/are superior to those without faith, including other types of lifeforms. In other words, "faith" is burying your head in the sand "in my opinion" (see how offensive that sounds lol).

It's funny how you keep saying "no offense" while at the same time practically calling me a fool and a yuppie for beleiving in God now isn't it?

And as far as me saying "morals are better when you have faith" that shouldn't make you sound as if I'm claiming superiority as my morals may or may not be the same I simply meant for me Faith makes my morals stronger.

But many people also constantly argue about what is "moral" so that's a very difficult thing to say who is "better" or not anyway

Oh, and a bit late, but countries like China do have a religion. They officially have no religion, but every Chinese has it's own gods (depending on where they live in China). And don't forget the religion that glorify the head of the state.

They don't glorify the head of state as a god and as such it's not a religion, it is more an ideological indoctrination.

I assume you meant Chinese provinces? and weren't referring to the people as "it". While technically true "China" has no religion as in the PRC (People's Republic) because they have Banned all religions "officially" and will punish those they find following a religion (thus the underground churches and temples) so religious belief there is dangerous in the extreme and most don't worship openly.

A friend of mine (granted he could be a bit pushy with his religious beliefs sometimes) once asked a Chinese woman how she felt about her country banning religion to which she replied (oddly enough).
"Oh you can beleive in God, just don't tell anyone."

will have to respectfully disagree with entire thesis. I will also avoid opening a can of worms just before I go to bed and not post the rest of what I was going to.

LOL I'm honestly suprised by that Fyron considering I pretty much conceded a point to you guys
If you'd like me to define that better I guess I could say it like this

The "Inquisitions" and "Witch Hunters" had a lot of faith in God yet what they did was constantly immoral and wrong (Same goes for an assload of Catholic priests these days).

Now as far as the second part goes, as I said I knew a guy that would give you the shirt off his back (literally) yet he did not beleive in God and generally believed only in himself, yet he rarely even cussed lol never drinked (not saying drinking is immoral by that I mean he never got drunk off his ***) and that's something I can't say I never did hehe, never hurt anyone unless they tried to hurt him first and was generally a great person to know.
Thus he was moral without being Godly.

Everyone:
Please don't use the word "offensive" or "be offended" by anything that is said in this intersting thread. The name of this thread is crystalclear and you can expect to find alternate believs in this thread. So don't enter this discussion if you are easily offended by other beliefs.

I agree with this entirely if all your going to do is get hostile and scream "you offended me" don't read any further and you'll stop being offended
I "personally" only felt a little insulted by some of the comments made earlier but that's only because the guy saying it was practically calling me an idiot because of my beleifs while I havn't said anything offensive against people who do not believe in God, Heck i even said I was very good friends with a "neo-pagan" (though I honestly don't know what that means as she mainly sounds ignostic to me)and a girl I'd LOVE to date is a buddist .

NOW on to the Aliens I agree with the folks that say the aliens probobly wouldn't want us humans to go throwing ourselves out into space because of how aggressive we can be when we feel threatened, and some countries on this world (thinking of a few places in the mideas take a guess which ones lol) getting out into space and onto other worlds is a SCARY prospect.