[cema]

Why is that scary? If we assume it is indeed a matter of belief the 50/50 chance is not that bad. Now, I suppose both you and me think about it more as a matter of science, but how many people understand what science is (and why), how the scientific method is applied and so on? Well fewer than 50%, I'd guess. US, Europe or Africa, any place.

[ballard]

People that operate outside of coherent, explainable, rational principles tempered by compassion are bigger liabilities. It's common sense.

Departing from this is what allows folks to believe violent terrorism to be a viable strategy to "win."

[carsongross]

Do you have any evidence for this? In my experience people with largely religious principles tempered by compassion are just as reliable as self-identified rationalists.

There has been plenty of atheistic terrorism in the last hundred years...

[lutusp]

> Do you have any evidence for this?

The history of religion? The Inquisition, as just one example among many? Being absolutely sure that God is on your side is a powerful drug.

> There has been plenty of atheistic terrorism in the last hundred years ...

Yes, but it can't compare to the well-established historical connection between religion and war.

One example -- try to imagine recent Indian history without the effect of religion, without Muslims and Hindus killing each other at every opportunity, true to the present day.

Another example -- 9/11 wasn't an attack by have-nots against haves, it was a largely successful effort by religious fanatics to snuff out some infidels.

[carsongross]

Sure, the Inquisition was bad. But so was the gulag. Seems like the 'tempered by compassion' thing is more important than the left hand side, doesn't it?

There is absolutely no historical connection between religion and war. From http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/08/06/god_and_the...

"Moreover, the chief complaint against religion -- that it is history's prime instigator of intergroup conflict -- does not withstand scrutiny. Religious issues motivate only a small minority of recorded wars. The Encyclopedia of Wars surveyed 1,763 violent conflicts across history; only 123 (7 percent) were religious. A BBC-sponsored "God and War" audit, which evaluated major conflicts over 3,500 years and rated them on a 0-to-5 scale for religious motivation (Punic Wars = 0, Crusades = 5), found that more than 60 percent had no religious motivation. Less than 7 percent earned a rating greater than 3. There was little religious motivation for the internecine Russian and Chinese conflicts or the world wars responsible for history's most lethal century of international bloodshed."

[lutusp]

> There is absolutely no historical connection between religion and war.

Absolutely false -- you have grossly overstated your claim and even contradicted your own sources. You have posted statistics that say either 7% or 40% (depending on source) of wars are caused by religion, and then blithely made a claim that contradicts your own evidence.

If your claim were true, having religious beliefs would produce a reduction in warlike tendencies and violence in religious believers, a claim that is obviously false. If you want to argue that religion doesn't lead to violence in and of itself, you have to ignore India, 9/11, every bombed abortion clinic, and dozens of other examples from the recent past, to say nothing of history. You would have to live in perpetual denial of reality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_violence

I can't meaningfully quote from the above article -- every line contradicts your claim.

[carsongross]

Wow, an article on religious violence goes over religious violence. Who would have guessed?

7% of all wars in history have been religiously motivated (note, that is not by body count: if we went that way the atheistic russian and Chinese civil wars plus nationalist world wars would make them a round-off error.)

Do some religious people commit violence? Yep. So do some environmentalists. Is the problem environmentalism? So do socialists. Is the problem socialism?

I get it: HackerNews commenters generally don't like religion, mainly on first-principle and emotional grounds. But there is no reason, logically, to exaggerate the dangers of religion, nor to deny the observable benefits.

[dennisgorelik]

If anything, atheism has stronger correlation with wars and violence than religion has (after controlling for the age of civilization).

Consider WW2: it was not backed up by religion. USSR was an atheist state and Germany was only mildly religious.

How about Cambodian Civil War: what was Pol Pot's religion?

[dennisgorelik]

9/11 was an attack mostly fueled by Saudi Arabians pissed off by US involvement in the Middle East in general and in Saudi Arabia in particular.

Blaming it on Islam is missing the point.

[lutusp]

> Blaming it on Islam is missing the point.

I didn't blame it on Islam, I attributed it to religious extremism, something the vast majority of Muslims reject. That attribution is absolutely correct and supported by an unbiased analysis of the events.

[dennisgorelik]

What's your point? That extremism is bad? I agree.

Are you also claiming that religious extremism is worse than non-religious extremism? Available data shows us that it's not the case.

[tzs]

Wasn't a major reason they were pissed off by the US presence in Saudi Arabia that some very major holy sites of their religion are there (such as Mecca), and they objected to having infidels near such sites?

[tptacek]

That's probably an oversimplification. The Saudi government's gobsmacking flagrant corruption was a powerful motivator for bin Laden, and religion is a vector for opposition to the Saudi state. And there's no question that the US helps keep the Saudi government in power.

The original stated objection of AlQ was indeed to remove US presence from Muslim holy sites, but Lawrence Wright's book on what happened (for example) makes it pretty clear that the religious stuff was more emblematic of the real problem than it was the real problem itself.

[wonderzombie]

What worries me more is people who believe the world is going to end in their lifetimes. How can we plan for the long-term future, as a species, with that kind of worldview?

[carsongross]

Sure, those people worry me too. Even the ones that think a "Singularity" is going to zap them up to techno-heaven.

The people who don't believe in objective right and wrong also worry me.

It's a long list.

[Houshalter]

I think the world will end in our lifetimes. We are only a generation away from strong AI at most.

[piyush_soni]

Well, for that question Europe fared much better. 70% believed in evolution. Only Russia was worse than US.