[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.

[lutusp]

> 7% of all wars in history have been religiously motivated

You're picking data to suit your beliefs. Another of your own sources said the number was 40%. In any case, this contradicts your prior claim that: "There is absolutely no historical connection between religion and war." That's quite false, however you cut it.

> Do some religious people commit violence? Yep. So do some environmentalists.

You're moving the goal posts and posing an absurd argument -- not unlike the child molester who says, "So? Who's perfect?"

> But there is no reason, logically, to exaggerate the dangers of religion, nor to deny the observable benefits.

I can't possibly exaggerate the dangers of religion in a country that (because of religious belief) rejects science and critical thinking, murders health workers, and tries to force Creationism into public school classrooms as though it's science.

And what benefits did you have in mind? A way to control the behavior of people who aren't very smart and need to have their hand held as they cross the busy street of life?

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intelligence

Quote: "In a 2013 meta-analysis, led by Professor Miron Zuckerman, of 63 scientific studies about IQ and religiosity, a negative relation between intelligence and religiosity was found in 53 out of 63 ..."

[carsongross]

You are the one picking data. The reality is that non-religious, even restricting to the more tightly defined atheist, people are responsible for more death and suffering than religious people. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot. End of discussion.

Religious people are happier and more moral. They are less intelligent, for sure, but there is no correlation between intelligence and morality. Furthermore, since there are far more religious people in the world than non-relgious people, in absolute terms there are more intelligent religious people than intelligent non-religious people.

Good times are to be had outside the anti-religious bubble most people swim in here, you should come on out.