I think you have dug to the heart of our disagreement.

First, you repeatedly state that religion is biological. I think that is partly accurate, but it's not that simple. I think religion itself is memetic, but the need to believe in something is biological. Religion is a symptom of our evolutionary need to believe/explain what we don't understand.

As for not being able to force evolution, we've been doing that - consciously or unconsciously - for thousands of years. While sterilizing the religious and only allowing atheists to breed might be one solution, I think the proper course is education combined with laws separating religion from the government.

While education doesn't work 100% of the time (as your example points out), it is pretty clear that those with more education have less religion. Nations with better education systems have less religious adherence and individuals with higher educations tend to have less religion. And the key words in those sentences are "less religion"; it doesn't mean less belief, it just re-aims that belief from religion to rational thought/science/etc.

Education is to religion as the scalpel is to the appendix - it removes the evolved, no longer useful, but still dangerous, problem.

With regards to it not being right to tell someone not to take comfort in that which comforts them, I partly agree. If it isn't harming anyone else, then I don't care what someone believes and I'm not going to get in their face about it (if they try to convert me though, they have opened the door and are fair game). But the line is drawn when someone's beliefs harm or pose a threat to the well-being of others. In that case, anyone who opposes equal rights (whether for homosexuals, women, non-religious) are fair game.

The issue I struggle with personally is the indoctrination of children. Having experienced that personally, knowing how that limited me (and harmed me, in some ways) I have difficulty allowing the indoctrination of children to go uncontested. But that's a different problem for another discussion


>> ^bareboards2:

We'll have to agree to disagree.
I don't think you can force evolution. It isn't a choice. Not unless you start breeding programs.
Want the biological need for the divine to go away? Sterilize all religious folks. I don't think you can talk folks out of it.
I speak from experience. My brother is a retired Air Force pilot with a Master's degree in aerospace engineering. Grew up in a secular household. His need for structure and the divine led him to the Mormon Church. Talk about goofy beliefs!! Good lord! And he voluntarily turned off his reasoning brain to accept all their nonsense as true. You say religion has "served its purpose." So why did he go there, when he wasn't indoctrinated into it growing up?
Not for me to tell him not to take comfort where he takes comfort.
However, it is for me to tell him to back off on gay marriage and not impose his church's beliefs on others. (And to tell him that when the church's membership starts falling, I guarantee his Prophet will suddenly hear from God that it is okay to be gay now.)

>> ^Skeeve:
I think most atheists would agree with you, that religion has served an evolutionary purpose. I don't have "The God Delusion" with me at the moment, but I'm pretty sure Dawkins acknowledges that as well.
But whether or not it serves an evolutionary purpose or not is irrelevant. The appendix served an evolutionary purpose - then we evolved to do without it. The same goes for the wisdom teeth; most people have them removed because they can cause huge problems, but in a world without dental care they are incredibly important.
Most of us atheists believe it is time, at least in the west, to "evolve" beyond the need for an invisible sky-daddy. We have the opportunity to do with religion what evolution did for the appendix.
Belief in a god is irrational. That's not to say it didn't serve a purpose, as evolution is not bound by the rational, only by phenotypic fitness. But, religion has served its purpose and, like the appendix or the wisdom teeth, it's time it was removed from our lives.
>>

I think most atheists would agree with you, that religion has served an evolutionary purpose. I don't have "The God Delusion" with me at the moment, but I'm pretty sure Dawkins acknowledges that as well.

But whether or not it serves an evolutionary purpose or not is irrelevant. The appendix served an evolutionary purpose - then we evolved to do without it. The same goes for the wisdom teeth; most people have them removed because they can cause huge problems, but in a world without dental care they are incredibly important.

Most of us atheists believe it is time, at least in the west, to "evolve" beyond the need for an invisible sky-daddy. We have the opportunity to do with religion what evolution did for the appendix.

Belief in a god is irrational. That's not to say it didn't serve a purpose, as evolution is not bound by the rational, only by phenotypic fitness. But, religion has served its purpose and, like the appendix or the wisdom teeth, it's time it was removed from our lives.
>> ^bareboards2:

I keep making the same comment on videos about religion and no fundamentalist atheist has intelligently responded to my point.
Humans have evolved with the need for religion, some portion of humanity. It has survived the evolutionary process. THEREFORE there must be some purpose or use for it, for some portion of humanity.
I find it galling in the extreme to read over and over again the chastisements of atheists dismissing a belief in God as being stupid and irrational.
The human need and ability to create the divine MUST HAVE AN EVOLUTIONARY PURPOSE. Scorning and scolding people about an ingrained, evolutionarily chosen trait is ignorant and rude and no different from evangelicals, those who have that trait in spades, forcing their beliefs onto others.
I do not believe in an intelligent force in the universe, guiding everything. The doctrines and specific myths told by religions ... I personally do not understand how folks can believe these things to be factually true.
But millions do. Millions have. There must be some need for it and it is NOT MY PLACE to tell someone else to abandon something that gives structure and solace.
Just stay out of the laws of the land.
That is why I like this vid so much. It shows the human need for ... something... without it being doctrinaire.
And Richard Dawkins isn't the only atheist in the world. He is just a loud one, @ChaosEngine.

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In reply to this comment by kulpims:
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They might not be. Train is, by far, the most economical way to transport heavy military vehicles - particularly tracked ones. These may be on their way from a base to a training area.

Tracked vehicles need an insane amount of maintenance - upwards of 12 man-hours for every hour they are driven. Driving these across the country would be inordinately expensive.>> ^Yogi:

I drive through Watsonville on my way to Santa Cruz from the 5. I never knew these things were even built in California.

The "heavily armed and armoured" part is the problem. These are not heavily armed. They fit squarely within the definition of an APC:

armored personnel carrier 
noun
a tracked military vehicle with a steel or aluminum hull used to transport troops in combat and usually fitted with light armament. Abbreviation: APC>> ^AeroMechanical:

I think you could call those tanks. Dictionary definition of 'tank' is "an enclosed heavily armed and armored combat vehicle that moves on tracks." Depends on the audience and context. To the world at large, those are tanks.

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In reply to this comment by oritteropo:
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I think that a "just" war is something that can only exist in a historical context. The Second World War was undoubtedly an economic/resource war (with myriad other "causes" piled on top) and the parties entered into it with that in mind. It is only after the dust settles that someone can claim it was justified - as it was in the case of the Second World War with the realization of the scale of Nazi atrocities.

I don't think that means a "just" war doesn't exist, just that nations don't enter into a war for the same reasons they are later justified with.

With regards to American profiteering, it really isn't debatable; the US was publicly trading with both the Axis and the Allies until Pearl Harbor and then American businesses found more secretive ways of trading with Germany after. If one believes in nationalism above all else, then this is horrid, but if money is what someone worships, then this is the correct course of action. Either way, the justification of the war doesn't really come into it.

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