I label them religionists. Where you have religion you have unnecessary pain and suffering.

The US military is a secular thing though, it not (supposed) to represent any one religion. Its not quite the same as the Knights Templar riding to slay the infidel.

No religion in North Korea, and thats a fine example of no pain and suffering no doubt Its not religion thats the problem, its extremists. Take away religion and they will only fixate on something else. Big-endians and Little-endians come to mind if you know your Jonathan Swift.

Quite, but that wasnt the question was it.

Taken in isolation the question was "Should they or shouldnt they build a mosque at "Ground Zero"? So lets not let the facts get in the way

I don't say all bad things are connected with religion, I accept that people do bad things for reasons not associated with religion. However, if you ask what's the matter with these Christians and Muslims that they have to keep killing each other, the answer is that they have religion. Eliminate the religion and you'd have a better world, not a perfect one.

It would be in poor taste to do so but it's in New York, waddyawant?

You dont think they would fight over wealth, or power, or access to water supplies, or, heaven forbid the thought, oil, instead? I dont think the current conflict has all that much to do with religion to be honest. Not on one side at least, and perhaps not on the other either.

Apparently I was wrong, it does happen occasionally ( but don't tell the wife ).

This tangent derives from your:

"And yet somehow there has been nations in conflict on and off, muslim vs christian, for the better part of a thousand years or more, regardless of how you want to label the sides."

Muslims vs. Christians is a fight over religion. Yes, absent religion and they might fight over something else but religion serves to divide and create conflict, it's something we ought to be able to eliminate.

It also serves as a basis for many organisations (and individuals) that do great good in the world too. Perhaps overall they balance each other out.

It's true that not all mentally ill people are dangerous maniacs.

Methinks you oversimplify

Some nutters use religion as a smokescreen for their intellectually and ideologically bankrupt positions, espousing violence and conflict. Such has been the case for hundreds of years - through the Crusades, the internecine conflicts of reformation Europe, the sectarian violence between Sunni and Shia in the middle east... war in the name of religion is neither new nor justifiable.

Conversely, most adherents of most religions are peaceloving folks who quietly get on with their lives in the contentment that their belief brings them some (albeit somewhat irrational) comfort.

Today, it's almost exclusively the fundamentalists, of any stripe, that give religion (all religion) a bad name. Islam doesn't teach conflict, any more than Christianity does. Of the Abrahamic religions, all three have come to reasonable accommodation with the more extreme bloodthirstiness of the earliest scripture. Islamic fundamentalists, some ultra-orthodox Jews, and some fundie Christian sects tend to concentrate on the bits about a wrathful god, the requirement for punishment by stoning, the subordination of women, and a whole load of stuff that the more, shall we say, enlightened mainstream have pretty much abandoned. Unfortunately for the rest of us, the fundamentalists also have the loudest voices, while the mainstream looks on, aghast but silent by comparison. You don't see too many "not in my name" banners on religious marches...

As I've said before on here, I'm nominally an Anglican. I attended school chapel three times a week and church most Sundays when I was growing up, but since then it's gone from Christmas-and-Easter-when-I-remember to a weddings-christenings-funerals kind of churchgoing. I am comfortable with the breadth of belief within Anglicanism that encourages scepticism and questioning, and with the ability of the Anglican church, rather more than the Roman organization, to adapt to the social mores of the day. That doesn't make me a nutter, nor violent, nor a dangerous maniac, although you're free to disagree on any of those (without fear of retribution, of course).

Dunno, there is a lightning bolt out there with Alans name on it methinks.

Well said by the way, I'm not religious, not even really a lapsed anything, but my wife is a churchgoer. God aint the problem, people are the problem. There are some very blinkered views of religion bandied about here.

If that eventuality I'll just become a martyr to the radical atheist cause.

Crikey, is this thread still going? I'm surprised.

<Wanders off for a little while. The pride of shooting a bear on the bum with a pellet gun surrounding him like that of an angel>