Badges? We dont need no stinkin' Badges!!

Originally Posted by Spike

I don't even pay attention to idiots who blame religion for everything. It's a stupid trend with people these days because it makes them feel smart. "Religion is stoooopid! Faith is not scientific and it is illogical!!!" The funny thing is, these people are pretty uneducated in regards to what they're condemning. They'll probably cite something like the Crusades and say how violent religion makes people not knowing that the driving force of the Crusades was politics and not faith. It's best to ignore the ignorance.

Except that the reason religion gets a bad image from things like the crusades is that politics used religion in order to do some bad things. And I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss the church's hand in the crusades, I'm hesitant to consider them a duped puppet of politics in such matters.

Religion is *used* to facilitate terrible things such as crusades, jihads, inquisitions, genocides, etc. That's why it gets at least some of the blame. But of course you can just deny that it has anything/much to do with such things, I just don't see how you rationalize it.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I agree that assigning blame to one thing while ignoring the other factors is false and foolish. But the truth that there were other factors at work to justify the group/factor etc. that one likes doesn't really work in my view. Sure you can know that religion isn't the sole reason for all the ill it's been involved in, but how does that matter? That there is blame to spread around doesn't in any way make an offending party's role any less offensive.

Didn't mean to come across as blaming all these things on religion alone. Just trying to make the point that it doesn't have to be a black and white debate between "It's all religion's fault." and "Religion isn't the only reason, so it's not at fault." There is an obvious middle ground for anyone willing to see it.

There's nowhere I can't reach.