Seems pretty obvious he is claiming just that.

You still have no response I see. What happens in forums is setting up some kind of strawman, then you make an ad hominem attack on the straw man. This method of fallacy has been present in forums since the first forums. But, the only resonse you have is that I may or may not have read an article and that you think you are a forum expert while the rest of us just post whatever comes to mind. You have no response to the facts so have to resort to the usual forum fallacies.

The religion of Christianity begins with the Hebrew tradition. Eygptians as far as we know came after the Hebrew tradition. Of course, they also beleived in some religious things and that again flys in the face of your arguements. See the religion actually gets to decide what their beliefs are, so the Christians religion begins with "and then there was Light". Even the Summerians probably didn't come before Light. And since you claim the Summerians had a religion, then that also flys in the face of your arguement. The truth is that Spiritual Beliefs have alway been with us, and odds are they will continue to be with us.

That sounds rather Orwellian.

The Egyptian culture is generally believed to predate the Israelite culture by some 2500-3000 years...so this leaves two obvious questions:

1. Who are "we"?
2. What is the evidence of this claim?

If all you can come up with is "and then there was light", this is all rather silly because even if we just go by this as a biblical discussion then Abraham came about a good while after that.

My original comment was in reply to this:

You claim that over time, most scientific theories are overturned. You seem to contrast this negatively with spiritual beliefs, which you believe have existed since time began.

My argument is that you are being inconsistent: sure, spiritual beliefs have existed for a long time, but they also change over time! You're treating 'spirituality' as one entity, as if it didn't consist of numerous splinter-groups and divisions, of which there are hundreds in Christianity alone, but you don't extend the same courtesy to science: you treat science as if it is one entity that is eventually disproven rather than a conglomeration of facts, theories, and hypotheses which are in a continual evidential flux running the spectrum from absolutely proven to completely falsified, with a lot of grey area in between.

As to your belief that the Egyptian and Sumerian religions did not exist until after the Israelities, I can only offer this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_religion. To give you one example: there is evidence of Sumerian religion existing approximately 2,000 years before the first books of the Torah were composed.

The trick here is obviously to only count as religious wars those, where both sides very explicitly state that they fight for only religious reasons.

Maybe you want to go over this again, since you clearly didn't get it the first time.

I took the liberty of bolding that part. I hope that's ok.

And here is the relevant article that responds directly to the bold. No strawman. No tricks. No fallacies. Just a simply response that you refuse to acknowledge for some reason.

That wouldnt provide the necessary propaganda, so they have to skew the figures as much as possible.

Also they still come out about even last century between deaths attributable to theist nations and those attributable to communist nations. Obviously when you look back in history religious nations killed way more people.

Im not sure what those figures are meant to say given there is no "atheism" figure to compare to. In any case no one has ever been killed in the name of atheism so its a completely false comparison any way you cut it. Communists didnt kill people because they believed in a god, in fact a huge chunk of the people they killed were fellow communists.

Please turn off all your science and stop relying on it to house, clothe and feed you.

I am convinced that this is true.

Again, I am deeply sorry for making a mistake in my OP, but I really meant:

Will Organised Religion survive the 21st century? Again, if there are about 1 million Catholics in 2100, I would count that as "did not survive".

Is Jib ever going to cite his (ridiculous) statistics he posted earlier ITT???

Religion has been recruiting from the third world for a long time now. As long as people are not educated beyond a basic level there will always be organised religion willing to step into the fold to provide "answers".

About the only spiritual like thing that Atheists seem to get excited about is trying proselytize others into their belief system. The thing is many if not most of them may or may not realize that they are actually agnostics. When they emerge from debate and relax, how many of them tell you something strange and unproven in their own belief system. Like aliens landed and spawned us all. Here's something for us to try, mouth the words "I dont know", which is the begininning basis for spiritual belief systems, even Atheists!

There is no evidence there is god and that is enough to conclude there is no god. You seem to expect to find evidence of the negative.

Whilst i cannot conclude with absolute certainty there is no god given i am open to reevaluating upon discovering further evidence (or in this case any evidence) the willingness to change your understanding of the existence of a god does not make one an agnostic.

If atheists are agnostics because they cannot prove with absolute certainly there is no god then i assume you conclude theists are agnostic because they cannot prove with absolute certainty there is a god.

So when should i expect this awakening to occur as ive been saying idk for a while now.

Dominant left brain systems ftw!

yeah I agree with this, also if parents keep putting their kids through the church system it will obv continue to survive to some degree. imo

Very, very few.

This. To paraphrase Dawkins: the point of the argument is not a simple tallying up of people killed by 'atheists' and people killed by 'theists'. It's about whether there is a logical pathway from being a theist or an atheist and killing people. Saying that Stalin was an atheist killer is about as relevant as saying Stalin was a mustachioed killer. Whereas for people like Osama bin Laden, religion is at the heart of their willingness to commit atrocities (though not the only factor, of course).

I would comfortably say that religion is the only reason OBL and his followers commit atrocities.

They dont care about land as such, nor money or even power in an earthly sense. Conspiracy theorists like referring to how it was grossly illogical for AQ to commit 9/11 and they have it right in the sense they understand the logic, they just have it backwards thinking that because it is illogical to them it is illogical to someone who has goals that transcend our plain of existence.

Their intended goals of enforcing hardline Islam, ridding the Muslim world of western influence and enforcing Sharia law is not about the land or power itself, it is the reflection of their actions in the afterlife that is important to them. They believe their actions not only guarantee a place in heaven but that it improves heaven.

Are you implying that believing something strange and unproven is a sign we should not trust a person's judgment?

(I'm not saying this isn't so, I just want to know if this is your stance).

grunch

No b/c of the rapture ldo.

Wow. Just wow. Osama bin Laden was paid by the USA to cause the 'Commies' trouble in Afghanistan. When the Cold War was over, the USA told him - like every other dictator they supported - to get lost.
Chaos ensued. That (and the support for Israel) is why Osama bin Laden and others like him hate the USA and the West. Religion is only relevant to these people as their means of rallying thousands of supporters for their 'cause'.

I don't think its "true religion". Usually violence and the need to control is the absence of spirituality but an indication of the presence of the carnal mind.

The carnal mind pursues power and dominance. You see this need to pursue power and dominance in every group though including atheists.

Whenever I see the "carnal mind" at work...I know its not "true religion" or an area the individual has failed to address (maybe why daily self-examination is so important and having Christ as your role model)...maybe he thinks he is making an attempt at true religion but its an unknowing failed attempt...

Putting to death pride and the ego is a tricky business...

^^^ sigh