[quote]atheism (rebellion against God or hate of God or not believing in God)  is the most dangerous philosophy ever embraced by humanity.[/quote] -SWAN7DJ

Only a fool thinks religion is the problem with this world. I'm not even religious. You guys do realize university, the study of the cosmos, medicine, all that stuff came out of the church.

I posted this in response to someone else but it is also valid as a response to the OP: When you say say "the golden rule", I assume you mean do unto others as you would have them do unto you, right? To say that notion is derived from judeo-christian values is ridiculous. It is derived from basic human values. In not saying anything against the judeo-christian people, plenty of people who follow those religious beliefs do follow the golden rule but there's still a minority of people who don't follow it. That goes for every single religion in the world. I, personally, was born, raised, and have lived my whole in the United States as a Hindu by Hindu parents who moved to this country from India for the opportunities in this country. I was constantly taught to follow the golden rule (though these values were not necessarily called the golden rule by my parents when I was a kid) and was always told that it was a very basic and essential principle of the Hindu religion. As I grew up, I realized that it's not just unique to my own religion; I've realized that, in some way, every single religion in the world calls for its people to follow "the golden rule". Because of this, it's become clear that it's just a basic human value that people wrote into their religions in order to have people more willing to follow this "golden rule" since people are more willing to follow something if it is said to have religious basis. Every religion in the world calls for people to follow the "golden rule", but every single religion has a minority of people who twist the ideals of their religion and take things out of context in some sick way in order to justify their own sick ideas. This is true for every religion, crazy people exist everywhere, whether they're some forms of Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, or any other religion. No religion preaches hate; hate-filled people find ways to take certain things in their religion out of context in order to try to justify the terrible things they do. Thus, since "the golden rule" and basic respect for other humans are just essential human values, the world would exist in, or at least be closer to, a somewhat utopian state if either religion didn't exist at all or if complete religious freedom is achieved. This complete religious freedom is much more feasible and realistic, and would do just as much to help the world move toward a more utopian state. It just requires the crazy people within every religion who to be ignored. The majority of people in every religion have good intentions and have no ill-will towards others, but the crazy people are just more outspoken and are thus able to convince weak-willed people to join them as they twist their religion and take certain things out of context to support their violence and personal vendettas. People should be able to believe in whatever they want whether that is some religion, multiple religions, or none at all. Nobody should ever be forced to believe in or against any religion, and if everyone followed that and the peaceful majority makes our collective voices louder than the crazy people then we could achieve uniform religious tolerance and equality and move one step closer to a more utopian society and human beings. Tl;dr- if you would like to have an intelligent conversation/discussion, please read or at least skim my post and I'd be happy to discuss with you. Have a fantastic day!

Definitely not. Religion is a huge cause of warfare at times, but look at history before religion was even a huge thing Rome simply conquered to conquer. Christianity only came into play when they realized its political benefits.

Simple thought for non believers: You have doubts about religious faith? Wouldn't you say you believing there is no God is a faith of its own? Everyone has doubts about their faith regardless of what it is, believers and non-believers both, I understand this is a far stretch but if you're interested in learning why Christians believe in Jesus Christ and what standpoint they have about their religion, without using offensive standpoints towards those who don't believe in Christ (while giving intellectual and historical truths to the main questions non-believers have) I encourage you to read the book "The Reason For God" by Timothy Keller If you do take it upon yourself to just look into it and open your mind to it, please feel free to send me a message on here with any questions, although I am not a perfect Christian, nor the most intelligent I did find this book very useful as it cleared up many doubts I had.

Utopia can never exist while there are at least three people on this Earth. People are stupid.