Communism was pretty much a religion mate. They just substituted Stalin or Mao for their "God".
Evrything else from the songs and the doctrines, even to symbology (Hammers and sickles, swastikas instead of Cross or Crescent) and Scripture.("Little red books" "Mein Kampf" instead of The Book of Mormon or Dianetics)

Religion is not violent.
nevertheless all muslims have evil minds.
Trust me this is true, but that does not relate to islam in any way, Islam has simply diminished, does not exist, and whoever tell u it does, it is violent, the old islam never had conflicts my friend, was powerful, both do not exist, that is for u to admit.
Who gave the reason to battle us, Brother in Islam Osama. Who is killing and (ADMITTING) doing it on TV is it Brother Bush, Or sister Al-Janabi. Think reasonably, bush is good for his people we should respect that, we r his enemy he should kill us we should respect that too, and the best part is he can do it.
Stop fighting among yourself like children only then think to fight team3 buddies.

I actually agree with you, but using that logic one could say any act that motivates people to violence is "like" a religion. Whether it be for an ideology, nationalism, a cult of personality, etc.

I think you can acheive a nice balance between patriotism and nationalism. I'd rather the world be as one,(cue violins and dancing children in feilds of flowers), but since that is quite clearly tellytubbyland, i'll settle with something less.

In some ways yep, your again right with that. Lets say a campaign against Foxhunting took place. You have the crowds of same minded, self-rightious thinking groups, chanting slogans, full of ethical arguement, gathered behind a agitator-prophet, quoting verses from the Daily Mail.
But perhaps thats diluting it a little too much

I wouldn't say religion is a cause of violence in most cases. I would say it is used as a justification of violence.

Perhaps then it is a matter of sticking to religious teachings . I know of muslims who adhere to Islam very well and they're awesome people as a result. I also know of muslims who don't adhere to Islam nearly as much as I do (and I admit it could be more but hey I'm working on it) and they're real jerks.

No doubt that economics and environment are big factors. I'm a psychologist - I know how important that stuff is lol!

I agree fully on that. However, were it not for some religions we would not have certain things which we take for granted

I think with or without religion, there will always be violence. If any of you have cousins or younger sibling, you'll know that if you give one of them a green smarty and the other a yellow one, you can bet your ass that there's going to be a fight within 4 seconds of you turning around. Note: I know this from experience - I have more than 8 cousins....eid is not always a pretty site when it comes to pressies!

This is exactly the point.
Most religions profess peace, but is the world peaceful because of it?

No, because people will go to mosque/church/temple, and do all the necessaries as per their religion, but their actions and thoughts are not always those of a pure muslim/christian/etc.
Being of a particular religion gives them another mechanism to group together a large number of people for a cause under the guise of doing good in the name of the almighty.
How many muslims do you know that have never done anything wrong?

As I think barney said, people who commit atrocities in the name of their religion do so with the opinion that their actions are sanctioned by god himself. They cannot be swayed an inch from their beliefs, as you can see from any thread on this forum.

A child can be reasoned with and you can always give them more sweets to even things out, but can you imagine India saying "hey pakistan, why don't you all just become hindus and then we can be friends, islam isn't the true religion anyway"

Most countries profess peace too...so it's clearly a human flaw

The same could be said for any grouping; goths, nerds, jocks, geeks etc. Though they prefer the term conformity as opposed to carrying out God's will etc.
None but I don't know of any that has commited/is planning to commit murder.

Yeah I understand that, but it is the fault of the follower --- not the religion. Again, human error.

Indeed children can be reasoned with. It's when you get older you start turning into more of a jerk. With pakistan and india, even if there was no religion or they both had the same one, they'd still be fighting (due to ethinc and culture reasons mostly) - it's human nature to fight for your belief (whether that is a religion, culture or whatever you think is the right way to live your life.)

Greetings and peace be with you Nerd;
It’s a bit like saying guns and bombs are the number one cause of violence and cruelty, but that would be wrong. It is man that is the number one cause of violence, if we did not have bombe to kill each other with, we would find something else.

In the spirit of praying for peace on Earth

Eric

Not the point. Islam is there to tell you how to do everything right. If you just pick and choose which bits you feel like doing, what's the point? You might as well pick a simple set of humanistic principles and work around them.
It is partly to do with the follower, but religion enables him to act this way unlike any other reason as this is the only case in which the person is under the impression he is absolutely correct and that he has god on his side. Such a person does not consider the possibility of being wrong and thus is dangerous in his inflexibility.
Without religion he would be better able to take the middle ground and reach a compromise.

1)Religious texts of all the major religions specify people that are enemies of God.
2)They prescribe to the reader what God wants done with these people.
3) They relate Tales of what happened to quasi-historical figures who disobayed.
4) They promote the dietys chosen people as superior. The others are dogs, losers, and due a punishment.

If your Dad came up to you and said "Hey son or daughter, The Geordies are worthless trash, theyre my enemy, your far better than them, there will be a time when even Trees will start pointing out where they are and asking you to kill them, the loser-worthless, apes and donkeys, with their crappy football team and their whiney accents"
You wuld tell your dad to stop talking nonsense.
You cant tell God that.

What does all this scripture say to the reader?
It dosnt tell them to bake the enemies of God a cake.

Cheers. Ill have a look. I must admit , i havnt read your scriptures yet, I was still working through Dianetics at the moment, but that is really really freaking Dull. I could do with a change.

By the way. Dont all of you guys carry really big knives?

Not all, just those that are baptised, that in no way implies Sikhism is violent. You'll need to study a religion before making such statements Mr Barney naughty man you!