Originally Posted by: schmange...Religion is nothing but a money making, war making scam and we'd all be better off relying on our own intelligence to make decisions instead of sitting around with our hands pressed together praying to the big sky bully.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=schmange]...And the only thing religion seems to be good for is giving priests the opportunity to molest children and fanatics to wage wars.

Yep, with those lines I gotta kinda lean with Eric on this one, even though I'm no advocate for religion either. Cuz I don't think you can throw that blanket on all religion. Many of their genuine "causes" are quite noble, such as counselling/education, health/food support for the less fortunate, and adoption and parenting services to name a few. Sure they have their tv charlatans and possibly sick or violent extremists, but so does the "unfaithful" in probably greater proportions. And without trying to sound egotistical (because I know I'm not that smart), I think most of the world's population isn't that smart, or at the very least very educated, so making their own impulsive decisions may not always be the best idea. Religion can at least give a certain framework of common sense to those masses that might otherwise be lacking. So I definitely don't think wars, or molestations, or scam artists would disappear if religion went away...probably the opposite at this point in human evolution anyways.