Back to you Mogens.
I do not believe that religion has ever been harmless, nor is it nonsense. While there may be no truth to any of it, it has served a valuable purpose these last few millennia. While many look to natural law to enforce order, every society on earth has used religion and its dogma and commandments to restrict the behaviour of its peoples, and all seem to have some sort of ‘life prize’ for behaving according to its tenets. I don’t much care for Marx and his economic thought, but he was right in his statement that it was the opium of the people. Once they’re hooked, boy are they hooked, and it takes a considerable amount of intelligent discourse on someone else’s part to get them to see its folly and effect on them.
I think every war on earth has been fought with a religious tie in, and both sides seem to be pretty assured that their deity is going to ensure they win. I have read that ‘Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for though not beheld’. You have to have a pretty strong and unshakeable belief (‘faith’), and a convoluted and brainwashed train of thought process to be fanatical enough to murder a group of people by committing suicide.
I think every war on earth has been fought with a religious tie in, and both sides seem to be pretty assured that their deity is going to ensure they win. I have read that ‘Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for though not beheld’. You have to have a pretty strong and unshakeable belief (‘faith’), and a convoluted and brainwashed train of thought process to be fanatical enough to murder a group of people by committing suicide.