Possibly consider religion as a technology to misdirect. I am not aware of any radical leaders who espouse subversive actions getting their hands dirty!

@Geoffrey51 I have a FB friend who boasts that her pastor used the church bus to proudly escort his parishoners to the polls to vote for Trump. When Bush W was running, I had lunch with a pastor and his wife who actively got his parishoners to vote for W. The evangelistic movement is very powerful and it is a known fact that W embraced this religion for the first time to ensure his election. Recently Trump came out with: The reason they are persecuting me is because I am a Christian.

@think-beyond what I meant was that they won’t be blowing themselves up they’ll leave that to their ‘people’

Science is pure but human use of it is not. Eugenics, War, poorly researched and tested drugs.... One could argue that religion operates in a similar vein in that people use it for both good and bad results. For me it is all about the results. My greatest problem with religion is its encouragement of ignorance and its obsession with tradition over logic and new information. I have a similar issue with scientists who cling to chosen theory and ideas in the face of new information and theories.

Kacynski the Unabomber was neither religious nor unintelligent. More a Marxist and brilliant mathematician with passion for the planet. Many people were assaulted during his spree. It’s not just religion. It’s about causes which is a human thing not institutional

@Geoffrey51 He did not strap a bomb to his ass. That is a huge difference. There is a difference between fanaticism and just plain crazy or psychotic.

@Sticks48 the outcome is the same if more sinister!

@Geoffrey51 Beliveing is not the danger. The danger is in the institutions.

@Sticks48 we’ll have to agree to disagree there I think.

The rot started when people learned to read, and books started to be published. The Internet has merely accelerated the process.

@Matias Non of us will see it since it will take longer than our life time but just look at the trend......

@Matias I didn't say it will be easy..... still believe in the long haul all religions are doomed to vanish for good

@IamNobody
It will only because humans are most likely doomed to vanish for good, in the long haul, and possibly even in the not so long haul. But religion is biology-based, so it will be here as long as we are, or until we get a lot better at gene splicing.

@Matias
I think you’re right.

@skado We are born with no religion. It's not in our genes. It's indoctrination what gets that job done. As we keep moving forward, new generations will dilute the indoctrination effort until is thin enough to get lost in the next cycle. As I have said, none of us will get to see it... it's a slow process

@IamNobody
That's a very reasonable hypothesis, but upon closer examination, I don't think it is supported by the evidence. Of course we are born without organized religion, just as we are born without a specific language, but just as we are born with the seeds of language capability, we are also born with the biological seeds of religion. We are socialized into whatever specific language or religion happens to be prevalent in the area, but we have that potential yearning to be expressed, and it will find an outlet unless all adults are somehow missing from the scene, such as in cases of feral humans being raised by wolves, etc. Even then, eventually, language and religion would reorganize and bubble to the surface. It's in our biology.
[amazon.com]

@Matias
Good point!

@skado This is actually a good discussion that unfortunately may end up like I say this then you say that and repeat endlessly. The pre-programming before birth ( if that's what you have implied ) is subjective and you cannot prove it is as I cannot prove it is not. It was a good discussion and probably the bucket should stop here.

@IamNobody
Stop whenever you like, but if you’d like to learn more about the evidence, the book I linked above lists many scientific studies that you can read for yourself. It’s not about me or you or proving anything; it’s about being willing to look at the evidence or not.

@skado Agree, ok

@skado Yes but having the biological scafolding for religion does not mean that you have to be religious in the theistic way, religion may fill biological needs but that does not mean that many other things such as philosophy can not fill that same place. You could say that we have the biological framework for rape, (an interest in sex and violence and the genitalia needed ) but that does not mean that we have to be rapists or that we should stop planning for a day, when society is well enough for rape to be ancient history.

@Fernapple
Yes I think you are exactly right when it comes to any one individual. Evolution gives us potentials, but one of the potentials it gives us is the ability to say no to some of our potentials. But the species still carries those potentials, so while individuals can vary, the group at large is still exceedingly likely to express those potentials. So the way we suppress potentials in groups (as opposed to individuals) is through culture. So organized religion (as opposed to the biological impulse to religion) is a cultural corrective to rape, incest, theft, murder, envy, sloth, etc. already, but one that has become corrupted by other potentials like greed, power, fear, pride, etc. So the only way a group can correct the corrective is through cultural revolution, or at least cultural evolution. So call the resulting shift in global worldview by whatever name you are most comfortable with, but it will be filling the place historically occupied by religion.

@skado Yes that is it. But the "shift in global world view" does not have to include the supernatural, which is I think what most people who call themselves sceptics including those here reject. Having said that I do not think that you can ever replace the supernatural altogether, but, to use the rape analogy again, it can be made uncommon and pushed to the outer limits of society. Having said which, even that may of course be pie in the sky, since with a global environmental catastophy on the way, the exhaustion of many resources in the next few years and a huge population making a global pandemic almost certain given enough time, we will probably enter a new dark age first. Who knows.

@Fernapple
I agree with all of that, especially the effort to keep the supernatural at bay.

@Matias the only kind of religion is bad.