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Great Scott, he's got it!
Religious belief doesn't do a thing. The individual does it.
The world's ills are caused by the actions of people. Not beliefs. Those people chose to impact their surroundings negatively.
And I responded honestly by saying no, that people are individuals and not all of them will embrace the same thing...not even atheism. I'm not accusing you of anything; I'm just arguing the points in your posts.
People will still bicker about what is right and wrong, who is better and who is not. The actions will be the same, they will just have different reasons for doing them. We can't even get people to agree on what constitutes a TRUE atheist.

My two cents.
Tangie

Marduk

Eradicating religion worked so well in the Soviet Union, almost as well as eradicating alcohol worked during prohibition. Not to mention North Korea, they no longer worship a God, they worship the crackpot son of their former Fearless Leader! Such a bounty of stupid things to worship, you’d almost think people enjoyed worshiping things . Maybe if people had enough toys, a high standard of living and an education they’d stop worshiping things. Too bad it would take the equivalent of three planet Earth’s to provide all 6 billion humans the resources to have the standard of living the USA enjoys. But the USA is one of the most religious places on Earth, hmmm. Guess this bugger won’t go away.
But it will get worse as the resources run out, my crystal ball sees 200 years into the future, Earth populated by about 50 million or so hunter/gatherers worshipping…something or another.
:rolling:

Sparrow

But some people choose their actions based on their beliefs. There are belief systems out there that advocate intolerance in many degrees, even to the point of homicide. That's not to say that all religions are evil, but some people are clearly incited to perform evil acts in the name of religion. At least that's what they claim. Inquisition anyone?

Being an atheist and not having an ancient book with all the answers at the ready, I have to admit that I don't know everything, that there are some issues for which reason alone provides no clear answer and that some of my fundamental assumptions may be wrong. These things tend to create an attitude of tolerance to other viewpoints, hopefully leading to a peaceful coexistance. This can be and often is broken by the irrational beliefs of others, whether religiously based or not. But only when it begins to affect me. Believe you have pink elephants in your living room if you want, I don't care. Try to tax me to pay for their veterinary care and I do. Your religion requires you to eat fish on Friday - I don't care. Your religion tells me what I can eat on Friday and I do. I think that most of us who live our lives based on reason, shunning irrational thoughts, think the world would be a better place when more people acknowledge they might be wrong instead of insisting that they are always right. Hence the OP.

I think it takes more courage in our current society to live a purely rational life than not, so I think there would be many people who couldn't do it. That's OK by me, as long as they restrict their irrationality to themselves. I have no interest in mandating atheism or eradicating religion. I don't think either would work in practice. I do think that someone who learns to think rather than blindly accept what they are told will be a better citizen.

The AntiChris

You clearly don't understand the relationship between beliefs and actions.
Other than a at a very trivial level, this is just plain wrong.

Our actions, if they're intentional, will always be informed by our beliefs. It follows therefore, that if one wants to modify behaviour, you have to modify beliefs.

An example.

George is a motorist who erroneously believes that the red signal means 'go'. Consequently George is constantly getting involved in accidents. Now, at a very trivial level, it could be argued that these accidents are caused solely by George's actions (his poor driving) and not his beliefs.

However, I can't imagine anyone suggesting we do nothing about George's beliefs simply because he's always gonna be a bad driver - yet this appears to be precisely the position you're taking regarding religious belief.
This just a reiteration of your opinion that religious belief, of itself, has never resulted in harmful consequences. I find this claim preposterous.

Chris