If you actually believe the bible to be divine, then you can't logically ignore parts you don't like.  At least not without cognitive dissonance.  

As for literally anything can be used as a catalyst for violence, no not really.  Throughout history, there are patterns of certain things consistently leading to violence.  Religion is one of the big ones.  Nationalism is probably a close second.  Things that divide people into factions, American vs non-American, saved vs damned, muslim vs infidels, are particularly effective at causing violence.  Another key element is when something is beyond question.  

Religion has a special ability to be used for evil because of its priveleged status, the way people are indoctrinated, and the obedience it instills.  Take for instance the catholic church.  Generally, parents would not leave their child alone with a man you sort of know who is not in your family.  As a teacher, there are tons of things in place to prevent us from doing anything innapropriate to children (although not always effective).  But, since people were trained with the idea that priests are holy, they left their kids in the priest's care.

Afterwards, the vatican actively shuffled pedophiles around the globe to avoid a scandal.  If any other organization were caught in something like this, that would be the end of it.  Yet the catholic church can endure it.  Because it is supposedly ordained by god.  

That's an example of a kind of abuse that could really only happen with religion.  Sure there are many cases of molestation that take place outside the church, but the scale of it is almost impossible to imagine being carried out by any other group.   There are tons of other examples I could use too.  

Of course violence would still occur if religion disappeared.  I never said it wouldn't.  But, we'd be taking away one of the most effective tools in driving people to violence, and we'd eliminate a large chunk of it.  Individuals do not exist in a vacuum.  They are influenced by the environment around them.  A person with violent tendencies may or may not act them out depending on the environment they find themselves in.  We've seen pretty consistently that religious environments are much better at promoting violence.

Guys, they're just practicing their religion.

Since the 1700s, with Peter the Great.

Cognitive dissonance is one way to put it, lazy catholics or muslims is another way of putting it. Meaning they want to believe but do they really? The brain is a very logical processing device and if you speak to a lot of Atheists who used to be religious people, many will tell you that they more wanted to believe due to fear of no after life. Many things are at play here. This would take forever to cover and my point only really pertains to the inherent nature of the mind versus the lack of inherent nature of religion.

For sure certain conditions can be more of a catalyst, as I said before religion is the most followed system so it would make sense for it to show up on top.

Nothing is ever beyond question, and if someone tells you it is then that is on them, not religion. It is up to the human brain to make decisions, religion cannot be inherently bad.

Listen, we could sit here and exchange stories all day about how religion does good and religion does evil, at the end of the day it's the people behind it. I could talk about Muhatma Ghandi who helped over 200 million people feel like they were loved. I could delve into Mother Teresa or the countless sermon's. You could then counter with The Crusade and we would have this talk all day. What this proves though is that religion is not inherently bad or inherently good, it depends on the people pushing an ideology in said direction. This can happen to any ideology, not just religion, but religion is the most followed so you are going to have more points against religion, that's just how statistics works.

I don't agree with children being raped and those that commited those unthinkable acts should be more than held accountable (many have been). This is due to the institutionalised manner of the power that an institution can have, not just with religion, it has little to do with God so much as a group of people exercising their power in very immoral ways. There have been too many scandals in every walk of life with or without religion (capitalism/politics very close behind religion) to say that kids got raped due to God. But yes, this is bad that rape takes place with those kinds of people, they are sick in the head.

More people are molested outside of church than inside of church by an absolutely MASSIVE margin. You don't need religion to create bad environments but you weren't talking about that, I know, you were talking about organised groups. But my point still stands that you don't need religion to commit these kinds of acts.

Aren't religious communities more healthy with less crime than the average community? Now this could be because of brainwashing or what-have-you but violence happens when two people disagree on something, this is common nature in human beings and, again, does not require religion.

Hmm... interesting. You think that science has logically deduced that there is no God? And there's evidence for this 'logical' assertion?!! If this is true, I'd simply love for you to enlighten me to this. Be warned though, if, whatever you provide is insufficient, which, I have no doubt it will be, do prepare to be rebutted.

A combination of laziness and cognitive disonnance I guess.  They don't want to follow rules, so they make up a reason not to.  Could also just be that basic human decency tells them that these are bad ideas, so they make excuses not to do it.

If you think religion is not beyond question then ask the kid in the video getting beaten to death.  A lot of people have made religion beyond question, and when people try to excuse the religious ideas from any blame, it encourages that view.

Mother Teresa was a shitty person.  It's kind of besides the point here, but look into it.  

"I don't agree with children being raped and those that commited those unthinkable acts should be more than held accountable (many have been). This is due to the institutionalised manner of the power that an institution can have, not just with religion, it has little to do with God so much as a group of people exercising their power in very immoral ways. There have been too many scandals in every walk of life with or without religion (capitalism/politics very close behind religion) to say that kids got raped due to God. But yes, this is bad that rape takes place with those kinds of people, they are sick in the head."

What other kind of institution would get away with this?  Could endure this kind of scandal and live on?  Yes, they're sick in the head (although perhaps their religious upbringing has something to do with that).   And having people trained to believe that priests are holy is what allowed them to actually act upon their desires.  To commit a crime, you need opportunity.  If they didn't have the opportunity that their position afforded them, would they still have molested children?  Some probably would.  Most I imagine would not.  

"More people are molested outside of church than inside of church by an absolutely MASSIVE margin. You don't need religion to create bad environments but you weren't talking about that, I know, you were talking about organised groups. But my point still stands that you don't need religion to commit these kinds of acts."

I never said you needed religion to commit these kinds of acts.  I said it enabled them to get away with it on such a large scale.  If the catholic church didn't exist, kids would still get molested.  But, hundreds or thousands less of them would have.  Just because we can't eliminate every instance of molestation or violence doesn't mean we shouldn't try to eliminate as many as possible, including the ones caused by religion.  

"Aren't religious communities more healthy with less crime than the average community? Now this could be because of brainwashing or what-have-you but violence happens when two people disagree on something, this is common nature in human beings and, again, does not require religion."

To my knowledge, no.  They've done studies on a nationwide basis, and there is a negative correlation between religiosity and societal health.  I don't know if they'd done it on a community level.  Poorer people tend to be more religious, so I'd imagine that more religious neighborhoods have higher crime.

Sure.  People disagree with things.  Let's take homosexuality for instance.  A guy may think homosexuality is icky.  He probably isn't going to do much about it.

Now, take the same guy.  Convince him that it's not just him thinking it's icky, the all powerful being he worships finds homosexuality repulsive.  Homosexuality is something that this being thinks is so vile he'll torture you forever for it.  It's not just his opinion anymore, it's a fact about the universe.

Now this guy is emboldened.  Maybe he'll just be a prick.  Maybe he'll hold up signs that says god hates fags.  Maybe he'll shoot up a nightclub.

While we're at it, we can also look at the homosexual who is being told in church that every crush he/she has is a sign that he is an evil person.

It takes a little extra something to turn someone with a violent impulse to someone who carries out a violent act.  Believing your act to be justified by an all powerful god could help.  Believing that the people you're attacking are "infidels" who are offending the great Allah helps.  Believing that the people you're the chosen people of yahweh, and he has given you special rights can help.  Believing the people you are targeting are sinners deserving of no less than eternal torture can help.

Religion is one of the ways used to divide people into "us and them".  To dehumanize groups of people and justify violence against them.  It's not the only way, but it's one of them.  The more we eliminate these things, the better off we are.

If you think religion is not beyond question then ask the kid in the video getting beaten to death.  A lot of people have made religion beyond question, and when people try to excuse the religious ideas from any blame, it encourages that view.

I don't think religion is beyond question just because people are psychopathic enough to kill someone for having a different view to them. We're talking about cold blooded murderers.

Mother Teresa was a shitty person.  It's kind of besides the point here, but look into it.  

I know all about it, she has made mistakes but she also helped as one of the greatest orator's of her time.

What other kind of institution would get away with this?  Could endure this kind of scandal and live on?  Yes, they're sick in the head.  And having people trained to believe that priests are holy is what allowed them to actually act upon their desires.  And, then the church helped them to escape justice, and go to new communities where they would have more opportunities.  

Due to Wall Street the corporate cover-ups are astonishing, political scandals are very widespread in every country. The amount of allegations that jump out of every news outlet about politics is immeasurable. Religion, corporations, politicians, they can get away with it all. But this raping of children is an institutional problem, not a religious problem. These people aren't raping the kids because they are religious, it would be a fallacy to claim so.

I never said you needed religion to commit these kinds of acts.  I said it enabled them to get away with it on such a large scale.  If the catholic church didn't exist, kids would still get molested.  But, hundreds or thousands less of them would have.  Just because we can't eliminate every instance of molestation or violence doesn't mean we shouldn't try to eliminate as many as possible, including the ones caused by religion.  

As stated above, I think it's an institutional problem for if the Vatican wasn't so institutionalised they would not have such an easy time getting away with it. It needs to stop but attacking religion as if it's the source is, imo, an indirect measure at which to go about solving this issue.

Sure.  People disagree with things.  Let's take homosexuality for instance.  A guy may think homosexuality is icky.  He probably isn't going to do much about it.

Now, take the same guy.  Convince him that it's not just him thinking it's icky, the all powerful being he worships finds homosexuality repulsive.  Homosexuality is something that this being thinks is so vile he'll torture you forever for it.  It's not just his opinion anymore, it's a fact about the universe.

Right. Except it's not a fact, it's a belief, and judging by how many homosexual Christians there are in America kinda brings me back to my point that people are lazy Christians or lazy Muslims who can calculate for themselves in a non-proprietary manner that listening to a book in a literal sense isn't the right step to take. That's their decision.

It takes a little extra something to turn someone with a violent impulse to someone who carries out a violent act.  Believing your act to be justified by an all powerful god could help.  Believing that the people you're attacking are "infidels" who are offending the great Allah helps.  Believing that the people you're the chosen people of yahweh, and he has given you special rights can help.  Believing the people you are targeting are sinners deserving of no less than eternal torture can help.

Religion is one of the ways used to divide people into "us and them".  To dehumanize groups of people and justify violence against them.  It's not the only way, but it's one of them.  The more we eliminate these things, the better off we are.

This is a good point but your point here would seem to pertain only to violent people who could be triggered into a violent act. I mean, 7 billion people in this world and we have a growing population. We've done ok with religion. With 7 billion people comes room for violent engagement whatever the excuse, whether it be religion, sports or dental work.

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I will say though that I do agree we would probably be better off if religion just sort of went away over time and people got more into sciences and logic and put there money into research as opposed to false prophets and the like.

I don't think religion is beyond question just because people are psychopathic enough to kill someone for having a different view to them. We're talking about cold blooded murderers.

By beyond question I mean that society doesn't allow you to question it.  Obviously, if you can get killed for it, it is treated as beyond question.  Thankfully, most places aren't that bad, but even in more secular nations, there is an idea that we should not question people's religious beliefs.  

Due to Wall Street the corporate cover-ups are astonishing, political scandals are very widespread in every country. The amount of allegations that jump out of every news outlet about politics is immeasurable. Religion, corporations, politicians, they can get away with it all. But this raping of children is an institutional problem, not a religious problem. These people aren't raping the kids because they are religious, it would be a fallacy to claim so.

If it is a religious institution, then it is also a religious problem.  You can't ignore the fact that the ideas, aka religion, are enabling these behaviors, and enabling them to get away with it.  And while we often turn a blind eye to political scandals, I don't think any known pedophile would be allowed to go on unscathed.  

Right. Except it's not a fact, it's a belief, and judging by how many homosexual Christians there are in America kinda brings me back to my point that people are lazy Christians or lazy Muslims who can calculate for themselves in a non-proprietary manner that listening to a book in a literal sense isn't the right step to take. That's their decision.

Suppose we completely eliminated the idea that homosexuality is a sin against god.  We could somehow magically obliterate that thought completely.  Would that be a positive or a negative for society?

This is a good point but your point here would seem to pertain only to violent people who could be triggered into a violent act. I mean, 7 billion people in this world and we have a growing population. We've done ok with religion. With 7 billion people comes room for violent engagement whatever the excuse, whether it be religion, sports or dental work.

Sure.  And we should do what we can to minimize violent engagement as much as possible.  

I will say though that I do agree we would probably be better off if religion just sort of went away over time and people got more into sciences and logic and put there money into research as opposed to false prophets and the like.

I'm a little bit confused then... You seem to be indicating that the problems with religion are the results of the institution/individual and not the result of the ideas themselves, but then you're also saying that we would be better off without religion.  Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but those seem to be conflicting ideas.

Killing in the name of a notorious pedo.

If it is a religious institution, then it is also a religious problem.  You can't ignore the fact that the ideas, aka religion, are enabling these behaviors, and enabling them to get away with it.  And while we often turn a blind eye to political scandals, I don't think any known pedophile would be allowed to go on unscathed.  

I have to disagree because without the institutional structure you have much less power for cover-ups. I'm not saying that 100% of religious people who commited crimes would be caught, but breaking up the institution would bring these crimes down the same levels as the current standard of society. There are too many examples that both of us could go through to show that religious people can do both bad and good which leads to the religion being inherently neutral.

Suppose we completely eliminated the idea that homosexuality is a sin against god.  We could somehow magically obliterate that thought completely.  Would that be a positive or a negative for society?

I know where you are coming from. You're basically saying if we erased religion then homosexuals would be less hated against. I see your point and I agree that religion plays a role here in offering bias against certain individuals, but we are talking about human beings that are bias in the first place. What I mean to say has already been said and that is religion is a catalyst to already existing societal problems. It's not so much religion that is the problem but the education, or lack there of, that needs to change. To answer your question, it would be a positive for sure but with proper education we could deter those kinds of thoughts from society.

I'm a little bit confused then... You seem to be indicating that the problems with religion are the results of the institution/individual and not the result of the ideas themselves, but then you're also saying that we would be better off without religion.  Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but those seem to be conflicting ideas.

My point all along has been that religion is not the root problem. Religion can be a catalyst for anything but it cannot be inherently bad or good. People are the root of evil so the more that people are educated from all sides, as opposed to just what they want to hear, the more people can assess reality for all its calculated glory.