I mean... in adition... think about this for a second.

France took part in the First Crusade.

France's King was excommunicated from the church!

He obviously didn't care what the church thought... yet the invasion was so profitable he sent others along to take part.

(He himself not being aloud to go... being excomunicated.)

Even the pope's reasons were more secular then holy.

Maybe I didn't get it across clearly so maybe it's my fault, but the problems I have are with the fact that the crusades would not have happened if there was no religion, the popular support for the crusades would not have been there at all if it wasn't for the leaders telling them about the heretics across the sea. Religion is simply a tool to rule over and manipulate the masses through out history. Anything which relies on blind faith is such a tool and nothign rrequires more blind faith then religion. Also your whole argument fully supported my point, the leaders used religion to get the support for their war.

The easiest way to gain popular support for a war is through the cross, sickle, or star of david. Thankfully things are now changing for the better than they used to be. Coincidentally the world is also more secular now that it has ever been.

Except they would have. 

Instead of the Catholic Church there would of been some other body chosen to unite europe... and the same things would of happened.

Maybe they wouldn't of went for Jerusalem.  Maybe instead they would of went for the Byzantian empire.

Either way, the events would of played out the same.  It was all about power and security.

Increasng their power and security.  The people would of went along with it as well... since there was much for them to gain in the crusades... monetary wise.

Well those that went... not many people outside nobels did go... except for the poor trying to make money.

There are plenty of secular reasons to suggest the crusades would of happened in an atheist world.  Assuming the world was set up exactly as the religious world was.

There is no real change.   People don't fight wars for religion.  They fight wars because they have something to gain from it/have a pack mentality.

If it wasn't religion, it'd be patritisom, xenophobia or greed.

They did go for the Byzantine emipre, the Fourth Crusade. We than had to go and save constantinople, becoming the first army to ever defeat an army of knights on (techinically) an open field, but I digress.

Sorry I editted my comment to further expand on it, hopefully before you saw it. I said that anything that is based on blind faith can and will be used for controlling the masses, religion just happens to be the thing whose basis solely relies on blind faith alone, therefore it's a favorite. Basically, if blind faith didn't exist, religion would not have existed, among other things, and people would not have been as manipulated as they were and (in my opinion) many atrocities, or other effects of manipulation and conditioning. Im retrospect I should have played the blind faith card in the very beginning and saved us several pages worth of words.

Yes, the fourth crusade.  However the fourth crusade isn't even seen as a nonsecular one.

The only crusade that some people tend to see as nonsecular is the first one.

None of them were... and they would of happened anyway.  It's obvious to see if you study the lay of the land and why the church "had control".

People weren't largely spirtually motivated... and you didn't need the will of the people to start a crusade.  Just the will of the nobles.

I would agree that blind faith is bad.  However i would disagree that religion is based on blind faith.

It's a hard thing to explain to someone who finds themself an atheist...

because afterall....

"how would you explain color to someone who is blind."

for a lot of people it isn't blind faith.

Also, people aren't any better now about blind faith then they were back then.

People just put their blind faith into other things.

Then I guess because of that lat part there's no point of this continuing. I will always see any of the currently outlined religions as solely based on blind faith and you will not, hence we come to a fundamental dispute which can't be solved.

Though I have to tell you I'm not an atheist, I just don't believe in anything I have seen of or heard off from the modern religions (like heaven, hell, reincarnation, nirvana, miracles, or something having any type of effect on the universe at all in any way shape or form), and while I'm on the stance that there is no god I'm open to admit that maybe some sentient being, or a race of beings, started the universe (or whatever might be larger) for one reason or another, on purpose, or incidentally. Of course since I believe they can't or just won't do anything supernatural in our plane, universe, whatever and therefore it's pointless to worship them in any way, I approach it as history. They made us, it happened, and that's that, end of story. That's my "belief" in a nutshell, many would call it outright atheism, but I don't feel like it is.

Edit: Thinking about it longer you are right about blind faith shifting, I guess it's human nature? Which does make me wonder whether I'm blindly having faith in something myself. Also while I get your color/blind analogy very well I know a lot of people would misintepret what you are tying to say, solely because of the connotation of blind in religion.

Sounds like you'd be a fan of ancient summerian religion.

I've got a better belief system for you though.

We aren't real.  We're all computer simulations.

It's a "Religion" based on pure statistics.

Short of it.... At some point we will have computers good enough to create an exact copy of a human brain... or someone will. 

Pretty logical if you support the hypothisis that there isn't anything special about people (IE no soul)... as such soon too will it be possible to create exact simulations of people and the world as a whole, perhaps even models of the universe.

If anyone did reach that stage... the reasons to make these computer programs would be monumental from a research standpoint... and hell an entertainment standpoint.

As such... the odds of anyone being in a fake reality would be large then being in the "real" reality.... and you would have no way to know.

Furthermore, perhaps these fake realities could make their own computer generated realities... within their computers... make the odds even more likely for being in a "fake" universe.

Personally it's my "favorite" form of religion, and the one i would believe in... if i felt i had any choice in the matter.

Ironically said religion allows for miracles, afterlives and etc too... as people playing for fun might like to make random shit happen just to screw around with earth... aka flood the entire place.

Or "save" characters they like and put them in an alternate program.

Or just talk to one guy... and see how much they could convince one guy to change the world.

As for blind faith. I would say yes, it is human nature.

We don't have the time or energy... even with mordern conviences to think about and research everything. Even if we did we couldn't gain or comprhend all the answers. So a lot of stuff has to be put up to blind faith.

Not to mention that a lot of people don't like thinking about stuff, or don't have the oppurtunites too because they're poor.

They have to take everything on blind faith... because they're focused on surviving.

I've definetly thought about that too, maybe that's true too, I'm not one to say. Afterall all a human is (the way i see it) is a collection of electrical signals and countless amounts of if...else statements (this is even more true after I learned how neurons actually work). I have always held a belief that if a machine could be created to have the same exact if...else statements, electrical system, and all that, then it might as well be human.

I fully agree on the whole, being created as a science experiment, or entertainment (honestly, from a third person point of view how hilarious would our wars and actions look?). The big bang could have just been our program's BIOS for all we know. Which would also explain why the (current) lack of information of anything before the Big Bang. I just take life as it is and as I said, I don't believe those "watchers" can or would ever do anything to affect our "instance" therefore worshiping them is pointless anyways.