[Megan]

Without religion good people would do good things and bad people would do bad things, but for good people to do bad things it takes religion.
--Richard Dawkins

Great quote, Radical. Dawkins is amazing, and has probably helped a lot of people get out of abusive religious situations. Wish I could have borrowed some of his backbone in my day.

His confrontation with (later to be disgraced) Ted Haggard, head of 30 million American Evangelicals, in "Root of All Evil" is just incredible, isn't it?

YouTube - Ted Haggard in "Root of All Evil?"

By Radical, Today 09:41 AM

But the perils of religion are ubiquitous - religion is at the heart of so much misery and destruction.

I couldn't agree more. The history of religion is a bloodbath. And you left out Luther's horrendous anti-Semitism, which arguably fueled the Holocaust, beginning with Kristallnacht, in November 1938:

The Nazis carried out their first large-scale pogrom of Jews in honor of Luther's birthday.

Hitler's Christianity

See also:

Martin Luther's dirty little book

However, the Lutherans share with much of Christianity the shame of the Holocaust. Dietrich Bonhoeffer stands out as a star in the night.

By Radical, Today 09:28 AM

I am against the propagation of harmful doctrines and especially the indoctrination of children, who are more susceptible to the falsehoods of religion.

Totally agree. I think the way we raise our children is the key to the world situation, and religion many times creates a brutal environment for children and thwarts their natural development, which is their birthright, and what we owe every one of them.

By Radical, Today 09:08 AM

So, you are comparing the arbitrary mish-mash of religion to the scientifically accepted theory of evolution?

I'm speaking of evolution itself, not the theory of evolution. I believe religion is part of the evolutionary process. How could it not be?

If the religious impulse is evolutionary in nature, could we not expect it to evolve as well?