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Just a few quick notes...

Irishrosem

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Why encourage blind acceptance? Why encourage indoctrination? Why encourage faith without knowledge?

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Well there are two possible arguments you could make here.

1. It is impossible to raise a socially competent child without indoctinating them into a belief system.

2. Faith and blind acceptance can lead to good outcomes.

Frank

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How about a discussion where you disagree but there is no possible conclusion?

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Maybe you're right. It might act as a catalyst for violence.
But atheism doesn't really offer some sort of alternative to that. Instead of two people arguing about which God is real, they argue about if any god is real.

To be honest, I think of religion as an enzyme. It can speed up conflicts, but it can also slow them down. It can have many different effects, some positive and some negative, some powerful and some weak.

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Religions positive are easily replaced

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Well I'm not entirely convinced that this belief is compatible with the belief that a belief in a God is somehow an especially unique and powerful motivation to carry out certain actions.

If we say, atheists and theists can become suicide bombing terrorists, but theists are more likely because they believe they are carrying out the will of God and they expect some sort of heavenly reward, then how can we say that atheists and theists are both equally likely to become peace-making statesmen?

If Ahmed is more likely than Richard Dawkins to kill innocent people because he believes it to be God's will, then isn't he also more likely to fight against poverty and injustice if he thinks that this is God's will? If he is more likely to bomb buildings because of he believes in a heavenly reward for his action, then surely it follows that he is also more likely to be gentle, humble and helpful if he believes that this is what his God wants?

I think that the likes of Dawkins are trying to have it both ways. On the one hand, they argue that atheists are just as likely as theists to behave morally, but argue that theists are more likely to behave immorally because of the special motivation that a divine decree gives a person.

I just don't see how both arguments can be true. Either theists are more likely to be upstanding moral citizens and immoral deviants, or atheists and theists are equally likely to be either moral or immoral.

George, just remembered your earlier reply. Sorry about misunderstanding your comments. I think you're right when you say that this whole area is very speculative. Alas, we can't do experiments when it comes to stuff like this. It's for that reason I'd like if people were a little more modest when speaking on the matter. Thankfully, most people participating in this thread have a fair grasp of how complicated the issue is.

I think you've hit the nail on the head again when you say that we should focus on trying to tackle the more harmful aspects of religion, than trying to eliminate religion whole. I think it's an unfortunate effect of the arguments of the likes of Dawkins is that by talking of religious people as one unified group, he effectively frames the debate in such a way that he pushes moderate and liberal believers into a reluctant alliance with the fanatics and the fundamentalists.

Frank

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Not with out atheists, at least not normally.

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So all you have to do then is convince everybody to agree to be atheists, right? Couldn't we just convince everybody to be Catholic? Jewish? Sunni? Buddhist?

If everybody agreed, then of course we wouldn't have arguments!

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Relgion offers a justification for the absurd that negative beliefs do not.

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A justification, maybe. A cause, I doubt it. The absurd takes many forms both positive and negative, and while I'd agree that religion does not necessarily make somebody act in an extreme fashion (either positive or negative) the argument being put forth here is that if somebody believes in God they have some sort of extra additional motivation to behave in a certain manner.

Besides, racism has always been a ridiculous and absurd thing. Racists often turned to religion, but during the 19th century, they adopted the scientific method and attempted to use it to justify their beliefs. Religion isn't needed. In its absence, those who believe in the absurd simply create new forms of justification.

I'm not saying that an implication of the argument presented is that atheists will not act in altruistic ways (like you did), only that, everything else being equal, they'll be less likely to behave in an extreme altruistic manner when compared to a religious individual.

Frank

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No, those beliefs are just too silly.

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Ha! Nice one. But if you think that it is in any way realistic to talk about getting rid of such silly beliefs without mass violence, then good luck.

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I think religion can be a cause sometimes especially when the religion orders believers to take certain actions like convert or kill all non believers, which both Christianity and Islam have in their text.

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This statement is based on a false understanding of Christianity. Much as fundies like to assert that everything you'll ever need is in the Bible, and it's all you need, that isn't a majority view within Christianity. To say that Christianity has something in its text is to assume that Christianity has a text. It doesn't.

Anything in the Bible, and indeed, though to a lesser extent I imagine, anything in the Quaran is interpreted within the context of a living tradition.

If you're uncertain of what I mean here, take the example of the way that Catholics interpret the Bible. Catholics are allowed (bad term) to interpret the Bible, and any section within it, in any way they see fit, provided that interpretation falls within the confines of traditional teaching.

Another example would be that of what constiutes the bible. The Bible, unlike the Quaran, is a collection of texts and not a single book. What is considered part of the Bible depends on what has been considered part of the Bible in the past.

Tradition defines the way we interpret the text and the text is rarely the source of the tradition in and of itself.

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Very true but shouldn't we narrow their ability to justify these behaviors when possible? one of the dangers of religion is that they can be so morally malleable, and when religion is used to justify an action people can tend to accept it?

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Excellent point. But the problem is, where do we stop narrowing?

Once we've got of religion, then why not simply get rid of ideas and morals that have come to be agreed upon using thought forms that are equivalent to religious modes of thought? If you keep narrowing down the list of things that can justify dangerous behaviours, eventually, you lose morality. And nobody wants that!

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Denying Gays the right to legal union is a good example here. The religious have single-handedly kept a portion of our society from having equal rights in the eyes of the law, over something that is frankly none of their business.

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Actually, I think that is a rather bad example. The religious did not single-handedly deny homosexuals equal rights in the eyes of the law, society did.

There are religious people who have no problem whatsoever with homosexuality. Just because those most opposed to lesbians having there unions legally recognised happen to be religious doesn't mean that religious people, as a group, are oppossed to civil unions.

And the absence of relgion would hardly make life any better for homosexuals. It's not as though China is a shining beacon for gay rights now is it?

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I would say atheists are less likely to act in extreme ways in general. But I also think that the extreme is where the problem lies.

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Yes, the extreme is where the problem lies, but the problem I have with Dawkins, and indeed those who agree with Dawkins, is that there is total denial of the fact that to suggest that religious people are more prone toward extreme behaviour has both positive and negative implications. Like I said, it's double edged blade. If you're going to talk about the special and powerful motivation having a God-based morality can impose on an individual, then it's just dishonest to only talk about the negatives outcomes that can result from such a belief.