The Steele Poppet thus spake:It is also funny how you mentioned Catholicism and Islam in your list of the horrors of religion, but fail to mention Judaism. How convenient, that. The Vatican doesn't have an army. The Vatican doesn't drop cluster bombs on civilians, spray white phosphorous on children, and shoot women in the back

Not directly. But they do support and abet mass murdering swine and pedophiles. This you can check. As to the first, and the use of the WWII ratlines to assist known genocidal killers of the SS escape Germany, read: Unholy Trinity: The Vatican, The Nazis and the Swiss Banks by Aaron and Loftus. All of their claims also supported by Clive Poynting in his excellent Armageddon: The Reality Behind the Distortions, Myths, Lies and Illusions of World War II

YOU talk of the Jews at Gaza, etc. but in that process you compare the killing of maybe a few hundred Palestinians with the butchering of SIX MILLION in Hitler's infernal gas chambers and ovens by precisely those that the Vatican's minions helped escape.

And as for the sheer scope of indirectly sown death, destitution and destruction sown, nothing can remotely compare with the Vatican's anti-artificial birth control policy (since Paul VI issuing the encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968). As the late Sir Arthur C. Clarke once described it: it ranks as one of the greatest crimes against humanity in the history of humanity

All those excess humans born, that could not be supported, have left their imprint. In Africa, as The Economist noted last year (special article) the Vatican's policies and dogmas have done more to spur the increase in population there - beyond the resources to support it, than anything. It has also directly engendered the 55% + unemployment among African youth (between 12- 22) that is fueling the renegade militias that are butchering so many innocents.

As for pedophilia, the Vatican's support of policies to hide those pederast padres and move them from parish to parish is now well known and documented. Also directly responsible for drawing down the Church's finances to the tune of over $200 billion by some estimates.

As a former Catholic (now atheist) it pains me to say all that, but the truth is the truth. The RC Church and its medieval bilge and anachronisms is now one of the greatest impediments to genuine progress.

Btw, those genetically modified foods that you are so quick to malign may now be the only thing standing between mass starvation in Africa, and the survival of 90% of Africans (most of the rest destined to perish from HIV-AIDS because the idiot pope disallows use of condoms).

While religious outreach and charities have definitely done some good, this does not compare with the human evil inflicted on so many billions, either directly or indirectly (through the teaching of egregious and god-awful dogmas)

Steel "the first" wrote: Good track record. Now, what has religion brought us?

Errrr....

-the Crusades and the burning of the library of Alexandria, the most noteable intellectual investment in the history of mankind.

- the Inquistion, lasting from roughly 1250 through the 1800s, with the total toll in dispossession, torture, and disease running into the millions over those centuries.

- the most massive wars fought for the longest times (with greatesr per capita loss of life at the time) in human history.

(E.g. the Thirty Years war)

- The emergence of radical Islam and its uncompromising stance to eradicate all "infidels" of whatever disposition or other faith (see, The Lucifer Effect by Howard Bloom)

- 9/11

- The genesis of nine-tenths of the planet's mental illnesses and paranoia infestations incepted by the Satan-Hell myth

Need I go on?

Let me add that Hitler's Nazism, while not religious in the orthodox sense, was driven by pre-existing religio-symbolic imperatives. He also got the blessing of Pope Pius XII, and the Vatican helped tens of thousands escape to South America along ratlines after WW II.

"brightstar 2" babbled: So there is your PhD'd scientists. With FEW brave exceptions, doofuses, ignoramuses, partisan prigs.

Riiiigggghhht. So if that is so, how about turning in your computer, your TV, radio, telephone -cell phone, heating supply-generator, oven, fridge, microwave, ipod....and all other technological implements that were engendered as a result of pure science finds that then became applied science devices. Do it or admit you're a hypocritical little turd.

You label anyone who does not MINDLESSLY believe the current science bibles IRRATIONAL. it is YOU who is irrational. Let's put the onus on where it belongs.

No, the onus is on morons like you. We do not label "anyone" irrational, only unreconstructed twits and idiots who buy into UFOs, and "faces on Mars" (long since discedited) like you do.

People like you yapping your anti-scientific jabber are who validate the need for quantum dot electrodes implaneted in the temporal lobes. We can no longer afford the luxury of flat Earth babboons like you any more. We need to lock you all up for permanent ECT and lithium treatment, or put in those electrodes.

You hold the entire human race back and place our existence in peril, from your gullible rejection of global warming to your refusal to even consider stem cell research.