Maybe we could change this thread title to:

>snip<

The possibilities are endless

Jerry

Yes they are - so perhaps you will accept that the title we have is as good as any other imposed title change won't change the contents - or would you also like to post and suggest that the contents be change to something more to your liking??

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The human race (despite) evidence to the contrary - does not generally see the killing of other menbers of the human race as disirable (even for food). For the logical end result of this practice is the death of the species.

And although we have delveloped many fine ways of killing each other on mass and from a distance it is still not easy for one human being to kill another face to face or to get others to overcome their basic inhibitors do this. Many organised religions have elaborated further in their doctrines on what later developed into this basic morality.

So it is that in peacetime to killing of one's fellows is not encouraged and we had secular laws that declare this as the crime of murder. And murderers are not generally thought by society to be good for it society and the commiting of such a crime enough for most of us to consider these murders to be bad people as a result of commiting this act..Possibly it is the case that such 'bad' people simply lack the natural inhibitors that prevent most of us from doing such things? I am not sure what the factors could be for this so I will blame organised religion for this too. *Smiles*

However - in times of war and conflict - our countries will even award medals to those who they judge to have bravely killed their fellow human beings for the better good. [The better good is an interesting concept and probably deserves a thread of its own.]

So it is not true that only religion makes people do bad things. But this was not really the contention being made here, which was that organised religion has confused our basic moral concepts of what is considered good and bad and has probably done this quite intentionally.

In time of historical conflicts and in recent times - where is the moral lead given by our organised religions about one of their basic aspects? Are those of the same organised religion in one conflicting country grouping together to maintain to us all that the killing of one human being by another is bad? Or perhaps due to the practical realities and their own survival are they telling us and demonstrating in one way or another that God is in fact on our side?

And are basic concepts of what is good and what is bad so very difficult and really too simplistic for such sophisticated folk as us? Remember that we are talking here of very BASIC concepts.

Who is it that encourages us to see telling good from bad as such difficult concepts? Could it be those organised religions who rather wish the waters to be mudded and to have a floating decimal point on what is good and what is bad - rather than to show us a consistent moral lead by consistently following in the sprit of many of their founders?

For many organised religions - in spite of the teachings or their founders still teach that it is possible to do bad things and still be good enough - as long as we confess to them our bad deeds. And it was not too long ago that the wealthy were encouraged by some organised religions that they could ensure their goodness by purchasing it. A concept that seems rather common in some of todays organised religions especially in the U.S.......