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Morgan Barnes

Law Enforcement Officer, government agency

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If Religion did not exist how far more advanced and how, much more tolerant of each other would we be?

After reading Umberto Eco's name of the rose (again) I started to think about the way religion has always been open to personal interpretation and the influence it has had by using fear and superstition and even ignorance to not only keep people in line but supress free thinking and invention.
So I started to thinking how further advanced we could be. Could we of already of colonised Mars and found and interacted with other species or would they of reached out to us?
Would we be more tolerant of each other and treat each other on a more equal footing than we have, had and still do???

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    Robert Winner 50+

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    Aug 12 2012: Religious surpression caused the men of science to go underground and to form the illuninati. These great minds may have never met and exchanged ideas spawing new inventions and deeper thought among them had it not been for religion. Religion was not the cause of most of the early wars in Europe. The royals from Russia to England and all between sought power, land, and further wealth so they waged wars among them to that end ... not religious wars but of greed.

    To is always hard to guess what the outcome would have been san this or that. It is my opinion that if religion were removed from history then another dominate form would have appeared. Greed, hate, racism, power, and the other sins of man would have still been present. As long as these are present tolerance will suffer defeat.

    There will always be a George Serios type who wants one world government with him at the head. These people with a God complex will always cause trouble for others because to make this occur you must wage war (psych/economics/political/etc) to accomplish you goal. The Russians were absolute masters at this. They sent in a rebel to start the uprising and when he won shot him a put in their party man.

    I go with Pat. Perhaps the problem would have been much worse without religion. Kings, emperors, sun gods, and rulers of all sorts were self serving and cruel. Builders were killed when the project was completed. Messagers were killed to keep the secret. Leaders at all levels killed to protect their position. That would have been worse than what we have.

    All the best. Bob.
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      Sebastian Helenius

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      Aug 13 2012: Dear Robert,

      I ask you quickly =

      What makes you think that sun gods were cruel when they were so admired by their people?
      If my leader was selfish and cruel I would not write such noble articles about him or her.

      Although perhaps they were cruel, and then their talents of leadership more than made up for it?
      The phrase 'infamous' suddenly springs to mind.
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        Robert Winner 50+

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        Aug 13 2012: If you were a scribe in the time of a sun god and was told to write the story of your sun god would you want to please him? Not pleasing him ended a career with no opportunities to retrain. Being admired by their people? Would that include the millions that build the temples, stone carvers, perimands, were enslaved to the elete, sacrificed, etc ... I would say that fear is not the same as admiration.

        When you are a despot I'm not for sure people evaluate your leadership abilities. The term here today and gone tomarrow is on your mind .... and we ain't talking about him.

        All the best. Bob.

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