On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 01:01:09PM -0400, John Clark wrote: > Even if it was true that nations die when they lose their religion that > wouldn't mean that religion tells the truth, in fact we know for a fact > that most of them are wrong because there are lots of religions and most of > them contradict each other. But is it even true that religion promotes > stability? > > Right now Europe is the second most peaceful continent on Earth after > Antarctica,
More peaceful than Australia, even? London riots, Paris riots, bombings in Northern Ireland. Sure we have our nutters too, bid you a Port Arthur versus the Utoya (Olso), Dunblane or Omagh massacres, and we have recently has a spate of shootings out in the Moslem heartland in Western Sydney, but compared with the years of open warfare in the former Yugoslavia, this is tame stuff indeed. In the more than 200 years of western civilisation in Australia (or occupation as the original inhabitants call it), we've never had war, just the odd battle here an there (Eureka stockade, bombing of Darwin by the Japanese, or a couple of missiles fired across Sydney in that same skirmish). > and Europe is the second most atheistic continent on Earth Some bits are more religious than others - its very uneven. I suspect one reason that there are so many declared atheists in Scandinavia is the presence of the church tax. Even though nominally, only about 30% of Australia put down atheist or agnostic on their census forms, the reality is that there are only two great religions in Australia, AFL and NRL (Aussie Rules and Rugby League), with a third in ascendancy (Soccer). My son (who is devout atheist) just mentioned yesterday that he is enjoying the company of one of his friends who is quite a strong Christian, as he can have some meaningful theological debates with him. Most of his school friends (he goes to a Christian school), are agnostic or atheist. > after Antarctica, most of the few hundred full time residences of that > continent are scientists and most scientists are atheists or agnostics. And > Europe would be even more peaceful that it is without the Islamic influence > that has increased over the last few decades. > Anyway, aside from Australia, Europe is doing fairly well on the peace front, as compared with the other continents :). Cheers -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics [email protected] University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
