True but then banishment, blood feuds and weregild's became the cost of murder as neolithic hunter-gatherers created early static societies and the first agriculture based communities. Placing a social cost on murder facilitated the order and stability that farming needed to thrive. God need not apply; community self-interest demanded that anti-social action was met with some sort of community sponsored sanction.

By spirituality do you mean beliefs about something without proof, or even contrary to proof? Or do you merely mean completely human experiences that they might self-sescribe as transcendent? The latter is possible without resorting to magic as an explanation.

Except vs the guys next door in the next society. Those guys you whack over the head, and take their stuff. This was the case with the studied groups. This was mostly murder between tribal units, not among a single tribe.

I'm certainly not attributing the modern decrease in violence to religion (as I said, I'm at best an atheist, maybe even an anti-theist). Why? Because even these tribes had religion. It was invented very early. Their religion was exactly as true as any other religion. Yes, the lion-god needs to be fed occasionally with the blood of man to make him happy. Why not? That's no more dumb than any other irrational belief. Prove the stone-age religion false... :)

I suspect we're discussing a distinction without a difference. That said, I am not convinced that early religion or lack thereof was a cause for extra-community conflict, the neolithic equivalent of war.

As I understand it (most of what I have learned on the subject is incidental and I claim zero expertise), neolithic religious artifacts fall into two significant social areas, birth, typified by worship of female fertility figures and death where some sort of ritual was conducted with the remains of the deceased.

Later gods would be required to explain the sun, moon, seasons, tides and essentially everything else. I expect that formal religion grew out of all these beliefs coalescing and somebody who was not involved in the food gathering process interpreting and taking spiritual control of the community. Perhaps elders or infirm, incapable of participating in the hunt became the first priests.

The prototype city-states and early "empires" in Mesopotamia were the home of Zoroastrianism, the first known monotheistic religion but most accounts indicate that it was not imposed on those communities that were incorporated into the Empire either by force or diplomacy. I think this indicates that expansionist fundamentalism and conversion by the sword would come much later and become a feature of Christianity and Islam. Until Constantine, the Romans were remarkably tolerant towards other people's religions and those apocryphal christian martyrs were, in Roman eyes, more what we would consider terrorists today.

After Rome collapsed, religion in the form of evangelical Christianity and later Islam expanded with zero tolerance for non-believers.

I have not been following this thread, so if theres some ongoing debate, (im sure there is), i havent read it. However the video linked in the original post made me go digging around on youtube, and I found this 40 minute speech/presentation. I found it a fascinating presentation. Given the original post, i thought it relevant to this thread somehow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti3mt...eature=related

Neil DeGrasse Tyson is brilliant in my opinion.

Written moral codes predate the Bible by more than a thousand years.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/syl...R3ABYXM8G9MUEC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi

Heck, much of the content of the bible was simply recycled from earlier stories.

It's funny that anyone takes any of it seriously to me. They actually think a kind god (that really cares and loves them!) let 100% of humanity before the date of revelation spend eternity in fiery torment... and most of the rest of the world do so as well, because he created them away from that particular revelation, and also created them in a world where they worship the wrong god(s).

Boggles the mind.

It isn't. You're just too angry to hear anything other than your own words. As I get older, I find that I have less and less time for people like that.

Ah, Thank you Steve, I'd seen the Code of Hammurabi mentioned in Civilization before but never really looked it up.

Actually I am not angry at all, when it comes to god and religion I am almost but not quite indifferent.

Religion is irrational; the belief in magical beings, unsubstantiated miracles and the everyday application of ancient texts to 21st Century life should make any thinking person reject it entirely.

Sadly, that's probably not going to happen so there's no requirement for anger. I test my atheism every day against the observable in my world, can you say the same about your faith?

Besides, hyperbole is defined as "an obvious and intentional exaggeration" which is exactly what your phrase couched in absolute terms:
was intended to be.

The attack on me as opposed to a critique of what I wrote is the typical response of a believer on the defensive. I had expected better.

Also, please remember that I have never claimed religion to be the sole authority on matters of morality. In fact, I think that I have gone out of my way in this thread to indicate that my faith is a matter of personal preference. In no way have I attempted to advocate it to any member of this forum. My only argument here, and it is one that has yet to recieve a satisfactory counter-argument, is that it is humanity, not religion, science, philosophy, politics, et al, that is the problem.

And yet, you begin with this.

A sweeping, summary, and overtly hostile dismissal of an individual's statement leaves no room for discussion. There was no point in attempting to engage you. If you feel attacked, it is only because you threw the first punch. Look elsewhere for sympathy. You wll get none from me. Moving on.

I find it ironic that the person most dogmatic in this thread so far is dead-set on an unshakeable belief in the observability of atheism, and the all-encompassing reliability science :O:

One can discuss hyperbolic statements, doing so is generally fun since they back the speaker into a corner but there is no discussion where there is dogma and religion is all about the dogmatic.

Am disappointed that you cannot tell the difference between critiquing the argument and attacking the arguer. Had honestly expected something better. Go ahead and slam the door on the way out if it makes you feel good about yourself.

@CCIP
I assume that's aimed at me but if you would like to point out where I have been dogmatic, I would appreciate specifics rather than generalizations.

It is not dogma to demand proof and I make no claims at having all the answers.