Chester Beatty is a gem. I went into it not expecting much from "museum of books". But it's also in a way a museum of world's religions, which are tightly connected to writing and books. As an atheist who has low opinion on value of religion because of all the deaths they were and still are responsible for, it reminded me of their positive role in history. When you see all those ancient religious books you begin to question whether we would have writing at all without them? Who would go through a painstaking process of duplicating books before Gutenberg if not men devoting their lives to God? Thus carrying light of civilization and creating basis and tools for science to progress later. I know this is not some great revelation, but I felt enlightened a bit after leaving Chester Beatty.
If you like libraries like this, and you're ever in the area, I can highly recommend the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel, Germany.
Crazy amount of incredibly rare books and manuscripts that you can actually look at. For many you will need to wear gloves and may have someone hovering over you, but it's worth it. Some absolutely mind blowing material in that library!
The idea that religion causes more deaths than non-religion is absurd in the 21st history (hitler, Stalin, mao) and is a myth when you take in full world history.
An index of all known wars in history indicated 93% of wars were not religious.
Never said that religion was responsible for all or even most wars. But you can't deny it plays negative role in many wars. It wouldn't have to be for theological reasons, since it seems the article would only count these cases as religious wars. Religion is often used to segregate humans into opposing tribes, where without religion they could be a single nation, or even same ethnicity.
Religion as taught in schools or many (most?) churches is indeed mostly indoctrination. I've gone the full spectrum, from practicing Christian with a real fear of God as I was taught since I was a kid until 13 then atheist until 25 then slowly getting back my faith by learning a lot about it from different sources.
Now I say I'm as sure that "God" exists as I am of gravity. Too many synchronicities have happened to me for it to just be coincidence. However I still believe that church is mostly a corrupt institution with very few exceptions.
I know Jordan Peterson is a polarizing figure but his biblical lectures are very good and seem like they were created by a different person than he currently presents himself. I'd also recommend Ram Dass and especially Alan watts talks about Christianity
If you mean by "the opposite" that everybody believes the same thing, then theoretically yes. However, that is very unlikely and I assume there will always be people with different views/opinions.
The more you put people into "separate boxes", the more you segregate them. And I agree with the previous reply that religion is one of those things that puts you in a specific box.
I think they mean that people in large groups segregate themselves into smaller ones, by whatever characteristics available. If they had the same religion they’d be separated into orthodox and progressive versions of it, or people who had come off well out of the last great flood vs people who got screwed by it. And then they’d create a religion as explanation for the flood and why it was from god/the devil.
