Wow! great posts of course. I am overwhelmed by argument. As with Bern there I would like to be able to answer piece by piece but not able for the moment...maybe one night in the pub lads!!
Two small things though. Glad Phil made the point that not all wars are the direct fault of religion. This is often said but is not really the case, not in modern times anyway. And in previous times, it was the maniacal few trying to subject others to their own religion that caused it, each believing their own faith to be the right one. but this is/was more about political power than religious faith. Cromwell did such a maniacal job of this on the citizens of Wexford, as was topically mentioned in Coast last night on BBC2, annihilating the local Catholic population , because they were Catholics, but was this a power thing rather than a religious act?
The second small thing though is that I loved the joke from Father Ted. Clearly no similarity to Fascists there...
