Mohammed cartoons

[Cluey]

I love the way this thread has gone pretty much off topic

Erm, my two cents is that Religeon is an aging way of controlling people.  "The Opium of the Masses".  I'm not saying it should be out ruled, but religeous people need to think about what they're fighting and dying for.  Atheists also must be tolerant of religeous groups.  Our lives as humans are too short to throw away following the crowd or hating someone.

[lo_res_man]

I agree it is an "aging way of controlling people" but I think that religion, when separate but with powers of its own, provides a good balance to government power. It should control its areas but be powerless in others and visa-versa. I good example of this is the Roman Catholic Church during the Middle Ages. Now when we think of Catholicism during the middle ages we think, witch hunts inquisition, crusades, And yes these were not good things, but I think that the church provided an important power balance. That's my opinion anyway.

[HillBilly]

It should control its areas but be powerless in others and visa-versa.

What's "its areas"? I hope you're not suggesting that [yourreligionofchoicehere] should be given any legal or political power.

[lo_res_man]

 NOT legal powers exactly, but when you have society with basically one religion, which we don't, but in the middle ages they did, a strong church (with strong MORAL authority) can counter-balance tyrants. In our modern society, maybe two independent government divisions, each with legal and political power in areas that the other doesn't, each providing a sober second thought and a balance of power. Now they may be at each other's throat all the time, but the end result can be good. We all used to think the world was going to end in an A-bomb, but it didn't why? (Well lots of reasons but...) One reason was that the USSSR and the USA had a balance of power. As far as I can see, balance of power is a very important to the societies continued stability.

[Nacho]

Yeah, the Roman empire advanced pretty well because it has the balance of the... eeeeer... the culture.... eeeeeer...  : And the industrial revolution was done in a period where the situation between civilizations was quite stable by the overwhelming superiority of the brits, if I am wright.

My point is that during "pax romana" periods, where one culture is overwhelmingly powerful towards the others, also experiment advances.

Seriously, I don't see the sense of post. Can you explain it better? It sounds interesting, maybe I can finally agree if I understand it.

Thanks.