Quote:
Originally Posted by Makarov
I'm not actually convinced that this is true. Religion is only one of many group identifiers that expansionist leaders could use to justify war. It just happened to be the best suited, most effective one. I imagine that communities would still have supported the vast majority of "holy wars" if the justification was based on some other group identifier or to spread some other cultural or moral technology (like law, etc.).
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In general, people that wanted power have just used whatever excuse was most convenient. In many cases, that excuse was religion, but I don't think that religion has killed billions. If religion didn't exist, there just would have been a different excuse made by the people who wanted power.
As for the original debate, who really cares whether Atheism is a religion or not? First of all, it doesn't make any difference to anyone what labels are. Second, there are many different definitions of "atheism" and "religion" that it makes any discussion useless anyway.