>>>>>Well God and Religion seem to be the leading cause of death and hate in the world - and its been that way forever. Heck that's what just caused 9/11 and blah blah blah...
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>>>>Now this is about the only thing I disagree with. I don't remember who, but someone once said, "Religion is not the cause of hate and destruction, merely the excuse."
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>>>Well humans think in terms of "us" and "them." Us are the good guys, the ones who think, look, and act like us. Them are the strangers, the outsiders, the unknown--and therefor dangerous (or the 'evil do-ers').
>>>Religion is one of the basic definers of human groupings, this is gonna include cultures, race, and now national boundaries too. I suppose if these groupings had more of "us" and less of "them" - then we would have less hate & destruction.....so if religion didn't exist, then it would all be "us" and there would be no "them"...right?
>>>Of course now that a read what I just typed, seems like a rather worthless point I just made because untill we finally discover little green men on another planet there is always going to be religion - and heck even then the suckers....ooops I mean believers.... will still believe. Oh well...
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>>Nah. The real point is that if we didn't have religion, we'd use other excuses. Skin colour, slant of eyes, etc. If those were the same the world over, we'd use hair colour or height or nose shape or something else. There will always be excuses for hate.
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>Well in the short-term you're probably correct. As far as skin color, slant of eyes, etc - I think over the next few thousand years (assuming humans haven't offed themselves somehow) that there differences between humans skin color will become less and less. The more we intermix the less and less these difference all. I recall reading an interesting study (don't remember by whom - but it was respectable - like the New England Journal of Med. or something like that...) that pointed all this out.

Oh, I believe that, but I still think we'll find something. When one sees himself as inferior (intellectually, aesthetically, whatever), one must find someone to look down on. The fools who see darker skinned people as inferior do so because they are afraid that if they don't then they themselves will have to inhabit the bottom of the barrel.

If we all become beige, then we'll pick on hair colour or weight, or anything else that will allow us to feel superior to somebody.