Dragan,

>>Since I seem to be the other person you're implicitly summoning here (or even if I'm not), I feel compelled to have a say here... so, PMFJI.

Glad to hear from you, but I was referring to a certain other who has a pattern of popping in with passive-aggressive cruelty thinly disguised by folksy chat. She never stays to justify her position.

>>the kids don't really understand all the consequences of their actions, not right away.

It seems you agree with me. "Natural" behaviors by young humans who do not yet realize it is wrong? QED.

>>But if they do things like that persistently, then I'd attribute that to parents, or other people who may have influenced them. I also count influence by omission as influence.

I remember when 2 schoolboys killed a toddler in the UK about 20 years ago. They took him from a shopping center, then tortured him by inserting batteries in various places, pouring blue railway paint into his eyes, ears and mouth, then jumped on him repeatedly, then after an hour or two of such fun they left him on railway tracks to be mercifully killed by a passing train. One can only imagine the toddler's terror during such an ignoble death. His 9-year-old killers were investigated in depth. They knew this was an abhorent act and could not explain why they did it. They were from 2 different normal homes. Their upbringings were no different from the kids in the houses around them who required counselling to understand why these 2 popular boys suddenly did this. I don't recall people blaming the parents, though that would have been easy, I guess.

>>This cuts both ways. Keep in mind that in most of those cases, organized religion did weild a lot of power, and that it likewise dictated the society's morality.

Not completely true. An English king was able to shrug off the bounds of organized religion so he could select new wives and kill the castoffs. He then established his own religion because it was needed to maintain his kingdom. QED.

>>More quotes: volunteer blood donors, doctors without frontiers, Amnesty International, Greenpeace, workers' solidarity funds.

These are not atheist/agnostic groups. Many of their members are religious. "Independent of religion" is not the same as agnostic/atheist, which is what you would need to balance the missionary acts done by overtly religions groups.

>>Actually, I don't have any beef with religion per se. I do have with organized religion. If you ever find one which...

Dragan, I have no intention of trying to convince you to be religious- especially when your shopping list would prevent your belonging to any organized group ;-)