hahaha Bush says he doesn't believe in the Bible, does believe in evolution

It's easy to look at history and pick and choose people that did bad things, and point to their religion as a reason. Of course, almost every leader in the history of mankind has been a follower or a purported manifestation of some faith.

What purely secular leaders have not been serious threats? Another question might be which leaders have been purely secular.

Stalin is the most prominent leader of a faithless state that I can think of off the top of my head.

Religion doesn't make people stupid or evil or the powerful people dangerous. It's just a conduit for the things that are in all of us, and even as a non-religious person I think it's naive and even ridiculous to assume that if religion were gone that the world would be better. There would still be wars and poverty and Carrot Top.

Ed O.

 

Your logic is horrible here.

A failure to follow one's beliefs does not mean that the beliefs do not exist.

Ed O.

 

http://www.unionbaptistbalt.org/article.php?id=54

Civil Rights Legacy

<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td class="body" align="left">Union Baptist Church of Baltimore > About Us >

</td></tr></tbody></table>The church has an extremely rich history in the civil rights movement, starting in 1892 with its withdrawal from the Maryland Baptist Union Association because of its discrimination. In 1897, Rev. Dr. Harvey Johnson was the minister who organized the Colored Baptist Convention. Johnson, a friend of W.E.B. DuBois, established the Niagara Movement, which was a prototype for the NAACP. He also filed a lawsuit to gain equal pay for black teachers and to make it possible for black lawyers to practice in the state of Maryland. The planning meetings preceding the Niagara Movement were at Union Baptist Church. Dr. Johnson also filed lawsuit and won the first case in the U.S. striking down the identification of Negroes as cargo in interstate commerce. During this time thirteen churches were established from Union's congregation, five of which are still in existence today.

Rev. Dr. Harvey Johnson 1872-1923
Click Here to read more about Rev. Johnson ​

 

http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM2T5Q

St. Mary's Missionary Baptist Church in Civil Rights Memorials
Posted by: the federation
N 29° 53.315 W 081° 18.808
17R E 469733 N 3306480
Quick Description: This church was one of the cornerstones of the Civil Rights movement in St Augustine. This Church was one of the cornerstones of the St Augustine Civil Rights movement.
Location: Florida, United States
Date Posted: 12/17/2007 3:13:39 PM
Waymark Code: WM2T5Q
Reviewed By: silverquill
Views: 45
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Long Description:
In addition to being a national tourist destination and the continental United States' oldest city, St. Augustine was also a pivotal site for the civil rights movement in 1964. Despite the 1954 Supreme Court act in Brown v. Board of Education, which ruled that the "separate but equal" legal status of public schools made those schools inherently unequal, St. Augustine still had only 6 black children admitted into white schools. The homes of two of the families of these children were burned by local segregationists while other families were forced to move out of the county because the parents were fired from their jobs and could find no work.

This church was founded on May 25, 1875, and led by the inspiring Reverend Ivory Barnes its first minister. The present edifice, occupied beginning in 1937, has held high the banner of Christ inspired in its earlier days by the spirit of the Emancipation Proclamation and The Reconstruction following The Civil War. St. Mary's occupied a unique position at the foot of Lincolnville, and stands tall as a beacon of freedom and hope.

During the era of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s in St. Augustine, this church, through the stout-heartedness of its minister and NAACP leader, Reverend Thomas A. Wright, and other local leaders, was the site of mass meetings and a respite for the foot soldiers on the road in the quest for civil and human freedoms. These crusading examples, sustained through St. Mary's Missionary Baptist Church, ordains it the Birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement in St. Augustine.

 

Gutenberg invented the printing press to mass produce copies of the bible that were previously hand copied by monks.

Without the bible and the need to mass produce copies of it, the printing press may or may not have been invented, but certainly many many years later.

I guess public education would be great with books copied by... well, there wouldn't be monks in your world, so... I guess there wouldn't be books copied by anyone.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_Mendel

Gregor Johann Mendel (July 20, 1822<sup id="cite_ref-0" class="reference">[1]</sup> – January 6, 1884) was a German speaking Austrian Augustinian priest and scientist, and is often called the father of genetics for his study of the inheritance of traits in pea plants. Mendel showed that the inheritance of traits follows particular laws, which were later named after him. The significance of Mendel's work was not recognized until the turn of the 20th century. Its rediscovery prompted the foundation of the discipline of genetics.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton

Sir Isaac Newton, FRS (4 January 1643 – 31 March 1727 [OS: 25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726])<sup id="cite_ref-OSNS_0-2" class="reference">[1]</sup> was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, theologian and one of the most influential men<sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference">[4]</sup> in human history. His Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, is considered to be the most influential book in the history of science. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, laying the groundwork for classical mechanics, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries and is the basis for modern engineering.

Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.

In mechanics, Newton enunciated the principles of conservation of momentum and angular momentum. In optics, he built the first "practical" reflecting telescope<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference">[5]</sup> and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into a visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound.

In mathematics, Newton shares the credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of the differential and integral calculus. He also demonstrated the generalised binomial theorem, developed the so-called "Newton's method" for approximating the zeroes of a function, and contributed to the study of power series.

Newton was also highly religious (though unorthodox), producing more work on Biblical hermeneutics than the natural science he is remembered for today.

 

http://www.unification.net/ws/theme015.htm

THE GOLDEN RULE

The Golden Rule or the ethic of reciprocity is found in the scriptures of nearly every religion. It is often regarded as the most concise and general principle of ethics. It is a condensation in one principle of all longer lists of ordinances such as the Decalogue. See also texts on Loving Kindness, pp. 967-73.
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
<center>1. Judaism and Christianity. Bible, Leviticus 19.18</center>
Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them.
<center>2. Christianity. Bible, Matthew 7.12</center>
Not one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.
<center>3. Islam. Forty Hadith of an-Nawawi 13</center>
A man should wander about treating all creatures as he himself would be treated.
<center>4. Jainism. Sutrakritanga 1.11.33</center>
Try your best to treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself, and you will find that this is the shortest way to benevolence.
<center>5. Confucianism. Mencius VII.A.4</center>
One should not behave towards others in a way which is disagreeable to oneself. This is the essence of morality. All other activities are due to selfish desire.
<center>6. Hinduism. Mahabharata, Anusasana Parva 113.8</center>
Tsekung asked, "Is there one word that can serve as a principle of conduct for life?" Confucius replied, "It is the word shu--reciprocity: Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you."
<center>7. Confucianism. Analects 15.23</center>

<hr> Leviticus 19.18: Quoted by Jesus in Matthew 22.36-40 (below). Mencius VII.A.4 and Analects 15.23: Cf. Analects 6.28.2, p. 975.
<hr>
Comparing oneself to others in such terms as "Just as I am so are they, just as they are so am I," he should neither kill nor cause others to kill.
<center>8. Buddhism. Sutta Nipata 705</center>
One going to take a pointed stick to pinch a baby bird should first try it on himself to feel how it hurts.
<center>9. African Traditional Religions. Yoruba Proverb (Nigeria)</center>
One who you think should be hit is none else but you. One who you think should be governed is none else but you. One who you think should be tortured is none else but you. One who you think should be enslaved is none else but you. One who you think should be killed is none else but you. A sage is ingenuous and leads his life after comprehending the parity of the killed and the killer. Therefore, neither does he cause violence to others nor does he make others do so.
<center>10. Jainism. Acarangasutra 5.101-2</center>
The Ariyan disciple thus reflects, Here am I, fond of my life, not wanting to die, fond of pleasure and averse from pain. Suppose someone should rob me of my life... it would not be a thing pleasing and delightful to me. If I, in my turn, should rob of his life one fond of his life, not wanting to die, one fond of pleasure and averse from pain, it would not be a thing pleasing or delightful to him. For a state that is not pleasant or delightful to me must also be to him also; and a state that is not pleasing or delightful to me, how could I inflict that upon another?
As a result of such reflection he himself abstains from taking the life of creatures and he encourages others so to abstain, and speaks in praise of so abstaining.
<center>11. Buddhism. Samyutta Nikaya v.353</center>
A certain heathen came to Shammai and said to him, "Make me a proselyte, on condition that you teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot." Thereupon he repulsed him with the rod which was in his hand. When he went to Hillel, he said to him, "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor: that is the whole Torah; all the rest of it is commentary; go and learn."
<center>12. Judaism. Talmud, Shabbat 31a</center>

<hr> Sutta Nipata 705: Cf. Dhammapada 129-130, p. 478. Acarangasutra 5.101-2: Cf. Dhammapada 129-130, p. 478. Samyutta Nikaya v.353: The passage gives a similar reflection about abstaining from other types of immoral behavior: theft, adultery, etc. To identify oneself with others is also a corollary to the Mahayana insight that all reality is interdependent and mutually related; cf. Guide to a Bodhisattva's Way of Life 8.112-16, p. 181; Majjhima Nikaya i.415, p. 465.
<hr>
"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?" Jesus said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets."
<center>13. Christianity. Bible, Matthew 22.36-40</center>

<hr> Matthew 22.36-40: Cf. Deuteronomy 6.4-9, p. 55; Leviticus 19.18, p. 173; Luke 10.25-37, p. 971; Galatians 6.2, p. 974; Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 5.2.2, p. 972; Sun Myung Moon, 9-30-79, p. 150.

 

If it weren't for religious people fleeing religious persecution in Europe, the New World may never have been settled.

Or at least only by the spanish, who massacred every native they came across to get their gold.

 

We'd be still living in caves.

The Church was the government for centuries, even before the fall of the roman empire.

Without it, there may have been feudalism. That's where there's 99% of the people dirt poor peasants and a few lords that rule over smallish territories.