>So, what do you call me the thing that drives otherwise reasonable humans to hate each other?

Go to Google News and search for the terms 'sectarian violence', 'religious violence' and 'blasphemy'.

There are the Sunni and Shia killing each other in the Middle East, the Christians and Muslims killing each other in Nigeria and Hindu religious leaders calling for the mass killing of Muslims in India. In Pakistan, angry mobs regularly beat people to death and set them on fire for the merest perceived slight against Islam.

There is far too much intolerance, violence, misery and death in the world today caused by people acting on or motivated by their unsubstantiated religious beliefs.

There is far too much intolerance, violence, misery and death in the world today caused by people acting on or motivated by their u̶n̶s̶u̶b̶s̶t̶a̶n̶t̶i̶a̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶r̶e̶l̶i̶g̶i̶o̶u̶s̶ beliefs.

e.g. USSR anti-religious campaign of 1928–1941:

"The campaign began in 1929, with the drafting of new legislation that severely prohibited religious activities and called for an education process on religion in order to further disseminate atheism and materialist philosophy. "

"The main target of the anti-religious campaign in the 1920s and 1930s was the Russian Orthodox Church and Islam, which had the largest number of faithful. Nearly all of its clergy, and many of its believers, were shot or sent to labour camps. Theological schools were closed, and church publications were prohibited.[1] More than 85,000 Orthodox priests were shot in 1937 alone.[2] Only a twelfth of the Russian Orthodox Church's priests were left functioning in their parishes by 1941.[3]"

"Stalin called for an "atheist five year plan" from 1932–1937, led by the LMG, in order to completely eliminate all religious expression in the USSR.[43] It was declared that the concept of God would disappear from the Soviet Union.[43]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USSR_anti-religious_campaign_(...

I used your original wording with strikethrough to make my point, but I think this would be a more accurate statement:

There is far too much intolerance, violence, misery and death in the world today caused by violent people acting on or motivated by their beliefs without any restraint.

This applies to any kinds of beliefs be it religious, political, economic, philosophical, moral, etc.

> e.g. USSR anti-religious campaign of 1928–1941:

Anti-religion campaigns are still in effect caused by religion, since they wouldn't be necessary if it weren't for religion. Next!

> Anti-religion campaigns are still in effect caused by religion, since they wouldn't be necessary if it weren't for religion. Next!

You seem to have missed my point.

The GP is saying religion is the cause of much violence, etc. I'm refuting that by saying violent people are the cause of much violence and that's orthogonal to religion.

The anti-religion campaign is just one example, not the whole point.

I hope you are not blaming religion for Stalin's campaign. That's akin saying it was the believers' own fault that they were massacred because they believed in religion.

> since they wouldn't be necessary

So anti-religion campaigns like this massacre are necessary because religion exists? I hope that is just you misspeaking and using a poor choice of words. Perhaps you meant wouldn't exist? If not and you meant necessary, that is despicable.

Genetics, cultural values, chemicals, hormones, electrical impulses, all conspiring to create the illusion of objective morality

We pretend to seek out reasons, when we're actually just looking for excuses.

"I didn't actually do anything wrong, something outside of me made me do wrong, you can't prove it wasn't chemicals"

"There's no such thing as a shared moral code ,it doesn't exist, unless someone hurts me and then suddenly, they did something horribly wrong"

Our ancestors are fortunately a bit wiser than we are, they know there are things that cannot be excused, swept under the rug of moral relativism. They can only be "forgiven" as C.S Lewis explains in https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/webfm_send/111

Thinking all there is is moral relativism is a tiny baby step in the long journey of deriving your own objective basis for making moral judgements, and C.S. Lewis's works are essentially religious allegories but with better character development, so hardly a reference that carries rhetorical weight here.

Just as

- there is no conflict between lower level concepts such as quarks, electrons, atoms, molecules and higher level concepts like reactions, processes, yield and throughput

I think there is no conflict between "Genetics, cultural values, chemicals, hormones, electrical impulses" and sin.

I don't expect any answers, but at least I've tried explain my position.

Religion.

You'll find atheists hate each other as much as religious people. Maybe more.

Name one war, that has no religion involved.

>Name one war, that has no religion involved.

  US Revolutionary War
  War of 1812
  US Civil War
  Spanish American War
  WWI
  WWII
  Korean War
  Vietnam War
  GWI
  GWII
  WoT

Nearly all of them really. Wars are fought over resources and pride of leaders. Sometimes religion can be used as a recruiting tool, but the war isn't really about religion.

You can argue that since people who fight in wars have religious beliefs that religion is involved, but you can say the same things about sticks and shoes. I don't think that is a compelling argument.

> WoT

If you mean the war between the US on one side and al-Qaeda and various other Islamist groups on the other, that’s…a pretty bad exampe of a war that doesn’t involve religion.

> Korean War > Vietnam War

The US’s global war on Communism, during and as a symbol of which it added religious languge to the pledge of allegiance and replaced its diversity-endorsing de facto model with a religious official motto is, while less of a clearly bad example than the “Global War on Terror”, not a great example of a war not involving religion.

The WoT is related to religion, but isn’t primarily about religion. Granted, the parent comment overstated its case.

>If you mean the war between the US on one side and al-Qaeda and various other Islamist groups on the other, that’s…a pretty bad example of a war that doesn’t involve religion.

Ya I included that intentionally because it was the only one I could think of that was related to religion in anything I would consider close to meaningful.

It really depends on how loosely you want to define "involve," like I said, wars involve sticks and shoes because everyone uses them. Nearly everything involves language does that means all wars involve language? I guess so in a pedantic sense, but still, so what? Wars don't involve language in any meaningful way other than a means of communication. I would argue because of that, language is far more important than any semblance of religion in all of the wars I listed.

What's the point of your or the OP's argument? Following the definition of "involve," anything involves religion, even an atheist walking down the sidewalk, because the sidewalk was funded by at least one person who happens to be religious. Not overly meaningful.

Here's OBL's "Letter To America," where he states his reasons for his attacks.

In bin Laden's November 2002 "Letter to America",[3][4] he said that al-Qaeda's motives for the attacks included Western support for attacking Muslims in Somalia, supporting Russian atrocities against Muslims in Chechnya, supporting the Indian oppression against Muslims in Kashmir, support for Israel in Lebanon, the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia,[4][5][6] US support of Israel,[7][8] and sanctions against Iraq.[9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motives_for_the_September_11_a...

I mean I guess if you really wanted to make a connection to religion you could, but in the statement he mentions Israel, not Judaism, so it would be a stretch in my mind. The only connection to religion is the term "Muslims," and those citations are always followed by "in" a country. Hell, even the crusades weren't fought over religion, they were fought over resources and power, the church just used religion to get free cannon fodder. Of course Bush, in his infinite wisdom called the WoT a "crusade," which again I guess "involves" religion in that it was mentioned in a speech, but again, not in an overly meaningful way.

What I think the OP was trying to say, perhaps I'm wrong, is that religion is bad and as an example, all wars involve religion. If that's the case, I disagree with the premise.

All wars involve dirt therefore dirt is bad. Prophetic!