steve1977 4 hours ago

Religion was behind the spread of printed books, at least here in Europe, so this seems in line.

It was also behind unspeakable acts of massive cultural destruction, so there's that.

johnp314 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Oh if religion wasn't responsible for "massive cultural destruction" then mankind would have invented something else to do it (whatever is meant by "massive cultural destruction").

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forgetfreeman 37 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

"We want their stuff" is a pretty effective travesty generator for sure.

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andrepd 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I disagree. When you are absolutely sure that God itself is on your side, then there is no atrocity to big to commit. I feel that religious zeal has led to some of the worst catastrophes in human history. I would put para-religious zeal in that category too, like dogmatic forms of communism.

	▲	Avicebron 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You can substitute "Truth", "Most Rational Action", or "Reality" in for God in your sentence and still get the same meaning. People can and will justify almost everything.

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forgetfreeman 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

So was the search for condiments.

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defrost 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The Spice must flow.

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raverbashing 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

"The beauty of their women and the taste of their food made the British the best sailors in the world."

	▲	2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		[deleted]

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otabdeveloper4 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Source? Proofs?

Do communism and secular humanism count as "religions" here?

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vetronauta 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamiyan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_destroyed_libraries

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vitally3643 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The Crusaides and literally all of British colonialism.

Do you not know anything about history?

	▲	NeutralCrane an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The Crusades and colonialism can’t be distilled down to single causes, but even if you tried, religious reasons would not be the main ones. Political and financial motivations were far bigger factors in both.
	▲	otabdeveloper4 an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The East India Company was motivated by religion? You'll have a hard time justifying that unless you're some sort of hardcore Jewish cryptosupremacy conspiracy theorist.