On Tue, 15 Jul 2008 16:01:20 +0000, Larry wrote:

Herodotus wrote in
:

there is some wonderful wisdom at times in that book as there
is in the Koran

I bought an Enlish translation of the Koran in a bookshop in the Souk in
Manama, Bahrain. It was translated by a moslem in India in the 1920's and
has been reprinted ever since. The Indian publisher uses terribly
primitive publishing equipment and it shows. The cover is made by hand!

I learned not to read it where any Bahrainis could see me in short order to
keep the lectures to a minimum. Showing an interest, they can go on for
hours...(c; I find it terribly disturbing with so many gory instructions
about cutting off various body parts, outright genocide or at least
murders, and I can see why there is so much blood associated with Islam
like the stonings of half buried people in Iran (youtube has the videos).

No thanks. Mankind needs to shed itself of these killing fields caused by
religions. I find it quite comforting to know that when I die, I simply
don't exist any more and can be soon forgotten, like the billions before
me, recycled into more life by natural selection. I don't have to
"prepare" for death at all. I'm leaving that to someone else's problems...
(c;

The problem in imagining a religionless history is considering how
much worse such a history would be.
Leaving aside religions' excesses - and there is every reason to
suppose those excesses would be greater without the constraints of
religion-imposed "morality"- what motivations toward "good" can you
point to that are not sourced in the tenets of a religion?
You can't.
There is no profit in bemoaning history. We are its final product.
History is best used to refine our movement forward.

--Vic