On Sun, 21 Sep 2008 04:27:14 +0100, Eeyore
wrote:



John Larkin wrote:

Eeyore wrote:
John Larkin wrote:
Eeyore wrote:
John Larkin wrote:

Without religion, groups of people will find other criteria for
forming teams and fighting. Color, language, history, favorite soccer
team, political party, whatever. Atheist Nazis fought atheist Soviets
with unparalleled enthusuasm.

Actually it's usually about LAND. None of the above.

Whether it's about land, gold, or tea, people form up teams to fight
over stuff. The things I listed are some ways the teams separate and
organize. There's no doubt that genetic similarity concentrates mutual
interest and, lacking DNA testing, language and color and religion are
useful surrogates.

In my personal experience, believers are usually nicer people than
atheists.

NOT my experience at all. SOME are very nice, some are the most evil
people on earth IMHO. The Catholic Church for example is uniquely heavily
responsible for the spread of HIV/AIDS any many other STDs.

If everyone abstained before marriage, and was monogamous after, as
the Pope recommends, there would be no AIDS. Many religious rules were
probably evolved as methods to reduce communicable diseases.

Sex/drugs/rock-and-roll spread sixty or so nasty viruses and at least
a dozen unpleasant bacteria, all of which are working on their drug
resistance.

Are you suggesting sex/drugs and rock-and-roll are responsible ?

I am suggesting that the more sexual partners you have, the likelier
you will be to contract an STD. Is that a radical theory?

Providing you take the sensible precautions which the Catholic Church forbids, that
need not be the case at all.

Given the AIDS rates in some countries, non-Catholic countries
incidentally, those precautions aren't working.




Even the Romans had full blown group sex (orgies). Non-monogamous sex and sex
for fun within or without marriage is widespread the world over.

The Romans weren't yet exposed to syphylus,

Sure ?

It wasn't a big deal in Europe until the 14th century. Read The
Canterbury Tales or The Decameron. There were lots of jolly monks and
wayward maids until The Pox got going strong, after which the church
got serious about morality.




AIDS, or any number of
nasty drug-resistant critters. And they mostly died young anyhow. I'm
sure many died from complications of bladder infections, which can be
very nasty without modern treatment.

Funnily enough dolphins mate for fun too. As do certain apes and various other
species.

Humans have radically changed their social behavior in the last few
thousand years; dolphins and chimps haven't. AIDS is killing a lot of
people, but not many dolphins or apes, as far as I can tell.

Different species dolphins, but there is an ape form of AIDS AIUI.

It doesn't seem to kill them often; they have partially adapted to it.
Chimps are wildly promiscuous and seem to be OK.


Are you suggesting abstention for kids ? I can tell you, it won't happen. Those who
pledged they would abstain in the USA actually showed a higher rate of STDs since
they weren't suitably prepared.

I'm suggesting that the fewer sexual partners you have, the safer
you'll be. "Protection" is often skipped, in favor of pills by people
who can afford them, in favor of nothing by those who can't.

Viruses and bacteria have their own agenda.

John