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Comment by z9e | Hacker News Reader

I agree with most of this, but I think your observation on religion is exaggerated. It's a very personal thing and I think it still helps a lot of people cope, regardless of how un-cool it is these days.

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In the big picture, with amount of killing that has been done in the name of religion over millennia, I just find it hard to reconcile.

In terms of body count, more people have been killed in the name of science than in the name of religion.

We kill with science, do we kill in the name of science?

But even so, that doesn’t make all the killing in the name of religion less bad.

If killing is justified by an evidence-based predictive model, it's probably killing in the name of science. This would include the Vietnam war ("Domino theory"), the atomic bombings of Japan ("it will be less costly than invading"), and anti terrorist drone bombing ("they fit our proven terrorist heuristic")

I don't follow that line of reasoning at all. "Killing in the name of religion" would be to protect or spread some sort of metaphysical belief. The equivalent would be something like going to war with another country to build universities there.

Check out this little country called Afghanistan.

Although, not sure if any Universities specifically have been built there by the West, yet.

Just as an exercise, it would be beneficial for you to make your argument explicit. You would notice that it falls apart/there is none.

We (USA) do go and destroy places and institutions/governments and rebuild as benefits us, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r... or

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/12/2....

Also, who's arguing?

Contrasting "scientism" as faith in "science" vs "science" as an evidence based process of ascertaining how the world works, you're probably describing "killing in the name of scientism" which is effectively religion insofar as it is a matter of faith.

E.g. faith that building universities and education makes people behave in a "sciencey" manner

If not religion, then something else. Whether it's ethnic violence, like the Rwandan genocide or the Balkans; political violence, like the Vietnam war or the Great Leap Forward in China (plus the Chinese civil war); for money, such as the Belgians in the Congo.

"Non-religious" systems of value, be it capitalism, communism, democracy, nationalism or something else, also kill people. Really it's values that people kill for, and religions are a subset of values. But we can't live without any values!

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