Ok, please don't take the following as a bash; I am just sincerely curious, so if any religious individuals read this, please try to respond to it as respectfully as possible.
Let's say some adult guy, let's call him Steve, goes to the polar bear exhibit at the zoo and starts preaching about how the polar bear exhibit is a magically disguised monitoring base for Santa to watch people and check to see who's naughty or nice. He claims that he is somehow immune to the spell and is thus the only person that can see through it. Steve then says that the polar bear exhibit must be destroyed for the sake of allowing people their privacy from Santa's peeping eyes.
The next thing you know, two guys dressed in white, one with a straightjacket and the other with a supply of neurodepressants come by and say, "Steve, we're going to take you to a nice, soft place now, okay?"
In this scenario, Steve is using some religion-esque claim to justify destruction of a polar bear exhibit. The Pope is using religion to justify hate, and past popes used it to justify WAR.
As for my question: what's the difference between any religious individual and Steve? Of course, other than:
-Religious people being more numerous.
-Religion being so engrained in society that no one dare challenge it for the sake of political correctness.
I'd appreciate an answer. Once again, I don't want to bash any religion. I'm just playing devil's advocate. (No pun intended)
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I don't think either side is better than the other. In fact, it's irrelevant. You say God created the universe, so who created God? The point is that no matter what you believe in, you must acknowledge that, at some point, something must have come from nothing at least once at some point in time.
Therefore, since we all share the common background of nothingness, can't we all just hold hands and get along?
