Addendum

I'm currently reading an excellent book by Steven Pinker called "The Better Angels of our Nature" (http://www.amazon.ca/The-Better-Angels-Our-Nature/dp/0670022950). I say excellent because it's thoroughly enjoyable to read and his observations and comments on human nature are incredibly interesting. I'm not done the book yet but his thesis that violence has declined (for numerous reasons that are difficult to summarize [the book is very very long for a good reason] but mainly have to do with Hobbes' leviathan social contract theory) has me convinced. There's a review on Amazon (you can see it following the above link) that says he misses the boat completely because violence against animals has increased so much that species are being wiped out at a faster rate than ever. While that's true and it's definitely a problem (obviously) I don't think in general it can be lumped in with 'violence'. It's unfair and the elimination of species is clearly the result of human actions but it's not violence in the traditional sense. The food/meat industry could more closely be claimed to be violent (we're literally killing more animals than ever because more people can afford to purchase meat and more animals are being born for the purpose of being killed and overall there are more people in the world) but this is really a book about violence against humans and human nature. Not to ignore the animal problem but really, I totally digress... Really what I wanted to note was this amazingly succinct passage that really captures the problem with religion:

"A broader range of unverifiable beliefs is the temptation to defend them by violent means. People become wedded to their beliefs, because the validity of those beliefs reflects on their competence, commends them as authorities, and rationalizes their mandate to lead. Challenge a person’s beliefs, and you challenge his dignity, standing, and power. And when those beliefs are based on nothing but faith, they are chronically fragile. No one gets upset about the belief that rocks fall down as opposed to up, because all sane people can see it with their own eyes. Not so for the belief that babies are born with original sin or that God exists in three persons or that Ali was the second-most divinely inspired man after Muhammad. When people organize their lives around these beliefs, and then learn of other people who seem to be doing just fine without them—or worse, who credibly rebut them—they are in danger of looking like fools. Since one cannot defend a belief based on faith by persuading skeptics it is true, the faithful are apt to react to unbelief with rage, and may try to eliminate that affront to everything that makes their lives meaningful." (p. 140)

There you go.