There are a lot of dead people in the Middle East because of religion.
This is incorrect. There are a lot of dead people because of tribalism. If you take away religion, they find some other thing to represent these tribal dividing lines and use that as the rallying flag for the tribalism to continue.
It is not religion's fault. Other people who are not operating at the tribalistic level as the dominant center of gravity in their lives, also have religion and are functioning at far more civilized levels. You see, it's not religion that decides how you are. There are other, far more deeper reasons that go to human development as a whole, related to things like economics, education, resources, infrastructures, culture, etc. You have to look at the context first, and in each context religion is practiced and approached differently. The common variable is not religion.
There is incredible scientific evidence in the United States because the religious majority resists it.
Again, it's not because of religion. It's because of a worldview that is still fixated on themselves as the center of the universe. Using the Bible to justify that, is merely a rationalization for this deeper anxiety about a displacement of their more narcissistic self-identities as the pinnacle of creation, mankind at the top of the heap, the apple of God's eye, etc. Evolution thrusts a spear into that, just like a heliocentric model of the cosmos did, and does to some extent even today. That's the core problem, not religion.
There are school systems teaching "abstinence only" sex ed because of the religious majority, even though the statistics clearly show that this approach causes greater incidents of teen aged pregnancy and STD's. We both know I could go on.
And all of them have to do with social conservatism, not religion. What you are understandably falling into is seeing those more backward in society, those who are clinging to some imagined nostalgic world of the past in the 1950's where life was 'simpler' trying to find any rationalization to resist change, having co-opt'd their religions as the voice of their social resistance. That view is not shared by many who practice the same religions. The problem isn't religion, but certain groups of people with their resistance to change using the Bible and religion to justify their own inability to adapt. It's really that simple.
For me, to use the Bible as an example, it screams progressiveness, change, and advance. To them it screams "stop! Don't let go of yesterday! You'll let the devil in!". You see, it has to do with the person, and religion will follow.
For the sake of civility and peace, the line has to be drawn somewhere, and neither side should cross it -- theists and atheists alike.
Has nothing to do with theism versus atheism. Those question honestly should have nothing to do with these social and cultural questions. Those should simply have to do with how one shapes their views of Ultimate Truth, not relative truths such as cultural value systems and beliefs.
The line really needs to be drawn between prerational thinking, and rational thinking. Then religion will simply follow.
