What color hijab did Alexandra Kosteniuk wear today?

Not all of them are genocidal maniacs.

Religion is definitely dangerous though. People are too tolerant of religion for my taste.

I think we can all now see that urk has no real interest in female headgear but has used it to launch an attack on Islam.  Universityofpawns, we don't live in a democracy, just the pretence of one, but that's another discussion.

and I've a few Moslem friends who fight fascists, alongside the rest of us, when they dare appear on our streets.

Maybe we should go back to asking why other religions, considered more western, also expect certain dress and customs to be respected by everyone.  Like why should we have twelve unelected bishops in our house of lords; who do they represent?  God maybe? 

........and two of your favoured words.

Bit presumptious urk.  How do you know what anyone was doing?  Have you got a magic crystal ball or something?  I'm glad you protested against the war, and Bush, and glad you don't support Buzzlightyear, but you have a strange way of making allies.  Attacking one particular religion is what the Right engage in as a way of dividing people.

and here's 'Yacky' with her usual childish insults.  This is a grown up discussion yacky; keep up.

If you believe in a religion then most (or all) other religions are lies. People living their whole lives with their core beliefs anchored in falsehood.

If you're not religious, then all religions are lies.

I don't know why religion is respected... well I do, it's out of convenience, but I think it would be better if it weren't. Maybe a better word than respect is tolerate. People tolerate it.

I wouldn't bother trying reasonable debate with yacky, she'd cause trouble in an empty house!!   I think I do understand things from a Moslem perspective as one of my best friends has that faith. I don't like any religion as it's divisive and frankly a load of nonesense.  However, if people want to 'believe' then they can; it's up to them.

What I don't accept is attacks on one religion as a diversion for the West's military aims.  Isn't that what Hitler did?  Scapegoating a minority?  We've a lot more to worry about from 'our own' religions, predominantly christian of different hues.  The bigotry that exists here can be terrible, not to mention the numbers of clergy involved in sexual exploitation of children.

To me religion is the ultimate example of how frail humans are intellectually. Grown adults who truly believe in fairy tales.

"Now wait a minute, you can't say that about MY religion!"

Ok, then pretend I'm only saying it about the ones you don't believe in. No matter your religion, most people don't believe in it. Most people believe in fairy tales. We should all be able to agree on that.

I mean, how is that not intellectually offensive to people?

The answer is people don't have much regard for intellect. People don't have much regard for facts and truth. If it makes you happy, then that's good enough.

Just be careful when you start thinking in terms of "my side" is entirely and unequivocally Good and "their side" is entirely and unequivocally Evil. That's a strong sign of delusion no matter who you are or what you believe in. Just saying.

That's the other extreme, and I don't agree with that either. Humans DO  have some knowledge. The proof is everywhere in modern life: planes, computers, medicine, etc.

Maybe the word indoctrination could be used here somewhere...?

You're the one being childish with the soppy name calling. Shame I can't print the name I call you. You've worn out your copy & paste buttons, you missed out homophobia in your previous post.

Sure, I wouldn't mind that. If the most cherished values involved small community (family, friends, neighbors) and you eat food with friends until you die, that's great. Even in this case though knowledge is useful. It gives us more food, and less disease for example.

As the social circle grows though, I guess things get more complicated. It's not in our nature to be empathetic towards the bigger circles such as society, other societies, humanity, and all living things. To navigate that we need knowledge to e.g. set up functioning governments and deal with criminals effectively.

And again, wearing a scarf to a chess tournament is trivially non-controversial. The controversy is in what it may represent.

Well, I guess because we aren't very smart, instead of using knowledge for those roles, we (at least traditionally) used fairy tales. Living things are nothing if not pragmatic. It obviously worked.

I guess my gripe is how awkward it seems from a modern perspective, where we've reached the point that these things are possible with facts instead of imagination. So you ask me "is it really that important?" Well, ideologies carry a lot of baggage. They make good people do bad things. And if we focus on true knowledge we can improve the quality of life even more.

I don't want to derail urk but Left and Right are very different. The Right are always on the side of the mighty, the wealthy and powerful. The Right usually use diversionary tactics to divide their numerically mightier opposition, and even win some over with false slogans such as 'national socialism'.  However, I'll say no more on this. 

Evil is a word usually used by religious people, against other people of different religions strangely enough.  It's one of the many reasons I don't like religion.  'How many fairies can be balanced on a pinhead' is the standard of argument between religious people.  Can you underdstand why so many of us switch off?

No, US customs and laws are founded on the principles of the enlightenment, not religion. Religion didn't become a serious part of US politics until around the 1930's. There's a very good book about it by a Princeton historian named Kevin Kruse if you're interested. There are also numerous quotes by the founding fathers that make it quite clear how little our government is inspired by Christianity. The Treaty of Tripoli is probably the most famous, signed by then-president John Adams, which states that "The Government of the United States of America is in no way founded on the Christian religion". The majority of the founders were in fact deists and not Christians. It's why we have the protection of the free exercise of religion outlined in the first amendment. I'm wondering, what laws and customs in the United States are founded on religious practices? Where did you learn this?