That rate isn't reflective of testosterone and wars but because women have primarily been excluded from positions of power. And when women were in power, history shows us that there's really no substantial difference in terms of aggression or the capability thereof. What you're saying isn't honest, it's sexist.

Yeah, in many cases religion has been used as a dividing factor among men. People reach those divisions through focusing on their differences in religions, also. Such a dividing factor in human history can't be a factor of unity in the future. Maybe to some moderates, but inevitably putting religion in the focus merely puts our differences in the focus. We can never unite under our differences.

This seems pretty naive to me. You seem to believe that under the surface of symbols there's a distinct commonality of spiritual meaning among all religions. This is false. Most religions differ widely in their spiritual interpretations of reality.

Really the only common hood I see pervading most religions is the parallelism behind the creation of their primary 'saviors' based off of astrology (the story of Jesus, Horus, Attis, Krishna, etc. all are concoctions of primarily the same astrological events). But even such literary parallelism doesn't mean spiritual interpretations are the same.

I totally agree. But we will never unite around what divides us (differences in religion). The idea that humans will unite around the supernatural and the invisible rather than the real and causes of humanity, that is what is a soft and flowery pipe dream.

How kind of you to assume. If you can describe this obvious difference in spiritual interpretation among Christians and yourself, and then describe how we can somehow at the same time unite with this spirituality as the primary factor of 'commonality', please go ahead. I would be very interested.

Eternal damnation isn't symbolic. And even if it originally was meant to be, it certainly isn't today under the current Christian interpretations of scripture. I think you're confusing hell with eternal damnation. I think you have an argument that hell could be symbolic, but there is always the threat of eternal damnation; whether that be 'separation from god', or actual physical punishment in a fiery place called hell, there is still the idea of damnation.

And such passages are in the actual scriptures of these religions; not mere religious laws back then. Meaning, the actual word of god is calling for a division among men, so to speak (as each of those three religions believe their text to be the revealed truth and word of god).

Hmmm, so first I'm ignorant, incapable of abstract thought, and now I'm goddamned narrow-minded? Hmmm, I can see religion uniting us already!

I don't think you're getting what I was trying to say. Religion posits a truth about the nature of our realities. It isn't just some opinion. It's supposed to be the undebatable truth about the ultimate truth of our very universe. Therefore, most religions are presupposing that it knows with certainty the nature of things. Hence faith; the commitment to something as completely true void of evidence! It's different than mere believing.

There is an obvious logical fallacy in your argument here. Just because something is popular doesn't mean it's true. The second most selling book of all time in the world (the first would be the Bible) is the quotations from Mao Tse-tung (otherwise known as "the little red book"). So, because so many people worshiped Mao, and now so many people in North Korea are worshiping Kim Jong-Il as a god-king, that there is an element of truth to it, rather than just mass delusion?

Do you know how utterly ridiculous that sounds?

The simple matter is that we, as humans, don't know the ultimate truth of our reality. Religions, a man-made phenomena, claim to know the ultimate truth. They're accepting a reality with full commitment all void of evidence (faith); hence, it is not lying but mass delusion.