Say what? When was society ever irreligious and peacful such that religion should increase the level of violence? ALL historic human society was religious until very recently. So all societal violence was by definition religious violence. But so what? There were not secular societies existant that would allow the violence to be anything other than religious. We do not find that modern secularists are less violent.

You cleverly neglected to admit not having read Dawkins latest book, or perhaps any of them. Please write another post once you have. The arguments you cited are merely straw man arguments that evil would still exist even with atheism. Yet, you fail to address the fact that religion has lead to a net increase in violence, murder and mayhem. Religions have multiplied violent acts in many ways, 9/11 and suicide bombers in Israel/Iraq being the best recent examples of this.

Moreover, as a Rabbi, you no doubt believe the Torah account of the Flood to be a true one. You must then acknowledge that God himself killed many more people (along with all terrestrial wildlife)in the Flood and later sanctioned more genocides (of the hittites, jebusites, amorites, sodomites, et al.) than Hitler, Stalin, Bin laden, Pol Pot, Hussein, et al. combined!

I know the answer, it was morally perfect when god killed these people, right? Therein lies the exact problem Dawkins is addressing in his book. Again, please read it and re-post.

It is the will to power at the expense of others. There is a certain fiction that power is like beans in a bucket, and once a certain amount of power is held, the bucket is empty. In this view, you can only have power by taking it from others. I don’t believe this is the truth.

But it is entirely possible to want power, and to exert effort toward achieving it, without deliberately infringing on the rights of others. I don’t see any problem with that. Power is a voluntary concept, in the end; others hold power over you because you consent to allow it, and you hold power over others because they consent to allow it. Once this is understood, power becomes a non-competitive subject, and no longer occupies much of your concern.

My brother’s sign said, “This is My Herman” and was signed, “G-d.”

In theory, it was a secular, atheistic society. In practice, Communism quickly became a state religion that made Spanish Catholicism in the 1500s look good.

No, actually, it is not. I highly recommend that you read the book Unintelligent Design by Mark Perakh. It makes a very convincing case against organized religion and the so called “proofs” for G-d’s existence. As I am an agnostic (despite an outwardly chareidi lifestyle), I can assure you that the atheists are not as illogical as you present them.

I’m afraid that if you want to know what the current generation believes, you’re going to have to throw away all of your books. It’s pure decadence these days, nothing more. Dawkins is preaching to the tiny minority of already converted that actually reads works on such a subject.

Disclaimer: I used to me a member, and some of my writings are on the site.