milanst:

I’ve never seen a humanist commit murder or any other crime, for that matter.

Nether have I, in fact I’ve never seen anyone commit a crime. However, I live in Lancaster County (Amish Country) and the Christians here are as peaceful as Mr. Rodgers. But if you want to read about it you can start with Dickens or any history book on France in the late 1890’s.

when people go by a strict set of laws that say to punish others for believing differently and that is what religion does

On the top of my head the only religion that teaches us to punish others for believing differently is Islam. There may be others, actually you may find some in this forum that feel Christians should be punished, I came across one. I believe Dawkins feels I should be punished for praying with my children, I could be taking him out of context though. Christianity in fact teaches us not to judge others but examine our own hearts and find the evil in ourselves. Christ associated with prostitutes, tax payers, and the like.

NobleSavage:

While many Christians think as you described they are not commanded to. Christ is the judge not believers in him. It appears Christians are the biggest sinners unto themselves rather than others causing them to sin, and this is truly sad.

If people can be encouraged to let go of these attitudes, it will be a step in the right direction.

I simply don’t see this living in Lancaster County, I see the attitude of looking at the world as Christ did as freeing one from these attitudes. The problem is people in general put an “us” verses “them” in many scenarious. Whether its nationalism, skin color, language, culture, the list goes on. Us humans simply cannot live together when our neighbor is different from us. However there have been some cases of this successfully happening. Two example I can think of on the top of my head are the early church and early America-before our crusade to rid the Indians. For instance, Berks County, the county right next to Lancaster County was one of the most diverse areas in the world. There is only one example of hostility and it was due to an Indian tribe killing an Amish family. Anyway that’s enough for now.