The Israel/Palestine Conflict Mk. IV

Religion is a delusional belief, which can be considered a form of mental illness.

Sorry, where is the science showing that all religious people are "mentally ill"? Oh, that's right. There isn't any. It's just Dawkins being a prick..

As can ignorance

Senior leaders of Hamas has pointed out that they no longer held their charter high - that it is a historical document now

Israel would have never been created were it not for religion. The whole conflict stems from religion.

People who believe in the gods of religion and the truth of their ancient books, etc, are undoubtedly delusional.

"Delusion: A false belief strongly held in spite of invalidating evidence, especially as a symptom of mental illness, as in schizophrenia."

There you have it.

Not all of them. Opinion is split.
If the Charter no longer represented Hamas's aims, they would change or renounce it. They have not and until they do, statements saying that it is all in the past will rightly be seen as a mere public relations exercise.

Completely true. But also this website might not exist. We might not be speaking English. Maybe we wouldn't have nation states. Maybe no democracy. Wide-sweeping generalisations like "were it not for religion..." are not very enlightening.

This website, language, nation states, democracy and an infinite host of achievements are not inherently contingent on religion. In fact, intellectual and ethical progress often thrived in spite of it. The concept of a sacred land, however, promised by a god, is entirely founded in religious thought.

There seems to be two ridiculous extremes shouting the loudest in such debates where one tries to pin every woe down to religion while the other exonerates the ideology of any blame or fault.

Fantastic. Now all you need to do is prove religion to be false and show the "invalidating evidence". I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that there isn't strong invalidating evidence hence religious belief is not a delusion. But thanks for trying.

No. Ignorance is a lack of knowledge. A delusion is the refusal to accept knowledge in favour of unsupported belief.

DO NOT disrespect Dorset! It is indeed a sacred and holy land (to some). Repent, or the Cerne Abbas Giant will beat you about the head with his massive weapon!

Completely true. But also this website might not exist. We might not be speaking English. Maybe we wouldn't have nation states. Maybe no democracy. Wide-sweeping generalisations like "were it not for religion..." are not very enlightening.

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http://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/press-releases/unrwa-condemns-placement-rockets-second-time-one-its-schools

Interesting.

So when this vacant school which is surrounded by other UN schools which serve as shelters is hit by the IDF, we will hear the usual propaganda 'IDF has hit a UN school, damaging two others and injuring civilians.'

I wonder why the IDF, those evil creatures, would randomly bomb a school! It couldn't POSSIBLY be because they've placed weapons in a civilian area, could it? (An example of using human shields, for those unaware of it, by the way).

Since when did something need to be proved to be non-existent for believing in it to be delusional? Just because you cannot prove that I do not have a dozen tiny, undetectable unicorns living in my pants, does not mean that I am not delusional.
Also, aren't extraordinary claims supposed to be supported by evidence, not just accepted without question?

Oh, by the way, Christianity and Islam are demonstrably false. The simple fact that the revealed word of god is wrong is enough proof (ie. if their holy books were really written by god, they would not contain any mistakes). Followers of those religions believe them to be true despite the evidence. They ignore reality when it contradicts unsupported dogma. That is why they are delusional.

If you believe that the world is 6000 years old, you are delusional.
If you believe that a man flew a winged horse to the seven heavens, you are delusional.
If you believe that there was a flood that covered the entire planet to a depth of 12,000ft in human history, you are delusional.
If you believe that every species on the planet was saved on a wooden boat, you are delusional.
Etc, etc.
Belief in the major monotheisms is a delusion.

"Delusion: A false belief strongly held in spite of invalidating evidence, especially as a symptom of mental illness, as in schizophrenia."

You are comparing something you have no comprehension of (how the world would be without religion) to something we can clearly see is that fault of religion today