Who has been a bigger threat to world peace?

But it's just a set of rules, what about law then?

World peace is unattainable, only temporary silence.

The U.S. seems to be getting quite a bit of negative rep even though it was peace maker in ww2 and peace keeper in Europe post ww2

Yup. Violence is in our nature, i imagine that once we have interstellar capability we will soon be at war in the galactic sphere.

So is love and compassion.

My point is that religion doesn't really change; laws evolve with society. Religion is the cause of so much violence and suffering in the world. The Middle East is a massive ****hole thanks to wars that have been fought over ideological beliefs, for example.

Right, because it is priests, rabbis, and imams directing the bombs and buying off the politicians?

Or .... the other way around?

Sure. But love and compassion have not stopped wars yet.

Why do you think that is?

Because our nature is to be pack animals, to be divided, to dominate rival packs. Within this pack we can be lovely people, but to those we do not see as our own, we can be at least discriminatory, at worst downright violent.

While i'd hope that the world will become more unified over time (though political differences with Russia and cultural issues with the Middle East make that somewhat unlikely), on the grand galactic scale you'll just replace countries with planets. We will still see alien race x as being different and we will try to conquer them.

Only if you believe these are important, which by the way they are not even real, they are mostly concepts. even on a galactic scale we are ALL still made of the same stuff. What are you fighting?

Sure, but the ruling class think in these terms. Hence why the UK is anything but keen on joining a lovely European state. We see our wishes as different.

Culture i suppose. Our way of life and values are different to others, that would be true on the larger galactic scale.

Only if you're taught to think that way, most people want happiness, which is made complicated by the variety of different rules, religions, laws, cultures...whatever you want to call them.

I say simplify everything and you'll find all have a lot in common.

Most people want happiness but they also want security, they like stability and many fear the unknown.

I imagine so, but that rarely plays itself out. When 20 Muslim families move onto your street, most people don't react by thinking about how much they have in common.