You must have hated to have to hear only me. 

Why would you think that?  I hold no personal animosity towards you whatsoever.  I was frustrated not to be able to hear the others, but I think you'll eventually straighten that problem out.  I think that it was great of you to arrange the debate.

Actually, Scott brought it up and also the NRA thing, I just borrowed it.

I didn't know that.  I could only hear your voice.  The others were either unintelligible mumbles or barely audible.

But I'd still like to know your answer on whether you consider guns to be dangerous objects.  I think that this ultimately bears on the debate over whether religion is arguably dangerous.

Yes, David.  So are knives, and so are matches.  Each of those objects has one or more properties that make them dangerous.  Society recognizes the danger in all of those objects.  We license drivers and cars.  Nowadays, it is difficult to find matches that are not "safety matches".  And we don't allow airline passengers to carry knives onto planes.

Yes, they do, sntjohnny.  So do matches and knives, not to mention guns.

Kewl.  Then we're agreed.  :)

Yes, that's something to celebrate.   

The point about instrumentality is that some objects actually have causal effects of behavior.  For example, those who own guns are more likely to threaten others with violence because guns empower violence.  While knives are also dangerous, they are not quite as dangerous because violence with a knife is not as easy as pulling a trigger.

In the case of religion, there can be no question that it leads to dangerous behavior when some are under its influence.  The question, as with guns, is whether it has a causal effect because it facilitates dangerous behavior.  Given the large number of religion-inspired conflicts in the world, I would say that religion seems to have that causal effect.  It facilitates the spread of hatred and anger.  People without religion have one less issue to fight over.  Is there even a single terrorist group in existence that grounds its violent behavior in lack of belief in gods?

There have been plenty of communist terrorist groups:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorist_organization

Yes, there have.  There have also been non-atheist communists, odd as that may sound.  The terrorism committed by such groups seldom, if ever, has anything to do with religion, so I don't count that as "atheist terrorism".  When militant Islamists kill people, it is usually done in the name of Allah.  Certainly, 9/11 was a religious, as well as a political, act.  Without the element of religion, it would have been very difficult to get intelligent, educated men with families to commit mass murder-suicide as an act of pure terrorism.

What is good?

Says who?

LOL

Yes, but if that is what it takes to answer the question, immediately another one surfaces- that of significance.  If religion is dangerous and guns are dangerous and cars are dangerous, than so too is non-religion- in the wrong minds- etc.  Thus, as I tried to explain in the debate (and Luke, to a degree, too), the subtext of the question is whether or not religion is uniquely dangerous in some sort of non-trivial way.  If by 'dangerous' you have descended to the point where your definition can include literally everything (even a paper weight can be used as a weapon, and a piece of paper can give serious owies to the fingers), you may have arrived at your answer, "Yes," but you've removed any credible reason for caring about the question in the first place.

I should also add that if we were to take your argument to its rational end, just as guns and cars in the wrong hands can be deadly- and so we regulate them- if it really is true that 'religion' belongs to this class then the consistent man ought to be calling for regulation of religion, too.  The fact that you won't make this step is probably the only difference between you and the atheistic communists who murdered some 100 million people this last century.  I'm talking about in terms of logic, not moral character.

Or, if Dawkins really believes that certain doctrines within religion are child abuse...

[Pause.  Full stop.  During the debate, in the chat room you responded to me pointing out that Dawkins did this and implied it was a strawman.  Here is a quote, which was included in my opening statement:

"The threat of eternal hell is an extreme example of mental abuse, just as violent sodomy is an extreme example of physical abuse. Most physical abuse is milder, and so is most of the mental abuse inherent in a typical religious education."   http://www.thehumanist.org/humanist/articles/dawkins.html

end full stop]

...then by all means it ought be regulated, eliminated, and forbidden, correct?  If Dawkins believes that the doctrine of hell is the equivalent somehow of sodomizing a child, what good and decent person would not immediately use all available means at their disposal to elminate this abuse?  Would Dawkins stand by and allow a kid to be sodomized?  Is he happy or sad that there are laws on the books (even in Britain, I believe) allowing authorities to reach into families and stop such actions and bring them to justice?  Happy, of course.

But he too does not extend this reasoning to its rational end.  But if religion is 'dangerous' like cars and guns are dangerous, than it ought to be regulated.  If certain doctrines are 'child abuse' like the sodomization of children, than it ought to be stomped out- with force, if necessary.  That is, if you are a person of any good moral decency of any kind you would.

But Dawkins, like all the rest of the people who gain comfort in their own moral superiority by denouncing religion, that dangerous thing, are unwilling to go to this next step, even though it is a rational step for anyone with an ounce of goodness in them- if in fact the argument is rational.

It is in this sense that those who propose that religion is dangerous are themselves adopting a dangerous ideology.  What is stopping Dawkins and you, Copernicus, from initiating the charge to take children away from families where the parents accept the doctrine of hell?  And even if the two of you have perfect motives and handle the affair bloodlessly, what is to say that later followers of your ideology- for this is a set of beliefs here (a religion?!?)- will act on the principle as justly as you?

I suppose Marx probably had not idea that people to follow.. Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Pol Pot, etc, would take his ideas as far as they went.  Marx assumed that later people would be able to apply force to the level and in the ways that he himself envisioned to be called for.  THAT is a dangerous assumption.

To answer my own question- what is stopping you from doing this?  What keeps you from not taking your arguments that produce the answer you want- "Is religion Dangerous?" Yes!- and really acting on that principle?  The answer is that you are actually going out of your own worldview system and borrowing from religious ethics, Christianity's in particular, to find your 'stop.'  You are acting on borrowed capital.   I'm glad you are, but as far as I'm concerned, yours and Dawkins view is every bit as dangerous as the worst religionist. 

The only difference is that your views, so long as they are not put into action, remain fairly harmless.  This is much like how both of you would characterize a religionist- so long as they don't put their beliefs into action, its harmless, and maybe you'll let it slide.  As soon as someone actually puts it into practice, they become a 'fundamentalist' (code for a person who really believes what they say the believe).  On the other hand, as thankful as I am that these are views that are currently harmless as they bounce around inside the heads of people who won't extend them to their rational conclusion, the next generation of people- all those Dawkins inspires- may not be as hesitant to begin putting their (your) view into action.

We'll leave aside the matter of whether or not it can be said someone really does believe something if they are unwilling to act on that belief.