Thanks. Just watched & indeed enjoyed the last 15 min, when he rolls out the offensive.

Amazing, though an in-depth examination of the religiosity to inequality-and-insociability correlation is necessary. Is it a sharpshooter fallacy, or confirmation bias, or is it real?

I'm disposed to see it as real, but the various studies' methods are all-important.

After that, there are possibly some chicken-and-the-egg problems, or at least some vicious cycle problems.

How DARE you quote Celene Dion here!

Also this video's description is wrong. Quit talking about my penis.

That's not even a good short answer. Religion can be, and is often, used for social control; but you'll also find the voice of conscience in religion. MLK Jr spoke in religious terms and motivated some on religous grounds. Abolitionists were likewise backed by the Bible (or at least they made that claim, with some justification).

In any situation where powerful assholes subscribe to a religion, they will use it to justify what they're doing. But it doesn't follow that religion itself was created for that purpose, nor is religion required for powerful assholes to be powerful assholes.

Slavery has long been justified on religious grounds and was done so in America and Britain. I'd question where religion's alleged desire to help the poor is right now amongst all of the "prosperity gospel" stuff being preached.

As for powerful assholes, more powerful assholes have existed in history than democratically elected ones or even "I'm in charge because I say so" ones. From the Pharaohs on through the Divine Right of Kings to every witch doctor that claimed the gods were angry, fear of the supernatural keeps getting hauled out.

We're still waiting for a non-Christian to get elected President, for cryin' out loud.

Best hope there is an openly agnostic president. I'd say that's like 90 yeras away, at best. We have a closeted agnostic president now, if I remember some of the things that he's said in early career debates accurately.