TL;DR I'm inexperienced at arguing and according to my friend, I'm not articulating my arguments correctly. What can I do better?

My friend and I were having a Skype argument that started off as discussion about the shootings in France. Warning: wall of text:

Me:Add another atrocity to the list of reasons why I don't like religion

Her: And I disagree on some minutia there, but I'll stop bothering

Me: what do you disagree with?

Her: I think it's more an issue of people losing sight of humor in the face of their own crusade more than religion

Unless you count sjwism as a religion

Me: the gunman are reported to have said "we are avenging the prophet"

how is that not religiously motivated?

Her: I'm not saying it's not religiously motivated

I'm saying I don't think that religion is the root of this particular problem

Just because religion is involved doesn't make it the biggest wrong

Me: what do you think is the biggest wrong in this case?

Her: What I mentioned

The fact that people are growing more and more intolerant of each other

That they're looking elsewhere for blame, twisting facts to fit their mission

Trying to force others to share their opinions and stifle them if they can't

It's a much larger trend than just this current bombing, but it can also be a sneakier one, and it's not something that anyone seems willing to pick up arms for

Me: the thing is religion is tailor-made to do all the things you mentioned

twisting facts - religious books are vague, open to many various interpretations

forcing others to share their opinions - conversion is a big piece of most religions

Her: Okay, how about race?

Me: and people are willing to take it to the extreme partially because the quran and the bible are already extreme

Her: You think people are allowed to have multiple opinions on black people if they're affluent whites?

There's even a creeping movement on what people are allowed to find attractive, for goodness sake!

This has gone beyond the dystopia of blaming talented people for being talented

Now the targets have changed, but the hatred is still the same

And it's so much more dangerous than RELIGION

Religion is just something you believe in, but when you live in a culture of hate, it becomes a powerful tool

But the gun itself doesn't kill anyone

It isn't sentient

Did you know that the Greeks would hold trial after sacrificing an animal to the gods?

They would try to find who was guilty of murdering the creature

And the answer was always the knife, so they drowned it

And thus they could eliminate the guilt they felt over their sacrificial slaughters

It's the same. damn. thing.

Me: i have to disagree with you there

religion isn't just a tool

it's not just something you believe in

for many people, it's their lives

it's deeply intertwined with their sense of self, which is why they percieve attacks on religion as attacks on themselves

no, hatred would not end if religion disappeared overnight

but it would be a lot harder to have your hatred be universally tolerated, if not condoned, by society

Her: ?

That last bit confuses me grammatically

Me: it would be a lot harder for your hatred to be tolerated, even condoned

is probably a better way of putting it

Her: http://imgur.com/t/funny/7wq3ySQ

Me: e.g. have you noticed that it's always muslims who are getting violently angry about the way their religion is portrayed in the media? but if someone tries to start a discussion about it, theyre called islamophobes

Her: Part of that is because it's incredibly against their religion to even depict Allah or Muhammad (yes?) in humanoid form

And they are living under a lot of universal hate

So that drives more people to the extremists

And extremists do violent shit

Not religious people - zealots

There's a difference

I mean, France wanted to ban hajibs!

You can't just DO something like that!

Me: extremism is only a problem because the religion has problematic teachings

extremist jains are careful about killing insects and shit, they don't kill people

Her: Under the guise of equality and not forcing your own religion on people, it's illegal to wear religious markings in public spaces in parts of France - no crosses, yamekas (fuck spelling), peias, turbans, etc

Nada

But those aren't dangerous, they're not hurting anyone

My world history teacher mentioned that the majority of bombers are young adult males who have nothing

So the best way to get them to stop would be to give them something that adds fulfillment to their lives

A home, a wife

Decency and the ability to work hard and reap benefits

But that doesn't exist for them, and so they turn to gain a sense of worthiness and belonging from the only thing they have left, and they blame those that forced them into this situation

And so those anarchists and bloodthirsters use that frustration to their advantage and give these people a flag to rally around

And then they slaughter their enemies and those they deem unfit because they can and they desire to do so

Besides, religion, or something that acts as a motivator or excuse for hate in this case, will always exist

So why make it the enemy when there's a long history proving that it only makes things worse?

Clearly it's time to change tactics

Happy people who have religion won't go to war for it

Me: 2/3 of the 25 people involved in 9/11 went to college

and still they chose to die in the attack

why? because they were certain of paradise

only religion does that

without religion, they would fight, yes, but they would think a lot harder before using tactics like suicide bombings

Her: No, they wouldn't

Jingoism exists and drives people to the same ends

Slavery started and was fueled not by religion, and neither was Hitler's regime and consequent horrific actions

Me: no, but reliigon helped

Her: Soviet Russia flipped to the other side and eliminated everyone who was religious claiming the same as you

Me: and then they instituted what was basically a theocracy

Her: Although they were afraid of people using religion as a rallying cry against the covernment

How was it a theocracy?

And I fail to see how religion "helped"

Me: North Korea's doing it now - thanking Dear Leader and all that great stuff

Her: Does he grant you rights to paradise?

Me: and slavery is enshrined in both the quran and the bible, not to mention the Nazi's belt buckles read "gott mitt uns" and the Catholic Church helped out both Hitler and Mussolini

http://www.thinkatheist.com/photo/so-i-noticed-something-while-watching-the-olympics?xg_source=activity

Her: Okay

So

• just because the bible and quran mention slavery doesn't mean they encourage it

• slavery existed for at least a hundred of years before Mormonism and the whole God-made-sinning-angels-black-people, so the cause and effect is flipped

• people who want world domination use religion to their advantage - Hitler was all about convincing the Germans that they were the superior RACE, not religion

• there's a difference between thanking a creator for making your muscles and thanking your glorious leader for giving you the opportunities and pushing you to become what you are

• so now you define everything "bad" as religion

• where do you get off on imposing YOUR beliefs on others, anyways? What makes your worship to the grand nothing so much better? Why are you right and so quick to jump to argument when people try to point out flaws?

Why are you taking up arms against everyone who thinks differently than you?

The wrongs of a few should not condemn the many

Instead of bowing your head and declaring the world to merely be full of evils and just stewing in hate for everyone who falls into a category that's affiliated with people who have done wrong...

Like, I dunno, fat people who are angry at skinny bitches because they've had bad things said about them

Why don't you realize that you're pointing at the wrong target?!

You do know that as a joke, I think it was NPR, but one of the major radio stations joked that all the muslims should be rounded up and forced to wear a crescent moon so that people could identify them

And then they should live separate from other people 'cause they're dangerous, etc

AND PEOPLE PHONED IN

They were clamoring that this be done - they thought it was a wonderful idea

The station was disgusted

It's fear and xenophobia that drives people

Whether that's religiously based, nationality, ethnicity, whatever

It's that long ago, two brothers were feuding and each started their own nation and now their descendants hate each other and they don't know why

Religion is just an easy target

Me: okay, in order;

Her: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lncLOEqc9Rw

Me: not sure about the quran, but the bible lists out fucking rules for the keeping of slaves (laying out how to sell your daughter into slavery, but you can't hit your slave so that you take their eye out, that's a no-no)

i'm not talking about the american version white-on-black slavery, but slavery in general

yes, the ones in power like to use religion, but what does it say that religion is so easily directed to heinous ends?

the american athlete and the korean athlete are saying basically the same thing, "thank god for this opportunity" "thank you dear leader for this opportunity" what's the difference?

i do not define everything bad as religion, i just realize that religion causes a lot of bad things

and i don't want to impose my beliefs on people, i just want people to not take their beliefs on faith, i want people to think critically about their beliefs

the wrongs of the few do not condemn the many, they condemn the ideology that the many follow

btw i don't worship "the grand nothing". I don't worship anything. That's kind of the point of atheism.

Her: I just don't understand how blind you are

And yet you claim to have such clear vision for your thoughts are not clouded by god

http://imgur.com/gallery/x3BHHDI

Why is this sentiment so wrong?

Me: who said it's wrong?

Her: YOU DID

WTF did you mean by removing everyone's religion, then?

You twofaced -- aaaaaaaaaarg

Me: okay, now i'm confused

when did i say i wanted to remove everyone's religion?

Her: I can't

You know what

Fine

Whatever

You're right

Religion is the root of all evils

That's why the Trail of Tears happened

Me: ..........

Her: That was the cause of the ARmenian genocide

If we got rid of religion, parents wouldn't murder their children for good luck

Me: when the hell did i ever say religion is the root of all evil?

when did i ever say any of that?

Her: I seriously can't tell if you are actually this blind or if you are just so incompetent at arguing

Me: or maybe you're reading things into my arguments that i don't mean

Her: It takes two to tango

Communication is about the other person receiving a message - if they don't get it, then you've sent a faulty message

Duh

That's what I mean

If you keep throwing around your words like that without realizing what they hell you're implying...

But really, are you actually that stupid?

You do this whenever we have this argument

"Oh no! I didn't mean thaaaaaaaaat !"

Bullshit

Me: because you try to make me out to be the totalitarian bad guy

every time

Her: Because those are the words coming out of your mouth!

Me: all i'm saying is religion is responsible for a bunch of bad things

Her: And whenever I try to explain how bad things would most likely happen anyways, you just go to either some sort of sheeple argument or the "well, even if (and I'm not saying this is true, 'cause it prolly isn't) kill people, then they sure as hell enable them to, so that makes them just as guilty"

And then you say shit like if the whole world would just stop being ignorant twats and actually thought for themselves for once, they'd realize a whole bunch of good things

Because hooray for not believing in jack shit! Let's ignore the fact that people are naturally driven to believe in something, whether religiously affiliated or something, so let's just call it all religion and hate it equally

Wooo!

-.-

That's what I hear