Please put the ad hominem away, you won't need it.
Notice I said "a cause" and "a phenomenon". Not every unhappy person becomes religious and not every religious person was/is unhappy.
Seeking out a deeper meaning to life CAN be caused by a lack of fulfilment (religion is an easy and complete answer, because it prevents any further critical analysis through dogma) and unhappiness CAN result from a religious attitude toward life (e.g. strict Catholicism is particularly good at this, basing nine tenths of the religious dogma on guilt).
No, those people you named, for the most part, probably didn't lead too crappy a life. They most likely, however, didn't CHOSE to be religious. There wasn't really an alternative to being religious anyway, as long as atheism meant being rejected by society as an immoral monster. Even racism was considered the norm for quite some time and it wasn't until fairly recently (historically speaking) that you wouldn't catch any bewildered looks if you dared to criticise it.
However, I would agree that the belief in the existence of an immortal soul would be quite comforting if you experience the loss of a close friend or relative, or become painfully aware of your own mortality through advanced age or a near-fatal accident.
In these cases, many would accept religion if it provided some relief.
I would even go as far as claiming that most "believers" are highly inconsequent about the beliefs they claim to be holding. If you go by the letter, most moderates are just as doomed as non-believers -- and if you don't go by the letter, what else do you base your belief on than your own rationality (with which you chose what parts of the dogma to disbelieve), and how does that make you more of a believer than any outsider?
Religion can be comforting. It can also be very difficult to abandon religion once you are raised into it -- not only if you are part of a self-isolating group like Mormonism, for example. Most Christians I have talked to are either moderates or deists and only stick with their confession because they were raised into it.
There have been many people who were religious in the past and there are many of them still around -- in fact, I'd argue that the majority of us are still not free of religious thinking. But quantity doesn't make right. A thousand people telling you the Earth is flat doesn't make it any truer, nor does a million, nor a billion.
That the West dominates is not even based on its Christian roots, by the way. Had it not been for the reformations, renaissance (partially a re-discovery of pre-Christian arts) and the Enlightenment, which meant a huge step away from traditional, medieval Christianity, we'd still be killing scientists because their discoveries contradict established biblical truth.
Points can be made for Christianity being a more powerful motive than earlier religions (though I fail to see how imperial warfare could be considered something to be proud of), but hadn't the dogma been put aside when it turned out to be rather impractical, we would hardly have ever come this far.
As a random example, medicine would still be rather awkward if a loophole hadn't been found to do away with the sinfulness in cutting up corpses for anatomic studies. The immediate results were rather macabre, but in the long run it laid the groundwork of modern surgery and beyond.
Note, by the way, that not even the American founding fathers were the Christian paragons modern populism makes them out to be. They were rather critical of organised religions and as far as we know, at least some of them were deists (a huge step away from Christian theism). Had they been loyal Christians, they would surely not have created a country based on, among others, the ideal of religious freedom.
If you still think religion equals advance, look at the Arabic countries, the Muslim World. If you think the US is going crazy, that's nothing in comparison to what you'll find in the Holy Empire of Islam. You won't find Christians wearing explosive belts much, yet.
Notice I said "a cause" and "a phenomenon". Not every unhappy person becomes religious and not every religious person was/is unhappy.
Seeking out a deeper meaning to life CAN be caused by a lack of fulfilment (religion is an easy and complete answer, because it prevents any further critical analysis through dogma) and unhappiness CAN result from a religious attitude toward life (e.g. strict Catholicism is particularly good at this, basing nine tenths of the religious dogma on guilt).
No, those people you named, for the most part, probably didn't lead too crappy a life. They most likely, however, didn't CHOSE to be religious. There wasn't really an alternative to being religious anyway, as long as atheism meant being rejected by society as an immoral monster. Even racism was considered the norm for quite some time and it wasn't until fairly recently (historically speaking) that you wouldn't catch any bewildered looks if you dared to criticise it.
However, I would agree that the belief in the existence of an immortal soul would be quite comforting if you experience the loss of a close friend or relative, or become painfully aware of your own mortality through advanced age or a near-fatal accident.
In these cases, many would accept religion if it provided some relief.
I would even go as far as claiming that most "believers" are highly inconsequent about the beliefs they claim to be holding. If you go by the letter, most moderates are just as doomed as non-believers -- and if you don't go by the letter, what else do you base your belief on than your own rationality (with which you chose what parts of the dogma to disbelieve), and how does that make you more of a believer than any outsider?
Religion can be comforting. It can also be very difficult to abandon religion once you are raised into it -- not only if you are part of a self-isolating group like Mormonism, for example. Most Christians I have talked to are either moderates or deists and only stick with their confession because they were raised into it.
There have been many people who were religious in the past and there are many of them still around -- in fact, I'd argue that the majority of us are still not free of religious thinking. But quantity doesn't make right. A thousand people telling you the Earth is flat doesn't make it any truer, nor does a million, nor a billion.
That the West dominates is not even based on its Christian roots, by the way. Had it not been for the reformations, renaissance (partially a re-discovery of pre-Christian arts) and the Enlightenment, which meant a huge step away from traditional, medieval Christianity, we'd still be killing scientists because their discoveries contradict established biblical truth.
Points can be made for Christianity being a more powerful motive than earlier religions (though I fail to see how imperial warfare could be considered something to be proud of), but hadn't the dogma been put aside when it turned out to be rather impractical, we would hardly have ever come this far.
As a random example, medicine would still be rather awkward if a loophole hadn't been found to do away with the sinfulness in cutting up corpses for anatomic studies. The immediate results were rather macabre, but in the long run it laid the groundwork of modern surgery and beyond.
Note, by the way, that not even the American founding fathers were the Christian paragons modern populism makes them out to be. They were rather critical of organised religions and as far as we know, at least some of them were deists (a huge step away from Christian theism). Had they been loyal Christians, they would surely not have created a country based on, among others, the ideal of religious freedom.
If you still think religion equals advance, look at the Arabic countries, the Muslim World. If you think the US is going crazy, that's nothing in comparison to what you'll find in the Holy Empire of Islam. You won't find Christians wearing explosive belts much, yet.
