I don't hate constitutional royals. They're far from useless. On the contrary, they serve a very important purpose. Despite that, I'm struggling to see how your statement is even close to true. Please explain?
If we exclude the major events that are happening (like the royal wedding) the Royals cost our Country in the region of 32 million (although that figure is decreasing) to keep. Now it's true she probably does lose us money overall however, it's small change when you factor in increased tax via tourism etc, and general economic positives. The trouble is it's mostly impossible to even estimate the amount.
Turns out I was wrong. Very, very wrong and short sighted. Upon further examination:Royal finances work like this. The Queen, with all her clothes, castles/palaces, planes and dogs, cost British taxpayers 32.1 million pounds in the year to 31 March 2011. Just over half a pound per person per year. But the full story is this. Back when King George III ascended the throne in 1760, the lands he inherited (Crown lands) were generating little income, and he soon racked up a large personal debt. He soon surrendered the right to the income from the Crown lands to Parliament in exchange for payment of all his debts and an annual payment to cover his costs. Parliament, anticipating high future returns, accepted. That arrangement continues today, virtually unchanged. The costs of the Queen are payed by the government (i.e. British taxpayers) in exchange for the income generated by land owned by the Queen. Want to know the second figure? 230.9 million pounds. So even without those hard to quantify incomes/positives (which, without a hint of doubt, completely dwarf these figures), the Royal family is giving the government a direct income of nearly 200 million pounds per year. Not a bad deal at all.
Religion came from when humans started to get a long memory then we looked at the past and at the future. We saw death and started to wonder as with everything else ''How can we stop this''. As there where no real explanation for death people came up with a reason and started to convince others that he was right, thus old shamanism was born. Then as people started seeing other things that they couldn't explain as: -If we walk on land, there must be other things than land in the sky that we can see. -Why did that mountain explode and kill one of my family? -There are many animals and humans where did they come from originally? These question/statements got incorporated into the old religions for a convenient way to ignore them and thus the later more advanced religions took form (paganism). Then when people got mighty and wealthy they saw religion and thought: -Is it possible to use religion for personal gain? This created the god-kings of Mesopotamia. Then writing came and people saw that information about them could be spread and other people saw this as a possibility to create unity and stability. Because of this people created books about god-kings and religion and then tied all of the previous information into this book and so modern religion was created (Christianity). That is both the purpose and history of religion.
To unify humankind, under the banner of logic and science. May seem crazy, yes indeed, but if you truly understand religion you would share my ideas.
Indeed, but not all religion. Almost every religion incorporates priesthood which essentially is used to exploit people for the bread and butter of the priests. The only religion I've found not to contain bullshit apparently is Quranist Islam. I've started reading the Qur'an and I will post my final concluding thoughts on that soon.
When I say screw the world over, I mean through religious wars, i.e.: The Crusades, Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Byzantine-Ottoman wars, etc, etc.
Okay there , vague implications of higher knowledge. Get off your high horse and share with us mere plebs why don't you?
Why don't you actually open your eyes and search. There's lots of stuff to look through and you should start reading philosophical books to get some ideas. "So says the bible" is a good book.
Vague implications of higher knowledge continue! Keep on it buddy you are soooo much smarter then all us plebs we never ever EVER do any research into these things. Not once in my life. Nope.
If anyone can read dutch I have got a number of blog posts by a historian of the prehistory (pretty sure thats a contradiction) on the origins of religion. It had something to do with the views of the people surrounding death and how it introduced a sort of mutual reward relation with the deceased (as in I sacrifce something to my dead grandfather every month and in return he gives me a good hunt).
If you don't do any research, how do you come to your conclusions? Are you narrow-minded like the Ancient Greeks who base their laws on theory and assumption and not on experimentation?
You're arrogant enough to think that only you know anything on the subject. Besides being very funny it just makes you look like an asshole since you still have presented absolutely nothing to substantiate your claims. If you couldn't catch sarcasm yes, believe it or not I haven't been living in a hole for my entire life and I have done my share of research into religion. Your claims are just retarded and without any basis.
