What is the greatest plague upon society?

[Sava]

greed, unregulated capitalism, religion, pop culture

[Jethro83]

greed, exploitation of lower classes, organised religion and cigarette companies.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by St Leo
Organised (and Disorganised) Religion. Religion in all of its idiotic forms has set us back thousands of years technology- and science-wise.

Two bad the worst scourge of the earth has been the greatest impetus to technological advancement:

War.

[chequita guevara]

Capitalism.

[Aeson]

The easy answer is ignorance. It's at the root of just about everything else. Pride fits too, as it's the main reasoning behind people holding onto their ignorance.

[Lincoln]

The worst plague is intellectual elitism.

[chequita guevara]

If it weren't for us "intellectual elities" you'd still be living in caves and eating dead rodents.

[Lincoln]

No, I'd be sitting out by the barbeque grill eating some spare ribs and cornbread.

[Boris Godunov]

I wonder if the same person voted for homosexuality, prostitution, pre-marital sex and google.com...

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Mr. President
Alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, and Canada. And of course Apolyton.

You just named all the best stuff in life (except for the cigarettes bit)

[ranskaldan]

Organized religion is one. It would have been a great boon to society hadn't it killed so many people.

Utopianism is another one. Basically the belief that another sort of society, based on the goodwill of fellow man, will work smoothly and without flaws. Unfortunately, the two spawns of this philosophy (communism and fascism) both messed up in really bad ways.

In a way, Christianity and Communism are so similar. They both promote Goodwill, Morality, Hardwork, and all that, but they never manage to work out in the end. Christianity is plagued by its blind faith in a Deity, Communism, by its blind faith in the Goodness of human beings. Neither of them exists in the way we want them.

[loinburger]

The worst plague of society is everybody's tendency to oversimplify the problems afflicting society.

The second worst plague is that people don't laugh at themselves often enough.

[loinburger]

Religion (and usually science as well) always get such a bad rap on polls like this. There's nothing inherently wrong with either of them--the fault lies with the people who abuse them.

[ranskaldan]

Originally posted by loinburger
Religion (and usually science as well) always get such a bad rap on polls like this. There's nothing inherently wrong with either of them--the fault lies with the people who abuse them.

Very true.

The problem with religion, however, is that it leaves too many loopholes for people to abuse.

Same with socialism.

Same with science, in fact... but at least science doesn't pretend to be Good all the time, its sole purpose is Truth.

[Hobbes]

Like I said in the Yearbook Thread: fundamentalism sucks.