"I think that it is helpful to understand Christianity as a religious antidote to religion."

WHAT!? The zombie carpenter whose family didn't have sex for two generations, who asked his friends to stick their fingers in the whole in his side, who ascended to heaven to the accompaniment of an earthquake and a zombie attack that somehow never made it into history; this is an ANTIDOTE to bizarre and irrational beliefs?

Peter, I am counting off the days till you renounce this nonsense altogether. It can't be very long now.

That should be 'hole', of course. But not a God-shaped one, as far as I know.

It is just another way of saying. "Other belief systems called religions are lacking. We have the real goods." Islam or any other missionary religion makes a similar statement. No, Peter, your brand of rubbish is still rubbish.

There’s a need for pleasure – some choose outdoor activities, some dinning, and others drugs to excess. Do I therefore deny the need for pleasure because of the variety of choices made? I may take drugs to excess and die, but have I rendered the need for pleasure meaningless in the process?

The denial of an innate need for God on the basis of the variety of ways it is satisfied seems equally as ill founded. That need has been demonstrated throughout history.

There are two stances that can be used to think on this idea: God created us and implanted that need, or the need led to the creation of God in whatever form chosen. How does one answer which holds true? This is highly problematical.

Epistemology is the theory of truth addressing the problems of knowing truth. It is easy to become nihilistic and believe there is no truth; the tension then never needs to be solved. This is the ultimate act of arrogance - the idea that either I know something to be true or else it can’t be true sets me as being God, the final arbiter.

Is there truth outside myself? Does truth exist because I created it or does it exist in its own right no matter how problematical its knowing may be? If truth exists then falsity also exists, a choice is inevitable. Therein lies the existential dilemma.

If truth and falsity don’t exist then Nihilism is victorious. Eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.

As for atheism we delude ourselves into imagining by knowing how something happens we know why.

Before arrogantly denying the article’s argument commentators may wish to contemplate Christ’s words of “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” Are these words of liberation or oppression?

Well, said Cronus.

How come so many Christian churches ignore that advice?

I've got no issues with Jesus. It's religious institutions that are the boil on the bum of progress.

Sells,

You start off quite well, proposing a pre-priming for language acquisition and extending this idea to other experiences. It is false to leap directly to the god-shaped hole (either to exploit or deny) and who cares if proposing such interferes with temporal protestant dogma?

Numerous animals display behaviours that assume the presence of another: Parents, real ones, with seemingly god-like powers of protecton, side-taking, guidance and food provision, are woefully absent from your discussion.

Dennett and others have quite adequately explained that the vestigial expectation that "daddy" or "mummy" can get you out of trouble, "make it all better" or provide correction and shriving could easily underlie the adult hope for a "super daddy" that can deal with the hopeless situations facing a nomadic tribe.

Such a plausible circumstance surely helps understand why *so many* religions *do* "fit the hole".

You have asserted that there is no god-shaped hole to correspond to language acquisition readiness, but it is plain from simple observation that there *is* a parent or carer acquisition readiness. Until the possibility that such a "parent-hole" might be co-opted, applied to imaginary or unmeetable desires possibly made more urgent by circumstances or cultural conditioning, it is hardly worth speculating about a "god-hole". All associated behaviours might be adequately explained by a "parent-hole". This is entirely reasonable from an evolutionary perspective, so why try to say otherwise?

You have not adequately explained how your proposed "proclivity to be attracted" actually differs from a god/parent hole, except that it would suit you.

"Questionable content" is exactly how I would describe the portmanteau of ideas that christianity tries to conflate with the parent-hole.

Since we *don't* take the creation mythology seriously, it hardly helps to assume we do, nor does it clarify your point which I believe deeply flawed through disingenuously avoiding a known biological feature.

Rusty