"If we accept that religious feeling is a key determinant of personal behaviour"

Well most rational people wouldn't accept that so taking that line any further is utterly pointless.

What a silly article this is! Only flat-earthers will find it worth reading.

In 2013, people who believe in Gods, gods, angels, heaven, hell, satan, the trilogy, living forever, etc, are still thick on the ground but their numbers keep falling if attendances at God-bothering institutions is any guide.

Clerics should be stopped from turning potentially rational people into deranged individuals.

It should be made a crime.

"Clerics should be stopped from turning potentially rational people into deranged individuals."

You’ll get No argument from me. I still find it hard to believe that even after all this time given all that mankind understands, humans are still no brighter since the change from the animal kingdom to the supposed evolved state that we find ourselves in on this time line.....however, since there is only one way to be fair about this, is the fact you can simply not teacher your children or have them subjected to sub level out of day date human programs.

If our species really needs something of substance to believe in, I can point the finger in the few directions if you like.

1. You have your very own planet that you can call god if you like…..and it does give us all food, water, one prays for excepted for the fact its been doing it before we announced/made up the deity that doesn’t answer etc.
2. Believe in yourselves…..well that’s a no-brainer:)
3. Believe in sustainable environments for all life’s genetic wonders to accomplish the prewritten programs that all chemical life-forms have directly in common.
4. Do not kill in the name of something that cant be proven….puts religion in an strange place, but not uncommon to human evolution.
5. …..and just to top it off, don’t evolve too quickly:)….you just might hurt yourselves or worst……..

Planet3

Roy's book may be an exercise in historical fascination, but so what!

And to speak of Westerners having a "spiritual" life is quite absurd because Westerners know absolutely nothing about Spiritual Life or even the esoteric dimensions of our existence-being.
These three references describe the state of mind that informs the usual Western Christian true believer: 1. http://www.beezone.com/AdiDa/nirvanasara/chapter1.html 2. http://www.dabase.org/up-1-2.htm 3. http://www.adidam.org/teaching/gnosticon/universal-scientism

This reference describes how Christian-ism is an entirely exoteric religion, the purpose of which is institutionalized crowd control and not the communication of Truth with a capital T.
http://global.adidam.org/truth-book/true-spiritual-practice-4.html

I have read Roy's first book God Actually. Parts of it are quite good but his conclusion re the authenticity of Christian-ism is very naive, especially so for a lawyer who is supposedly trained to examine the actual concrete evidence, as distinct from mere here-say.
This essay which is based on a profound 50 year long investigation into the origins of Christian-ism gives a comprehensive over-view of the wall-to-wall hear-say upon which Christian-ism is based. http://www.dabase.org/up-5-1.htm

"Since Federation, excluding "stop gap" appointees, Australia has had 23 prime ministers. Almost all of them thought long and hard about God. In general, they were much more spiritually-minded than the people they led."

Well if that is true it certainly explains why the average Joe or Jane Doe in the street is much more highly intelligent than the politicians that supposedly lead or have led us poor minions!

It was bad enough reading this article; I can't for one minute imagine why anyone would want to read a book obviously full of utter rubbish.

It's quite true -- analysing someone's religious convictions may help to explain why they make stupid and apparently irrational decisions. But as we have abundant evidence to show, ideological convictions can produce just as many stupid and irrational decisions as religious ones.