"This is why discussion about religion has virtually been eliminated in our time. It has become a minefield best left alone."

What universe are you living in, Peter? Because from where I am standing there is a great deal of discussion about religion, and those who speak in favour of it don't come off terribly well. If you want to join in, I can recommend Quora, which has a tremendously active religious debate.

But discussion about religion -- as opposed to ex cathedra pronouncements -- has always been actively discouraged BY religion, simply because it produces the the symptoms that you can now observe in yourself; an increasing distrust of the formal organisations set up supposedly to promote religious belief. Which, like all institutions, immediately adopt the primary goal of perpetuating their own existence, and relegate any other activities to a lower priority.

Religions are not for people who want to think about their beliefs and reconcile them with reality; they are for people who want others to do their thinking for them. That's what, as I understand it, you are being paid to do; so if you're going to renounce that obligation you should probably renounce your job too.

Religions may focus on the other-world, but their adherents all live in this one, day to day. Even if they lived on top of poles, or in caves, they would still have to eat and eliminate. Even the devout still have to get up every morning and go to work, mostly doing non-religious things all day. They knock up against people all day who don't share their beliefs. That's life - in this world.

It must be so irritating even to have to think of non-religious issues, let alone associate with non-believers. Far easier, but usually in day-dreams, to cut the Gordian Knot and imagine that your religion encompasses everybody in the world, ASAP, that non-believers have been 'transferred' and that injunctions set out in the holy books can be more easily implemented, unhindered, except for unavoidable bodily functions.

If, by definition, one's books set out all that is needed, then it is undesirable, even blasphemous, for any alternative opinion to be allowed, if at all possible. But in a secular society, in which one is free to believe or not believe, such day-dreams of total power are not feasible.

While both believers and non-believers are fully entitled to their outlooks, and to express them freely, this also opens the way for criticism to flow both ways: believers should be able to castigate and criticise the - as they may see it - ignorant views of non-believers, offending them up hill and down dale, without fear of prosecution. Or persecution - those days are over.

And vice versa, for non-believers: they should have a similar right to express their views, and to criticise and even ridicule the views of believers. No religious - or non-religious - viewpoint or ideology springing from their beliefs should be in any way privileged.

So entering into the public arena with one's cherished beliefs opens everybody up to criticism, or should do so, and therefore the likelihood that the courageous entrant will be offended, annoyed, frustrated and thwarted, with their rock-solid views challenged and threatened.

Welcome to the modern world. May it prevail over intolerance.

I agree with the author except this current "We cannot criticsise" nonsense". This is only because the crazy leftists are supporting islam, an extreme, violent and horrible set of beliefs. They are only doing this to further their own ends.
The ABC have spent thirty years attacking the Christian's beliefs, good. Now the same organisation is behaving in a craven, cringing lickspittle way and furthering islam. Why they are doing this? Who knows? Please tell me in fact they should have a whole Q & A devoted to just that subject. Still the ABC has never been noted for anything other than their view.
I am sick of all the religions and their crazy beliefs in their super power beings in the sky. Get a life and grow up!

I think this essay by Sells is at last a genuine attempt by him to come to grips with the real world instead of living in some eschatological universe. There is hope for him yet.

Yes Peter, and just as an unexamined life leads to; and sometimes over the abbess, even more so unexamined beliefs. But particularly when other more cogent or plausible examples abound?

Most folks experiencing some sort of inner turmoil, seem to be assisted by the practice of meditation or mindfulness? (The practise of not thinking and simply stilling the monkey chatter of the conscious mind and just listening) I used to teach it, minus any of the dogma.

And indeed when inculcated as part of the whole education process, enables critical thinking, improved education outcomes and a degree of certitude?

At the end of the day we need to remain cognisant of the fact the only life and belief system we have ultimate responsibility for is our own!

Cast your pearls where you may. Just not at the (those who consistently refuse to examine either) swine.
Alan B.

Oh, where to begin...

"We are so afraid of offending or marginalising or adding fuel to the fire of religious prejudice that we have suffocated real discussion about religion"

So the author would have liked to offend, marginalise and add fuel to the fire of what-he-calls religious-prejudice, but was so afraid of the repercussions that he felt suffocated.

...so far, but now the gloves are off!

"This war on prejudice, fought in the name of tolerance"

Thus the author doesn't believe that genuine tolerance is possible, thinking that tolerance can only exist as a PC-game.

Tell me, Peter, was Jesus genuinely tolerant or was his acceptance of water from a Samaritan woman only a PC gesture?

"We must remember that it was the religious authorities of the day who urged the Romans to crucify Jesus"

Nonsense. It was a bunch of irreligious hypocrites who were only interested in power and money. Jesus overturned the tables of the money-changers in the temple, from which they received a fat commission, ruining their business-model, so they irreverently crucified him.

"All religions have a violent past"

Religion is never violent, only some people who claim to be religious are. This unfortunately was rife in the Abrahamic traditions.

"Christianity becomes only one path among many"

Christianity IS one path among many.

Have Political-correctness already existed in 1893 when Swami Vivekananda addressed the Parliament of the world's religions?

#. As so many rivers, having their source in different mountains, roll down, crooked or straight, and at last come into the ocean --- so, all these various creeds and religions, taking their start from different standpoints and running through crooked or straight courses, at last come unto Thee.

#. Religion must be studied on a broader basis than formerly. All narrow, limited, fighting ideas of religion have to go. All sect ideas and tribal or national ideas of religion must be given up. That each tribe or nation should have its own particular God, and think that every other is wrong, is a superstition that should belong to the past. All such ideas must be abandoned.

http://greenmesg.org/swami_vivekananda_sayings_quotes/religion-religious_harmony.php