Dear David G.,

<<I remember it well from my Church days when I was a serious believer.>>

You still are, my friend, only now you believe in something else - something scary and disturbing at that, something that gives you no peace.

I don't know you personally and have no wish to pass any judgement, but it usually takes masochism to reverse and call the fortunate unfortunate and the unfortunate fortunate.

<<Fortunately, I saw the light, saw the fraud that religion is, and I beat a hasty repeat and have never looked back. The light hasn't dawned for you yet but I give you full marks for trying to fuse religion and reality.>>

In what you consider reality, the only remaining reality that you recognise after losing your faith, i.e. the objective physical world, a disaster is underway, you mentioned it yourself: the Americans are invading - what's then so fortunate about it? what you are left with after taking the objective world for real is... Americans. In my view that's a reason to cry, not to rejoice!

If only you still recognised that the world is but an illusion, of a temporary nature, that true reality has nothing to do with it, that your true nature is divine and unlimited, then you would retain your calm and not be so shaken by the American invasion.

<<Unfortunately, they are contradictory, my friend.>>

But this is so fortunate indeed: who would want a god that conforms with this world (which you consider the only 'reality')? a god that allows the Americans to take over? a god who is omnipotent, omniscient and omni-benevolent, yet allows the Yanks to rule the world - what a nightmare: how fortunate are we that this is a contradiction! How fortunate that God is not just another natural force, person or phenomena! How fortunate that He cannot be found in this terrible world!

Yes, religion and the world are contradictory. One cannot simultaneously believe in both. When one believes in the world, one suffers. When one believes in God, one is liberated and suffer no longer.

George, you're most welcome to the link to academia.edu. It's a tiny repayment for the great conversation you've given me. I recommend exploring widely on that site. It's incredibly varied in its scope and even when it runs into a dead end it offers lots of fodder for further research on sites like Springer, pubmed, Sage, etc.

Another site you might like is the Frontiers group. http://www.frontiersin.org/

There is a very interesting interview with Kamila Markram, the founder of that site available on youtube.

Open access publishing is incredibly useful.

OUG, you continue to provoke interesting thoughts. Keep it up.

DavidG, it seems to me, after reading your stuff, that your major gripe is with religious organisations rather than with religion itself. Would that be fair to say?

AJ, I'm not sure what you;re complaining about in your post directed at Poirot. I agree that it is reasonable to expect to be able to converse without abuse, but that cuts both ways and it requires good faith on both sides. If either side presupposes a lack of that good faith then the conversation becomes a debate and that is always going to mean defense of entrenched positions rather than exploration of new ideas. I guess it comes down to what sort of ideas we hold about the purpose of discussing things.

I share your dislike of passive-aggression and I hope I'm not passive-aggressive myself. If you perceive that I have been, I apologise and I'll try to do better.

Antiseptic, while doing a Philosophy course I was taught by a Norwegian who looked just like he'd just come from Ancient Greece. I was enthralled by him.

He taught that no person can live a truly authentic life if they embraced religious belief of any kind because they were avoiding facing the truth about human mortality. He felt that our mortality had to be faced and accepted and to engage in theological fantasies was a cop out!

When I look around our conflicted world, I see the damage that religion causes, the divisions, the hatred, the conflicts. I see the incredible wealth of some religions, the fraudulent claims, the abuse and trickery inflicted on gullible people by all religions, and I am sickened.

The world is not a better place because of religion. It is rather a hell-hole full of greed, depravity, and endless war and always has been!

Religion belongs in the Dark Ages but still it infects us like a cancer.

Antiseptic,

The vast majority of what I said to Poirot was not in reference to you. It was mostly in regards to the false accusations/implications levied at me from George, since I figured that it was my post to him that prompted Poirot’s post to me.

<<I agree that it is reasonable to expect to be able to converse without abuse, but that cuts both ways and it requires good faith on both sides.>>

Agreed. That’s why I make sure that I maintain good faith throughout all my discussions on OLO, and that if I point out something like dishonesty on the behalf of someone else, that it is appropriate to do so; that it is done sparingly; and most importantly, that I can demonstrate my claims. By fulfilling these three criteria, I ensure that my accusations do not amount to mere name-calling. Unfortunately, though, that didn’t stop George implying otherwise:

“It is after all just a matter of personal taste that I prefer debating [some], rather than others, especially if they call me dishonest or other names, without wanting to offend anybody.” (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=15301#264451)

Yes, I take great pains to ensure that I maintain good faith in discussion and so I find extremely offensive when someone implies otherwise; especially when they are only doing so to take a swing at me because they didn’t like that I highlighted the lack of character they displayed at an earlier point.

<<If either side presupposes a lack of that good faith then the conversation becomes a debate and that is always going to mean defense of entrenched positions rather than exploration of new ideas.>>

Absolutely. Which is why, again, I ensure that I am able to demonstrate each and every one of my claims. Presupposing a lack of good faith on the behalf of others would be careless, sloppy and most likely an indication of the vacuousness one’s arguments.

David, surely what you're discussing here is the interpretations of religion mediated by vested interests?

Ideology of any kind can be very bad, but that doesn't mean we should not discuss ideas that might underpin ideologies. Marxism, economic rationalism, feminism, liberalism, libertarianism, etc, etc ,etc have all been blamed for bad outcomes in various ways in the hands of vested interests that emerge in their implementation.

I don't think it could be argued that any of those are inherently evil though.

Antiseptic, humans provide the evil to all ideologies. Humans can't help themselves. We are our own worst enemies!

Cheers!