JBSH
There is evidence of truth in religious narrative. It is not that applied in a science lab but rather stems from the fact that the narratives are formed by the experience of a people. The truth of such narratives is two-fold. Firstly they are formed around real human beings in history in particular places and times. This does not mean that all that is related of them actually happened, there are varying amounts of theological interpretation. Secondly, some narratives have the ring of truth in that they reveal something about our own situation in this life. For example, if you read the passion narratives, you will see the ironies of the disciples abandonment, the vested interests of the temple authorities, the fear of the Roman overlords. These stories are about us, our abandonment, vested interests, fear. This is the guts of the thing, not belief in supernatural events. These are human stories that infect and inform our lives.

Not all religious narratives have the historical property of the Judeo-Christian. Some lead to disfunctional and cruel cultures, and the societies that are formed around them are evidence of their lack of truth and a subsequent lack of an ability to nurture life and freedom.

So what you are saying Sells is that if believing the moon is made of green cheese makes people lead moral lives, and prevents the development of "cruel and dysfunctional" cultures, then the belief in the cheese-like nature of the earth's satellite is "true" in some sense?

Protest Christian-ism is of course the religion of the spirit-killing left brained word.
William Blake railed against the baneful cultural influence of the single "vision" of Newton's Sleep (left-brained "reason")

A quantun Understanding of the phrase "christ is risen"
http://www.beezone.com/AdiDa/ScientificProof/christ_equals_emsquared.html

http://www.beezone.com/AdiDa/ScientificProof/timeecstasy.html

Not much reference to ECSTASY or Sat-Chit-Ananda in any of the "theological" scribblings of any of the usual suspects or the hot-shot "theologians" that Sells points to. Although David Bentley Hart unsuccessfully tried to account for this primal "trinity".

Therefore, true religion must retire to Light.
The heart must be permitted to achieve a universal felling-ecstasy!

Sells wrote: "Not all religious narratives have the historical property of the Judeo-Christian. Some lead to disfunctional and cruel cultures, and the societies that are formed around them are evidence of their lack of truth and a subsequent lack of an ability to nurture life and freedom."

Thank you for your explanation. The genocide ordered by God described in the Book of Joshua, the Inquisition, the wars of the Reformation, the expulsion from Spain of Muslims and Jews, the Southern Baptist approval of slavery in the US, the mass murders by the Nazis who were supported by almost all Catholic and Protestant German churches were not expressions of cruel cultures. I am enlightened.

I really don't know why I bother with you people.

Dear Sells,

You cannot explain away the cruelties of the culture you espouse. To maintain it is some way superior is to ignore the evidence of the atrocities it is responsible for.