"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

Speaking of Swami Vivekananda this reference gives a unique Understanding of his life and teaching, and of the precursor conditions for his next incarnation vehicle.
http://www.adidam.in/forerunners.html
It is featured on a website that gives a very sophisticated Understanding of what Esoteric Spiritual Religion is really all about (as distinct from institutional entirely exoteric religion).
Without a strong living Esoteric Spiritual tradition/practice the world-view promoted by mere exoteric religion is really not that much different from the now dominant secular paradigm. Indeed the now dominant secular world-view is the INEVITABLE product/extension of such exoteric religiosity. And in a very real sense any form of esoteric Spiritual practice of understanding is essentially TABOO within the worldly fortress of such conventional religion. There are many taboos against anyone getting too "mystical".

But does the ABC really systematically belittle Christianity?
Radio National does feature several programs which promote a very eclectic non-sectarian understanding of both Christianity and religion altogether. It does of course also promote a strong bias towards Christianity. Remember too that there are now over 3,000 different and differing varieties of Christianity to choose from.

As a matter of interest the convenor of the ABC Religion & Ethics website is a right-wing "Catholic", and as such many/most of his featured essayists are right-wing and/or conservative "Catholics".
Furthermore almost all of the (right hand side) side-bar essays that he provides links to, are written by such people, and quite often associated with Opus Dei.

One reason you cannot speak in formal areas is because of 18c which
means you could be charged with racism and offended someone.

I know, I know religion is not race but what has that to do with it ?

What Sells sells is mischievous. He encourages belief in fairy-tales and superstition and wishful thinking.

He is a blind-man who attempts to mislead the already blind while foolishly believing he is doing good works!

Gandhi was a good man! There have been so few!

David G, Gandi was an absolute nut job! Read about a lot of what the old fraudster did sleeping with very young girls. What a joke. He was certainly a great help to India freeing themselves from the British but a very flawed human being.
He is the epitome of religion, nutty people tricky equally nutty people. It is all a total nonsense. Believe it but do not tell me I cannot deride and protest. Of course if this were so many countries I would be killed for talking like this.
My response is two words long and one is off!

I think as many others that the Christian gospel of peace and everything Christ said is an astonishing call to be more humane and treat one another better that is a timeless piece of advice. Unfortunately christianity is a registered brand(which is the antithesis of the Christ's message).To a large degree, as Catholic convert Manning Clarke once said organized religion has kept the flame of Christ alight. The downside is the Registered brand beleives it is the mouthpiece for Christ going way beyond the original "brief" given by Christ with its doctrinal obsession of bodily functions and sexual behaviour amongst the chaotic and bizarre things it beleives it should be talking about. Its as if the Church missed out on the French revolution, the American Revolution and most importantly the enlightenment and the rights and freedoms accorded to the individual.

Jack perhaps you think that Gandhi was a waste of space but your comment demonstrates that you are.

What have you done for the world that was meritorious?

Hi Jack,

I've been thinking over your comment that " .... It's as if the Church missed out on the French Revolution, the American Revolution and most importantly the Enlightenment and the rights and freedoms accorded to the individual."

Maybe it's a matter of similar underlying conditions which produced both - Western European Christianity in its earlier and modern forms, AND the Enlightenment, with a lot of bitter and dynamic interaction between the two.

Christianity in Europe has never been as monolithic and absolute as Islam, given its geography, multitude of political entities, often at war with each other and with any absolutist tendency of the Churches, and differing histories - all of which made absolutism, or Caesaropapism, unworkable, thereby inevitably opening the door to differences, schisms and, ultimately, hugely varying points of view and philosophical developments.

In contrast, Islam has had the utterly deadening hand of absolutism (or competing absolutisms) coupled with a total prohibition on questioning, discussion and therefore genuine philosophical, social, scientific, political and economic development above a basic minimum.

In other words, Christianity - unwittingly but unstoppably - helped to spawn scientific enquiry, technological development, independent enterprise, and an expansion of the scope of human rights.

As an atheist, and an anti-Gramscian post-Marxist, I'm quite comfortable with acknowledging the key roles that the various and competing strands of Christianity may have contributed ultimately, if indirectly, to the Enlightenment and to our modern-day perspectives on human rights.

We should give credit where credit is due, and build on the achievements of those who have come before us, instead of tearing them down and expecting Utopias to rise up out of ashes.

Cheers,

Joe

Sellick writes: " Islam cannot be judged by the actions of Islamic terrorists just as Christianity cannot be judged by the actions of the German Church that allied itself with Hitler or by the skewed theology used to support apartheid in South Africa.......or the acts of christian terrorists in Ireland, or the perversion of scripture in condoning slavery, or for the institutionalising of endemic misogyny in christianity.........or for the violent and wrathfull overthrowing of native peoples' theologies, legends and folk tales so they can be coerced into believing christian theologies, legends and folk tales.
And of the German Church he refers to.......It was a creature of Pope Pius X11, Eugenio Pacelli, negotiated by him as Pius X1's Nuncio to the German Republic and later the Third Reich. History is being served by releases of thousands of files and other documents that have been progressively released since Pacelli's death in 1958. His successor, Benedict XX111, began the process. The harbouring and hiding of Jews by the Vatican on the instruction of Pacelli was window dressing. Cont……

Cont……He also writes: "The great tragedy of the embargo on the discussion of religious belief is that these obvious aspects of culture cannot be discussed." Perhaps in his lachrymose lament he might summon the courage to reveal to us who exactly is/are responsible for this disjunctive feature of human mores. A discerning reader will note that Sellick ensures that while not entirely blameless in ages past, religion is now purified and held distant from taint as per the device in my first paragraph or the taint becomes "culture".

He writes further: "Conceding the above warnings, it is obvious that religious belief does work itself out in how societies function." No, the reverse is true; Societies work out how religions function.

And further: "Religious belief, generally, provides individual identity and community cohesiveness. It provides a narrative within which ones life runs. This is why religion will not disappear any time soon." Utter piffle. Identity and community cohesiveness are innate in humans as evolutionary processes. Chimpanzees share these same characteristics as well as a significant number of other mammalians. Waxing allegorically is a favourite device of the apologist and Sellick's "narrative" is simply that......a device to tell us that everyone needs to be told how to act and what to do. His melancholy prediction as to religion's longevity brings no joy to the materialist's heart but would he equally be honest enough to tell us that history indicated to him that religion's future looks like being a brief one, if indeed that's how he privately viewed the future of religious faith?