"Christianity is the critique of all religion including the secular kind that declares that it is not a religion. In the final analysis, secularism does not really exist."

Waffle.

Secular mythology beautifully articulated by the authour. Seems so obvious to younger Christians why separating christians from the state was bogus from the get-go and its so hard to believe why church leaders thought it was a good idea two centuries ago, what with the almost constant war, genocides and addiction to usury that has followed :(

Peter, your articles are great examples in the kind of gymnastics loops and distortions your mind needs to go trough to hold religious beliefs these days.

Secularism is a simple concept it's the idea that no one religion is favored by the state. Paganism is not equal to Secularism, Paganism is a label Christian invented for non Christian religions, generally animistic in nature.

"A key function of the Church is iconoclasm, the destruction of idols." this is the funniest part, I regulatory observe Christian carting Idols around. Islam is far more Idol free then Christians Peter.

«Religion is that which, after the Latin, binds.»

Extending this definition out of context is unwarranted.
Religion is that which binds us to God - and in so doing, releases us from the bondage to the world.

What a hoot - the Christian church as an iconoclastic institution.

But does conventional exoteric "religion", the kind of "religion" that Sells advocates, have anything to do with Truth and Reality?
http://www.beezone.com/da_publications/noface.html

And what if it is based on the same three mind-based myths as the secular world view, and as such is patterned and controlled by the same narcissistic doubt-mind that (mis)-informs the now world dominant secular paradigm in which we are now all trapped - Weber's Iron Cage
http://www.beezone.com/AdiDa/Aletheon/three_great_myths.html
http://www.dabase.org/doubt.htm
http://www.beezone.com/narcissus.html

I am an atheist and I am a very good man :)