The underlying in-group assumption in these types of articles is that religion is inherently good stuff. and the lack of it is a "problem" to be resolved.

Though Perth born, when I was first immersed with Christians, at age 13, I might just as well have come in from the Sudan, so foreign was their culture to me.

I learned to watch my back with them. The walk opposed the talk. Then rarely you'd find really genuine ones, that even an out-grouper could trust.

Wish I could say that all changed, in the broader world of work and career.

For compassion we don’t need religion. All we need to know is that humans and other beings suffer, and we may be able to relieve their sufferings while feeling good about it. To counter mindless consumerism we can realise that we feel better and last longer by adopting a policy of moderation and limiting our wants to our needs. For an explanation of the action of animate and non-animate matter by itself and with each other we have science. We don’t need religion. For discriminating between things that we can do something about, things we can do nothing about and realising we can deal with things we can do something about by dealing with them and things we can nothing about by our attitude toward those things we need knowledge and reason. In short we don’t need Christianity or superstition by any other name.

Buying INDULGENCES from Bishops/Popes, as early as 517 AD, was a form of Clerical Capitalism

15 hundred years ago - already http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence#Early_and_medieval_beliefs

I wonder what would be found if there were a study on which group has caused the greater mayhem, Academic experts or religious zealots ?

Sells,

<<The earliest theologians did not conceive of God as an existent being alongside other beings, rather, the word "God" could only be understood as the triune being in which the Son was the image of the Father coming to us in the Spirit.>>

You gave not one example from these 'earliest theologians' and their views of the Trinity.

St Augustine (AD 354-430) wrote 15 books on the Trinity. He gave this analogy to help his listeners comprehend the oneness of the Trinity but the distinct works of each Person (though it’s important to remember that all Trinitarian analogies fall short). 'So there is a kind of image of the Trinity in the mind itself, and the knowledge of it, which is its offspring and its word concerning itself, and love as a third, and these three are one, and one substance. Neither is the offspring less, since the mind knows itself according to the measure of its own being; nor is the love less, since it loves itself according to the measure both of its own knowledge and of its own being' (On the Trinity 9.18), http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/130109.htm.

St Augustine's view was not your view that <<the triune being in which the Son was the image of the Father coming to us in the Spirit>>

Instead, his is the orthodox, biblical view that 'God eternally exists as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and each person is fully God, and there is one God’ (theologian Wayne Grudem 1999:104).

ttbn,

<<We are in a post-Christian era. End of story.>>

This is either a statement of ignorance or of one who hasn't travelled the world. Yes, in the western world there seems to be evidence of a demise of Christianity. Even the atheist, Richard Dawkins, tweeted: 'Before we rejoice at the death throes of the relatively benign Christian religion, let’s not forget Hilaire Belloc’s menacing rhyme: ‘Always keep a-hold of nurse – For fear of finding something worse', http://www.foxnews.com/us/atheist-richard-dawkins-warns-against-celebrating-the-alleged-demise-of-christianity-in-europe. He linked to a Guardian article, '"Christianity as default is gone': the rise of a non-Christian Europe", http://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/21/christianity-non-christian-europe-young-people-survey-religion

ttbn, you've been reading the wrong stats. These are the facts concerning global Christianity in 2019:

+ Christians in 1900: 557,755,000

+ Christians in 1970: 1,229,448,000

+ Christians in 2000: 1,987,471,000 (upward trend of 1.27% pa)

+ Christians mid-2019: 2,528,295,000

+ Christians in 2025 expected to be: 2,718,782,000

+ Christians in 2050 predicted to be: 3,466,927,000

Source: Gordon Conwell Seminary, Status of Global Christianity, 2019, in the Context of 1900–2050, http://www.gordonconwell.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2019/04/StatusofGlobalChristianity20191.pdf