Dear Yuyutsu,

I have a high regard for truth. I told the truth as I see it. From what I have read in history religion has done more harm than good. You might claim that the harmful is false religion. Religion has promoted intolerance, hate and war. A social movement that has nothing attractive does not win followers. Religion gives a sense of bonding, an explanation of human suffering and a persuasive picture of the world. So does Nazism. So does any human movement that unites ignorant humanity against an enemy. One enemy of religion are those who question, those who don't accept the fables and those who realize its tribal nature. If we are to live in peace with our fellow humans we must accept that others will differ from us and accept that. We even must accept those who are hoodwinked by the attractiveness of an evil belief as long as they can control their actions. If we can't eliminate evil we must live with it. Religion is an evil that contaminates humanity.

.

According to some estimates, there are roughly 4,200 religions, churches, denominations, religious bodies, faith groups, tribes, cultures, movements, ultimate concerns, etc. in the world. Their number is in constant augmentation.

Perhaps david f. has in mind, the major religions which are as follows (source : Pew Research Centre, 2017) :

Rank Religion Members

1. Christianity 2.3 billion
2. Islam 1.8 billion
3. Unaffiliated 1.2 billion
4. Hinduism 1.1 billion
5. Buddhism 500 million
6. Folk religions 400 million
7. Other religions 100 million
8. Judaism 10 million

It is nevertheless interesting to note that there are no less than 4,200 different religions in the world (at the last count) that cannot agree on anything about the gods, God, or no god –exactly how many gods there are or, in fact, whether there are any gods at all – and what they, it, or nobody expects us to do or not do, eat or not eat, drink or not drink, how we should dress (particularly the girls and women), with whom we should make love or not make love, how many wives or husbands we may have, whether the girls and women may or not have an abortion, whether we can be legally euthanised or not, have recourse to modern assisted reproduction techniques including surrogacy, etc., etc.

The members of those religions that believe there are gods, or a God, have never met those or that God and are totally incapable of providing any sort of meaningful description of them, him, or it.

It’s no wonder there are so many different concepts, dogmas, creeds, doctrines, rituals, rules, and behaviours. Everybody seems to have their own ideas on the subject – and each religion claims to be the one true faith.

That, I find hard to believe.

As the world population increases, the number of religions increases with it.

All the more the merrier, I guess.

.

Dear Banjo Paterson,

You speak of so many "religions" with practically nothing in common, then what on earth makes you group and count them together? If you know of no common substance to them all, then you could just as well point at a flying bird in the sky and say "Hey, there's another religion up there".

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Dear David F.,

Primitive and poor human behaviour, hate, intolerance and wars have been with us through the ages and still are, so were social movements and clubs that sold a sense of bonding, "identity" as it is popularly called nowadays (not that it has anything to do with actual, logical or mathematical identity). Society was always replete with those who fought against others who failed to accept their fables, but even more vehemently with others who did follow the same fables, possibly with a minuscule variation.

You say that you have a high regard for truth:

Why point at some subset of these harmful movements as "religious" if you can find no commonality of substance to distinguish them from other harmful movements?

It so happens that, besides these social groups, there actually is a common substance for people who practice religion, be that in organised and semi-organised groups or alone and privately: you may not be aware of this substance and I no longer even ask you to recognise it, but can you see that by blaming your cloudy idea of "religion" you are insulting good innocent people, causing collateral damage, by unjustly blaming and associating them with unrelated social movements whose evil-doings we can all agree on?

Dear Yuytsu,

As you don't violate the law of the land you live in you are free to promote ignorance and superstition to the best of your ability.

Yuyutsu

*…but please do not commit this mistake of considering religion to be related to any of them.…

I’m getting a bit lost here.
This cake started off as a carrot cake, and has turned itself into a mud cake.

I have spent a total of six hours over two days in a jungle retreat, which separates me from the idiocy of humanity, overlooking an endless expanse of countryside totally devoid of human habitation, from a view across a ten square kilometres lake with the only visible activity are a dozen dolphins in a feeding frenzy, while I swing away those hours in a hammock ; all the while l calling to the God of inspiration to guide me on a path of enlightenment with the subject of religion.
I’ve come away totally uninspired with mass religion as a subject but spiritually refreshed.

Maybe that is what your saying in effect Yuyutsu, religion spoils the cake with formality.
True or false?

Dan.

Dear David F.,

«As you don't violate the law of the land you live in you are free to promote ignorance and superstition to the best of your ability.»

Yes, I am pretty much aware that this is one of the few activities the regime still allows us to do (legally), but why would I want to do such silly things? Only in order to prove that I can (I am no longer a teenager, you know)...?

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Dear Dan,

I am so glad you had a great, spiritually refreshing retreat.

«Maybe that is what your saying in effect Yuyutsu, religion spoils the cake with formality.
True or false?»

- False.

This is not what I said, but perhaps your confusion is due to my own fault in failing to be clear enough, please forgive me:
The "them" in my statement you quoted, «but please do not commit this mistake of considering religion to be related to any of them»,
referred to anthropology, psychology, zoology, etc. - rather than to formal/mass/organised religion.

«I’ve come away totally uninspired with mass religion as a subject but spiritually refreshed.»

Possibly you progressed and reached a turn where mass religion no longer suits you. Congratulations, but mass religion can still be of benefit to others.

Jesus never taught mass religion, but provided suitable personal spiritual instructions to his disciples at the particular junctures they were at. I wish for you that you too soon find a teacher like Jesus to guide you on your personal spiritual journey.