Dear Alan B.,

I don’t believe in any religion and do not live in a vacuum. I feel freer having discarded all religious beliefs. Religion is a way of explaining our world in a pre-scientific age. It no longer serves any useful function but is only a relic of tribalism and a form of superstition. The scientific method is a good way of finding out about things. I believe that it is good to have friends and family, to be a part of society, to doubt, to be skeptical, to appreciate nature, science and art, to learn and to be engaged in trying to make the world better even if it is limited at 97 to trying to be patient and kind. I am sure that some of what I ‘know’ isn’t so and also accept that my areas of ignorance must remain infinite.

A scientific theory never becomes the truth. Newton’s Laws of motion were accepted until superseded by Einstein’s relativity. Scientific theories are only provisionally true at the current state of knowledge. Religion provides certainty. Science doesn’t. That is the beauty of science, and the ugliness of religion. To deal with the uncertainty of the future is to deal with reality. Science deals with the real world. Religion deals with a fantasy world.

Dear Yuyutsu,

I noted your comments.

Dear ttbn,

You wrote: The only thing to "steadily fade away" is Christian belief.

The predictions of its demise have been made before. In Dover Beach, Matthew Arnold wrote:

“The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.”

The poem was published in 1867, and Christianity is alive and well in today’s world. It’s not going to go away in the near future. I would welcome its demise but am not holding my breath.

David F,
there were a few purges of some works of art identified as idolatrous. But while I don't know much about the author you're quoting - I feel like it is biased. Official church organisations preserved knowledge rather than destroying it. Most of the copies of ancient philosophy were preserved by government funded church organisations and libraries (not quite 'universities' as we think of them today.) They copied them out faithfully.

They valued the ancient texts and not only studied them but copied them out and preserved them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_university

Try this podcast for much more
http://undeceptions.com/podcast/byzantine-empire/

You sound like you could possibly believe in the "Dark Ages" - but this is a fallacy and no professional historians would use that term.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages_(historiography)

Guess what? Thinking scientists, philosophers, historians and other academics can study a variety of disciplines and yet still trust in the ancient eyewitness and biographical texts of the New Testament. Science studies the material universe, philosophy the rules of logic and experience of knowledge, and theology the revealed claims of a bunch of Galilean fisherman (and a doctor) and a Jewish scholar around 2000 years ago. They saw stuff that changed their lives and contradicted the 'normal' expectations their Jewish faith. They changed as a result.

Dear Max Green,

Ancient knowledge was both preserved and destroyed. Scribes used to use palimpsests, ancient parchments with ancient works that they would destroy by copying over. Pagan Temples were definitely destroyed. With the exception of Ireland conversions to Christianity after the fall of the Roman Empire were effected by compulsion and violence. Grayling, the author I quoted, has a negative view of Christianity. Probably, any author who finds it worthwhile to write on a subject has a view of it. I think that a negative view of Christianity is warranted. It has a bloody history of violence and persecution with crusades, the Inquisition, the wars of the Reformation, destruction of native cultures, enslavement of native peoples and pogroms. Hitler said he was carrying on the work of the church, and I think that was one of his accurate statements. The Nazi horrors were a consequence of Christian hate.

We really don't know what the Jewish followers of Jesus would have produced. Most of them were destroyed. Paul created a new religion by releasing the followers of Jesus from the strictures of Judaism. As a child I went to a US public school. I was expected to participate in various Easter and Christmas activities which I resented as my family were not Christian.

Considering various Christian beliefs such as life after death, a god in three parts and a virgin birth it seems to me like nonsense which no longer should be accepted by a reasonable person. I no longer believe in any religion or any deity.

In my opinion Christianity has done more harm than good. What people thought in a pre-scientific age two thousand years does not outweigh the horrible history of Christianity.

As far as the Dark Ages human progress didn't stop although thinkers who did not accept the superstitions of Christianity were persecuted, tortured and executed.

Christian faith is not based in natural sciences, but it is accepted in integrity in business. David F is a critic but has no alternative positive faith.

Dear Josephus,

Indeed, Christian (or any other) faith is not based in natural sciences, but in the science of the Divine.

It was an historical error for the Christian Church to involve itself and provide opinions in matters of natural science. It brought poor reputation for Christianity and God and as natural science proved correct, the ensuing criticism of the Church sadly caused most Christians to lose their faith.

When asked on matters of natural science, the Church should have instead responded: "we have better things to do with our precious time, we are always busy serving God and singing His glories, we shall not unnecessarily distract our minds and waste our time on the mundane!"

Dear Josephus,

I see no need to provide an alternative to faith. To believe without proof as faith asks us to do is to revere ignorance. To doubt and question leads us to knowledge. Faith leads to atrocity. Many have died and been killed in wars, pogroms and other manifestations of religion. Faith is a negative phenomenon. It is the handmaiden of ignorance. Believers in faith use such nonsense phrases as the 'science of the divine' as though superstitious belief is science.

The Renaissance and the Enlightenment were advances for humanity precisely because they were products of the discarding of faith. The Renaissance looked to the knowledge of the ancient world before Christianity clutched Europe in its superstitious grasp. The Enlightenment was a European intellectual movement of the late 17th and 18th centuries emphasizing reason and individualism rather than tradition. The apostles of faith would return us to the medieval world of unreason.