"She celebrates trends towards non-belief in the West, arguing that this is a good thing. Many would disagree. The last century has been the most secular in the history of the world, and it has also been the most bloody"

Firstly: name one openly religious government that is more effective than the majority of first world secular governments - I can't help but feel that when religion and politics mix, the result is the worst kind of government imaginable.

Secondly: Bill argues that the last century has been more bloody - well, yeah. There's more people. And more technology. And more weapons. Chalking that entirely up to secularism and making no mention of these facts is just plain biased.

The thing is - secularism is theoretically a view devoid of religion - which basically means secularists view all religions as somewhat unnecessary.

Those who follow an aggressive religion on the other hand, view other religions as downright wrong, and in the worst cases, in dire need of conversion.

People will always find reasons for war, but religion has always been a favourite.

Religions, as commonly defined, depend on dogma, rules, heirarchy and faith; all man made and man imposed in the attempt to justify a mythical god.
Faith has no relevance to fact.
Facts are real, whereas faith is merely the pursuit of wish fulfilment.
Gusi makes an interesting comment about "orthodox Chistianity". That word "orthodox" lies at the heart of much of society's religious bickering.
A smarter way to a happy, serene lifestyle is to throw out "orthodoxy" completely from your ethical and moral decision making, and go back to basic wisdom and commonsense in structuring your relationships with fellow beings.

Mercurius ... from Ashfield? :-)

I think Andrew Denton summed up conflict between religions when he wrote recently of a Martian coming to Earth to speak to a Muslim and a Jew about their ancient conflict. 'So....each of you is saying that it's because my Invisible Friend is better than yours' says the Martian in disbelief.

It sort of encapsulates the whole abusrdity of many of the world's religions. They have each been a force for good and bad. If their adherents could practice their faith peacefully and with tolerance of others, everything would be fine, but that ain't the way. And let's not just blame Muslims. There is plenty of blame to go around for the violence and intolerance.

Sells, you argue that everyone adheres to some kind of faith. I don't believe that. You need an 'Invisible Friend' to be lumped in with religious adherents. I believe the sun will rise tomorrow and for billions more years, but not that God will bring judgement day down upon us all, dead and alive. There is a big difference. But you spoil your argument anyway by claiming 'Christianity is the end of religion even though it may look to outsiders like any other religion'. This is just more 'my Invisible Friend' stuff.

Bill, thanks for your interesting thesis, made far more interesting to me as a professed liberal Christian with your apparent agreement that faith and reason must work in unison.

As one who in his long retirement, had been taking groups for over 12 years in philosophical topics as part of a local U3A curriculum, helped much by Murdoch University, a large part was based on the Philosophy of Western History.

So from the point of view of such teachings, there are a couple of points in your thesis that do not match up with university based studies.

First - your statement on A4 page two about how secular ideologies justified mass murder, while most traditional religions did not or do not, is Islamism or Hinduism included here? Further, there is also the argument about the Old Testament Promised Land, where going by the Bible, a whole civilisation was done away with to make way for God’s Chosen? In fact, this so-called factual history, according to philosophers, is what could have given most of the Christian nations the excuse to wipe out millions of indiginous peoples.

Second, your statement that it was the Judeo-Christian religous tradition that gave birth to both the notion of human rights and modern science. Well, while historical philosophers might partly agree about your concept of human rights, they would come out with the statement that we owe so much to ancient Greek reasoning as far as modern science is concerned that the role of early Christianity is miniscule.

Finally, according to Murdoch School of Humanities, we also owe much to St Thomas Aquinas, who became so impressed with Late Middle Age Islamic scholars whose teachers had taught an interesting mixture of Muslim religion and Aristotelian reasoning that Aquinas wrote a whole thesis on it, which is said to have largely lifted Christianity out of the Dark Ages

Nice comments PK.

Heres an idea for an experiment that will never happen.

A series of children are raised with no discernible religious bias - no parents telling them what to believe, or dragging them to church, temple or mosque.

They are taught a little about all the world religions at an age when they can reason for themselves - say, 13 or 14.

They are also told the histories of each religion - the violence, the struggles, the oppression. The aggression of the Muslim and Christian faiths.

But to be fair, they also need to be taught the good things that religions have done throughout the globe.

The enlightenments that the muslim faith brought the world during their heyday while Europe was mired in the dark ages, and the wondrous cathedrals constructed by christian masons, and the aid work carried out in the name of the church.

They are then asked which one is 'right'.

Now I can't know the answer, but I can tell you for damn sure they're not all going to embrace Christianity as salvation. I'd wager most of them would dismiss the arguments as the 'my invisible friend' debate PK enunciated.

Faith IS belief without basis. How can you reason with those entrenched in dogma?