If I gave the impression for one moment, George, that my objective was to "deprive a religious fundamentalist of his/her simple-minded happiness", then I apologize. It is of absolutely no concern of mine whether you, or anyone else, choose to believe that there is a God.

But in the same way that you leap to the defence of mathematical logic, I do not hesitate to draw to people's attention the damage they cause to the English language by carelessness, thoughtlessness or deliberate misguidance.

Words are as important to me as it seems mathematics are to you. When people (goodthief, in this case) invent their own definition for a word, simply in order to support a point they are making, I take exception.

When a mathematician makes an effort to deconstruct the English language to the point where he can assert that words, in themselves, hold only a transient, highly contextual meaning (your wanderings on the meaning of "faith" and "logic", for example), I take exception.

The fact that the underlying discussion is about religion is secondary to my concern that without constant defence, our language, that has stood us in good stead for centuries, will simply dissolve into a slurry of vague, pointless noise.

This ultimately will destroy forever any hope that rational folk may have to wring any meaning from this universe of ours. Which of course, would be just fine for the religionist, who would prefer that we all believe that the universe has no meaning, without God.

So George, it may appear to you that my objective is to persuade you that the conclusions to your arguments are wrong, when in fact I am merely pointing out that the process you adopt in reaching them is riddled with linguistic - not logical - malpractice.

OK, so I have to amend one of the sentences in my previous post:

If they happen to believe in something else which does not include a belief in God, they can only be happy if they know that only those who share their beliefs (or starting points or what) are logical, rational, scientific, thoughtful, “know how to properly reach conclusions” etc, whereas those, including some high ranking scientists, whose world view includes a belief in God, are irrational, illogical, unscientific, “cause damage to the English language by carelessness, thoughtlessness or deliberate misguidance” or “the process they adopt in reaching their conclusions is riddled with linguistic - not logical – malpractice”.