Don't you have an original thought in your brain. Why do you have to regurgitate the thoughts of others all the time. Religions are all about power to control the masses, something which I see in you. You are being controlled by the fear that if you do not conform then your alleged spirit will not live on.

David

David,
>> Religions are all about power to control the masses <<
Well, this is anything but an "original thought in your brain". I heard it "regurgitated" by my marx-leninst teachers (in Eastern Europe in the fifties) hundreds of times, but in distinction to you, I did not have the luxury of asking "why do you have to regurgitate the thoughts of others all the time" if I wanted to stay at school/university. We are so lucky that we can learn about different world-views, being free to voice our disagreement with some of them. So there is no need to be impolite.

Anyhow, Ludwig Feuerbach's "Man created God (to his image)" - "regurgitated" by Gore Vidal if you like - is just the reverse of the biblical "God created man to His Image". They are just two sides of the same coin, the same reality:

It is a simple fact that people who cannot understand abstract concepts need to visualise them, to make “images of them“ that they can comprehend. Like e.g. those who are not enough versed in mathematical physics visualise elementary particles as tiny balls, and the atom as a miniature planetary system, string theory as replacing the tiny balls by tiny strings, etc. The same with the (Christian) concept of God etc.

Some naive people believe that one day we will know “everything" about the (material) world; more sophisticated scientists are satisfied with the belief that their theories are getting closer and closer to understanding this world.

Similarly, some naive people believe in their constructions of the Ultimate Reality "made to their image" and usually based on a verbatim interpretation of some "sacred text" (e.g. the Bible); others have a more sophisticated understanding of what religion and belief in God is all about, but are then in danger of getting reactions from those who cannot follow, like relda got from you now, (and we both got from a couple of emotional atheists on this OLO many times).

David,
Again, I’ll be unoriginal and join with George in his excellent response to your verbatim replay of Gore Vidal’s regurgitation. To be non-religious can perhaps be a blessing, but to be fervently anti-religious because of a fear of institutional power, stems perhaps from an ignorance on the ‘nature’ or ‘substance’ of God. As George would rightly suggest, your fear is far better to be focused on the materialist and pervasive Marx-Leninist philosophy, and the institutions that are established in their name.

"When we say yes to something other than the Christ we are immediately in the company of demons who will imprison us and destroy our lives."

Is this for real? As a Christian you have rejected then thousand other faiths and other gods. You are an atheist in the eyes of the followers of those ten thousand faiths, yet you have the hide to condemn all who do not believe what you do as companions of demons.

It is a pity the bible had so little to say on humility.

(It did? Oh)

It is a pity the bible had so little to say on conceit.

Aldous Huxley, in his ‘Brave New World’, was contemptuous not only of an old Capitalism, but also of an old Socialism. It was also a revolt against the Utopian dream of man who, in his fantasy, imagines his existence apart from God. "It is only by becoming Godlike that we can know God - and to become Godlike is to identify ourselves with the divine element which in fact constitutes our essential nature, but of which, in our mainly voluntary ignorance, we choose to remain unaware." – Aldous Huxley.