Sells:

"Those who choose other masters than Christ are deemed, in the Bible, to be the living dead."

For a start, that would mean Jews and Muslims whose religion stems from the same foundation as Christians are "walking dead."

All other followers of all other religions are "walking dead".

What happens to people who don't choose any masters? Are we still alive and human?

Also, I have been baptised, but I don't believe in a deity, so does that make me half human?

What about the volunteer work I do? People I have helped? Injured animals I have nursed back to health? Dutifully recycling all my household waste?

Does being a responsible, decent caring person count for nothing?

If you accept Christ as your master, then none of the above matters? I guess that must be true, because very few paedophile priests have been brought to trial under common law. Father Kennedy is condemned for being inclusive, but priestly paedophiles get transfered. But they're human beings - their master is the Christian god.

Sells do you have even the faintest inkling of why so many HUMAN BEINGS find you offensive?

The part that you miss, Sells, is that religion can have precisely the same stones thrown at it, as you throw at the rest of the world.

"Specialisation and intensification", as you describe it, are also features of, indeed critical identifiers of, religion in the twentyfirst century.

I stand to be corrected on this, but do we not have more religions active in 2009 than at any other point in history?

It is a reasonable premise that this "specialisation and intensification" that you identify in doctors, lawyers, psychologists, psychiatrists etc., is a direct result of the global increase in the accessibility of information, combined with the freedom of individuals to make independent purchasing decisions.

I suggest these are the identical forces that have an impact on religions, and that have caused the religious groupings and "specialisations" to blossom in the last couple of centuries.

The giveaway, of course, is the number of times that we are able to seamlessly substitute the word "religion", and still find the ideas logically complete.

For example:

"The specialisation and intensification of specialists who deal with various aspects of the human have a tendency to blur what being human is"

...can be equally convincing in the form...

"The specialisation and intensification of specialists who deal with various aspects of religion have a tendency to blur what being religious is"

Amen to that, Sells.

A more constructive target for you would be the commodification of religions, forever compartmentalising their differences in ever-increasing fine detail.

A bit like the features of your Credit Card.

Is it linked with a Rewards Programme? (Is there a heaven/paradise incentive?)

Are there penalties, e.g. if I don't make repayments on time? (Will I go to Hell?)

How does the interest rate compare? (Do I have to spend my life doing it, or will just Sundays be OK?)

Having failed with your initial assertion, the rest, I'm afraid, is mere puffery. It leaves you exposed particularly when you appear to arbitrarily decide half way through that Christianity is the only religion.

Your own - specialist - version of it, of course.

Trav,

Bugsy is correct.My citation was conservative given a quick review over the Internet and Bugsy's excellent link. The eighty billion homo sapiens is from an old copy of the Guiness Book of records. I remembered it.

Sells,

On Community:

"And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant." Genesis 17:14

On Specialisation:

If Jesus meant the Catholic Church under St. Peter (the Rock) to be a house undivided, he would now be profounded disappointed. The Western and Orthodox Christian Churches and the Catholic and Protestant Churches are specialised against each other on doctrine.

fractelle:

"Sells do you have even the faintest inkling of why so many HUMAN BEINGS find you offensive?"

yes, of course he does. he's a stirrer.

pericles:

"...you appear to arbitrarily decide half way through that Christianity is the only religion."

this is the hallmark of sells's articles. every one is addressing some modern malaise. and then, when all hope is lost, the white knight of Christianity comes riding in to save the day.

alas, sells never ever ever ever begins to explain how christianity saves the day. it just does: dip yourself in a tub, and all will be somehow be well.

Sellick's modus operandum has become pretty clear over the years:

1) Pick something -- call it X -- that some Christians are good at.
2) Conveniently ignore the facts that a) some Christians are no good at X and b) some non-Christians are very good at X.
3) Patronizingly 'explain' why only a 'true' Christian can actually be good at X.

So far we've had painting and art; now the same method is applied to being human. I wonder if Sellick was channelling Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, who recently claimed on radio that atheists are 'not fully human'. I know that the absence of rational responses tends to bring forth irrational ones, but I had thought that Christian invective against us wicked atheists had already reached the bottom of the barrel. Obviously I was wrong. But it's nice to see that very few of the OO readers who can be bothered to respond are taken in by this balderdash.

PS: readers who want to find out about some of the other things that religious believers are good at can find a depressingly long list of them at

http://atheistwiki.wikispaces.com/Outrage+scoreboard