Dear David,

You are correct:

<<Faith breeds ignorance.>>

Indeed, faith breeds ignorance of the illusory world: one cares less and less about the news, what crimes have been committed, which sports teams won, what's the new fashion. In fact it even stops being important how and why this world was created or what are the physical forces which make it tick, etc. etc. You deeply and confidently know that you are what you are and always will, that nothing, not even death, can shake this most obvious of all, hence the details lose their importance and it is safe to blissfully ignore them.

<<Doubt and questioning open the mind.>>

Yes, to open your mind, doubt and question the false idea as if you are a limited body with a limited mind, separate from others and from everything else, as if you can die with that body once it falls, as if this world is real.

Dear Yuyutsu,

Religious faith breeds ignorance of science, history and philosophy. It discourages one from attacking human problems because an imaginary big daddy in the sky will fix things.

We are limited bodies with limited minds. Religious mumbojumbo may cause us to regard this real word as a world of illusion and cause us to deny the only world we have.

The Renaissance and the Enlightenment has partially freed us from religious crap. There is no more reason to follow the current popular religions than there was to follow the Norse gods, Mithraism, Manichaeism or other past nonsense. Unfortunately when Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Judaism eventually disappear humans will follow new forms of superstition. Human gullibility will probably never disappear.

Dear David,

<<Religious faith breeds ignorance of science, history and philosophy.>>

Also of football, fashion, politics and social status. One doesn't even care to know where the nearest brothel, bar or pokies are. The best among the faithful are even ignorant of their bodily pains and aches, not to mention of their bodily, genetically-derived urges, including lust, greed, envy, anger and egoism. Nationalism and procreation fall by the wayside. This is so wonderful!

<<It discourages one from attacking human problems because an imaginary big daddy in the sky will fix things.>>

Attacking human problems will never defeat them because it's the nature of humans to have problems. If nothing else, humans have the problems of aging and dying. Our true problem is in our identification with being human: while we do, we cannot escape those natural human problems that come with our bodies. Attacking those human problems is only second-best, an aspirin, perhaps a temporary relief - it doesn't solve the root cause of our pain.

As for an imaginary big daddy in the sky, believing in one is a technique, historically quite useful in helping many to achieve a state of faith. Admittedly, with the prevalence of science in modernity, most contemporary people cannot be helped by it, but there are myriad of other techniques instead that can help us to attain faith, some of which do not even involve any belief.

<<We are limited bodies with limited minds.>>

This is the ultimate ignorance.

Never mind big daddys in the sky, there is no need for any - once you know who you are, then you already know God without the help of supporting myths.

Religion is the biggest force in nature, it doesn't need to be popular or even conscious and it doesn't need to involve belief. The pain of isolation, of separation from God, from Goodness or from Otherness if that concept appeals to you more, forever keeps pulling every thing and every one back to their true original nature. I suspect that within your aspiration and social activity to help others, lies the spark of religion.

Dear Yuyutsu,

You have the right to your superstition. Be well.

Hi Foxy, I didn't see "The Insiders", Hockey and Co are proving themselves hypocrites of the highest order. Its do as I say, not do as I do. Hockey has no problem with accommodation, claiming $270/night to stay in his family apparent in Canberra's 'Cocky Towers', that's $108,000 over the past 4 years.

Dear Paul1204,

Hockey has not told others that they should not grab what they can. If he had then he could be rightfully called a hypocrite. He has not done so. If everybody grabbed as much as that greedy nogood we would be in worse shape than we are. Hockey is greedy, uncaring, selfish and arrogant but not a hypocrite.