Redewenur wrote:

"Furthermore, very many people in the rich west also appear to find life without God to be an intolerable concept. Who are we, truthfully, to take a superior and frequently contemptuous tone in asserting that they are wrong and we are right?"

Rede, it's not only in the rich west that people "find life without God to be an intolerable concept". In fact it's interesting to see you are so sympathetic to fundamentalist Islam! What's sauce for the goose is surely for the gander as well. I refer specifically to the second sentence of your quoted comment. Also as far as I'm aware Islam no more involves "blatant contradiction to established, provable fact" than does Christianity.

Revlgking. I note from your brief biography that you (and Mother Tersa) are both examples of people raised with a particular belief finding it impossible to discard that belief. I have no trouble accepting that. I hope you can.

My gripe with the influence of religions is that I believe we cannot make rational decisions concerning our future until we have a rational view of our past. Religion often serves to hamper that rational view.