Only argument I WOULD offer, not that it is the only one I can (ML and some others may recall that I have joyfully played Devil's advocate when the issue was one of rational discussion between two rational topics, but seeing as religion is a mystical emotional topic with little in the way of reason behind the mystical side of it lets look at it like this.)
If you want to pass on your teachings to a bunch of MORONS, you will leave behind a mystical text and claim it written by the almighty whisp of smoke at the top of the mountain. The scientific types will probably call you a shill immediately, but they'll have a few children, and if you are the militant type of shill when you write the "holy book" (your baby colored hand grenade metaphor is PERFECT here) then you'll have those scientific types executed. I recall reading somewhere that Wizard, Mag/Mage and Witch all meant "wise man/woman" etc. From what we all know and what we read, the old commandments to murder those who know the ways of plants, etc, meant kill all pharmacists and useful people. Obviously they were luddies without fail (and their spiritual offspring still are.)
In time the morons will either kill or outbreed but eventually either kill or convert the intelligent ones. Hence why a religious text often overtakes the nonreligious. Neal Stephenson did a remarkable job with the comparisons between religious thought and a computer virus and the herpes virus family (nervous system dwellers) and Asherah. The book in question is Snow Crash. Its actually a concept I discussed with a friend about translating a computer virus between electromagnetic readable (infection vector) and DNA based octal pair infection vector. We concluded that with sufficient technological advances or regressions after enough advances are made, such a weapon or vector of infection is plausible. Stephenson provided us with the last factor that in fact, it has always been with us. It is religion. You can infect a non immunized mind with remarkable ease, and you and I agree there MP. The problem is that the infectable are all belief based minds. You see, the more knowledge and experience a mind acquires, the more resilient and inquisitive it becomes. Take ML's nun experience she cited, my own experience trying to reconcile what I perceived as illogical despite all my attempts to internalize it and the experiences you went through (you cited being screwed by christians specifically somewhere else on the forum... you aren't the only one, by the way. I've been screwed by christians AND jews. I've only dealt with a muslim or two (turkish) long ago, and they paid their bills without being asked, truly astounding, but the sample pool was too small to make any inferences that could stick to scrutiny.)
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Topic: Excavating The Empty Tomb - The four gospels and the Homeric tales (Read 6585 times)