"They're not putting their faith in God. They've assembled a graven image out of virtually whole cloth, and they're putting their faith in that."

Well, I can't say that this is true for all of them but it is certainly true for some of them. I guess my point would be it is hard to generalize and lump all of these people in together in the same way some "Christians" would have all of us getting dumped into the lake of fire. There are certainly some very evil people tied up with organized religion and I would not even attempt to argue that.

"If they were putting their faith in God, there'd be no room at all for mosques or churches, or mullahs or preachers, and even less for televangelists or religious power-brokers."

Yeah, I agree this pretty much points to the bit I posted from the bible that says the kingdom is within. Also I can't really speak to what drives some of the "flock" to follow these people. For you and me there is no room for these things, that comes easy to us but it does not come as easy to others and in a way, who are we, and really how could we, say why.

"Instead we have this organised idiocy, and the resulting organised butchery, both of flesh and of spirit, that religions inevitably inspire. Religions are an insult to God, and should be treated as such."

Again, I can't argue with this statement and I was not attempting to in that post. Really all I meant to do was look at why it's so difficult for each side to understand the other. I did not expect to "make peace" with that post despite Herring taking it that way. Really, I, at least in my own mind, was taking a cold look at it trying to keep the subject at a distance to analyze it. My conclusion was that each side will continue to disagree and sadly, yes, I think the butchery in the name of "religion" will go on.

It is sad too that it's obvious that a lot of the people that back these organized religions back criminals like the Bush Administration and we can't really deny how tied to each other they are. For some reason I think of Jason Robards telling his son in Johnny Got His Gun that democracy seems to be about young men killing each other. We don't want to believe that either...I mean we'd want to point to evidence that proves otherwise there too, right...it's a sad fucking world sometimes I agree and I certainly find it an obscenity that someone could tell me "God" has seen fit to preserve his "word" and it would seem little else...and when the evidence points to that being total blasphemy too...well, yeah that does make you wonder just where the hell they are coming from...

Which I guess brings me back to where I began which is I don't have any answers here and they sure seem tough to come by in this area. I think my post actually backs up what you are saying.