There’s a lot of confusion here.
1) Don’t confuse respect for religion (unreasonable) with respect for people who have deep religious beliefs, however daft. In some abuse of religion I sense a lot of contempt for religious people. I try to fight my contemptuous side, knowing how strong it is.
2) Don’t confuse ‘the harm done by religion’ with harm done by people, who would have done it anyway , who find in religion a convenient cloak. 3) This is not the place for a post on the human need for religion or the rag-bag of needs it subsumes (social, political, historical, personal identity definition, ethical, the love of the marvellous, transcendental etc.). However, I strongly suspect that some of those same needs might not be a million miles away from the motivations that attach people so strongly to the aims of a certain Institute..… Saul/Paul was not the first nor the last human to have radically changed his beliefs while maintaining the underlying personality structure which drove him to give himself so totally to the first set, then to the second. And to found his own personal religion, but that’s another story.
There’s a lot of confusion here. 1) Don’t confuse respect for religion (unreasonable) with respect for people who have deep religious beliefs, however daft. In some abuse of religion I sense a lot of contempt for religious people. I try to fight my contemptuous side, knowing how strong it is. 2) Don’t confuse ‘the harm done by religion’ with harm done by people, who would have done it anyway , who find in religion a convenient cloak. 3) This is not the place for a post on the human need for religion or the rag-bag of needs it subsumes (social, political, historical, personal identity definition, ethical, the love of the marvellous, transcendental etc.). However, I strongly suspect that some of those same needs might not be a million miles away from the motivations that attach people so strongly to the aims of a certain Institute..… Saul/Paul was not the first nor the last human to have radically changed his beliefs while maintaining the underlying personality structure which drove him to give himself so totally to the first set, then to the second. And to found his own personal religion, but that’s another story.