So, just what are we talking about?

[kandrathe]

As you might have guessed, I have no problem with Christ, and lots of problems with Christians. These beliefs of mine are based on personal experiences (very deeply in the negative!) whose particulars I really don't feel like getting into.

Yes, but just as not all Muslims are Jihadists, not all Christians come knocking on your door on Saturday. There are many Christians, some evangelicals, and some really pushy, obnoxious evangelicals. Not all Jews want to bomb Hamas. I don't like the use of the broad brush.

I see religion as the discipline (in the good sense of the word), but the Church as the mechanism for the accumulation of wealth and power. I see the need for "religion" in the sense that their needs to be an intellectual owner of the ideology, and to guide the followers to a common set of beliefs and understandings. I don't see any danger in the high holy shamans imparting their knowledge and wisdom to the learning masses. It's only when they use mechanisms of power (Church or State) to try to enforce beliefs that any religion runs amok. Christianity has moved beyond it's days of inquisition, and burning heretics. As I see it, much of Islam has not.