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Originally posted by Lira how many of those who advocate the end of religion actually know a thing or two about this issue?

I don't think it's the anti-religious advocates who deserve castigation for their religious ignorance here, but the religious advocates themselves.

From a different source:

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The condition Prothero describes in Religious Literacy is unquestionably one manifestation of a more general decline in the public's cultural and civic knowledge. According to polls conducted by the National Constitution Center, only one third of Americans can name even one of the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. Is it any more startling that only one third can identify the preacher of the Sermon on the Mount? A 2005 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that nearly two-thirds of Americans endorse the simultaneous teaching of creationism and evolution in public schools. How can citizens know what creationism means, or make an informed decision about whether it belongs in classrooms, if fewer than half can identify Genesis? No doubt the same proportion of Americans think that Thomas Edison said, "Let there be light." Approximately 75 percent of adults, according to polls cited by Prothero, mistakenly believe the Bible teaches that "God helps those who help themselves." More than 10 percent think that Noah's wife was Joan of Arc. Only half can name even one of the four Gospels, and -- a finding that will surprise many -- evangelical Christians are only slightly more knowledgeable than their non-evangelical counterparts.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...7030102073.html

The problem here is that the most virulently vocal advocates for Christianity are also terribly ignorant of its literature and theology. I'd be surprised if those who want the ten commandments posted in schools (and who argue that they are the basis of all Western law and morality) could name half of them. I'd be surpised if the majority of evangelicals have read through the gospels even once. Yet, despite their ignorance about even the most fundamental tennets of their religion, they will happily proselytise to the rest of us about our need to abide by these very same tennets! An atheist (or any other non-Christian) being ignorant about Christianity is one thing, but Christians being ignorant about Christianity is quite another. I don't even find it comical, I find it downright dangerous.

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Originally posted by Krypton This is what I believe about "religion". I understand religion to be a belief system; theistic or not. With this logic, everyone has a religion, atheists included.

"Atheism is a religion in the same way that not collecting stamps is a hobby." - some internet dude.

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Originally posted by Omega_M The basic understanding is that the experiences of truth are universal in nature. All people will experience identical or related things. The experiences are independent of religious bias. Hence, I don't see any fallacy in reaching the truth through subjective imagination. If people from different religions have similar experiences, then it is reasonable to say that they are true.

If a "true" belief is defined as one congruent with observable reality, then subjective imagination will likely not lead to "true" beliefs at all, excepting tautologies and sheer coincidence. Truth isn't democratic: it can't be reached via a show of hands. That people believe similar things says nothing about the truth value of these beliefs, only that anthropic neurology dictates that people are intractably inclined to view the world in similar ways. God is a property of the mind, not of the universe.

The veracity of religious claims will always remain bound to their congruity with empirical reality. If religious claims are not validated by empirical experience, then they are clearly not grounded at all in the "real" world. Given your specious arguments here from the subjectivity of human experience, however, this is apparently one point on which we are in complete agreement.

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