"Would that be the doctrine that condones sexual abuse of children? Or the one that still sells indulgences?"

Find either doctrine. Wait . . . you can't.

"{In my experience I've seen very few Catholics actually 'meditate,' more like repeat the Rosary at the same speed at the disclaimers at the end of used car commercials. Mass to the masses I've spoken with is something to get through, not celebrate."

Your "experience," such as it is, constitutes narrow, anecdotal evidence that purports to rebut the experiences of Catholics like myself. But if you wish to extrapolate your anecdotal conclusions to my own personal experiences, or for that matter, Catholics en masse, that's your choice, but a shady and shoddy application of deductive reasoning.

"Yeah, that explains why the Catholic Church is so understanding regarding birth control, women in the ministry, and homosexuality."

The Church has definitive policies in those areas, to be sure. But neither of us can be certain that these policies will remain in the years, decades and centuries to come. If you had more than a finite understanding of an institution that has been around for two millenia, and evolved considerably since then, maybe you'd grasp that possibility.

"Or perhaps the numerous people writing ex post facto in His name and a few languages removed from English felt the need to write in cute stories since most folks were illiterate up through Luther's time...except royalty and clergy...hmmm?"

Ah, you meet speculation, with speculation. Again I marvel at your powers of deduction.

"Nothing here any decent atheist couldn't take apart in maybe 3 minutes, tops. "Belief without knowledge." That would be synonymous with "stupidity.""

I'll save you the trouble. Dead people don't rise again. Magic tricks are neither. Old greybearded white men play checkers, not Creator.

That being said, I believe that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. That He is my saving Grace. That I don't understand everything about Him, and that it is very possible that He and His God are frauds. Call it stupidity. I call it faith.

But you answered me with nothing but faulty premises, speculation, and reflexive dismissal of anything other than what you or other "atheists" believe.

Which means you have the makings of a great reactionary or a crappy atheist.

May The Lord Bless You.

The acrimony here constantly astounds me. To pick up an example from earlier in the thread, why are you so pissed at Santa Claus? What did he do to you? If your pals beat you up and say Santa told them to, is it really because they believe in Santa, or because they're jerks? Would you say it is somewhat maladaptive to launch into a tirade of invective every time someone mentions him? How about the Easter Bunny? Jesus? Allah? Brangelina? (Okay, we really should shut up about that one already.)

I imagine that the majority of Salon's readers (who are not trolls) are reasonable people who don't expect an article here to somehow brainwash them into believing [insert your favorite idiocy here] if they don't want to. There's no benefit to be found in arguing about religion or the lack thereof, and plenty of good to be had if we all practice a little bit of tolerance. See God's Politics by Jim Wallis. I think there's something here in the archives about it.

This really goes without saying, but, people, Karen Armstrong isn't trying to convince you to believe what she believes. She's sharing what she thinks. Everyone is free to agree or disagree as he or she sees fit.

Karen Armstrong has the simplistic naive view of ego that is common to religionists and new agers: "Ego bad!" In the real and pragmatic world, ego is invaluable. Those without an ego do not bother to get out of bed to take a shit. Why would they??? They just sit there, egoless, in their own shit.

Be glad that you have an ego.

One approach to religion that would help believers and non-belivers alike find some common ground would be to separate the sacred texts into the following areas of discussion:

1) Historical - identify those passages that describe the historical events of the time. Try to keep it objective, and acknowledge the usual caveats of verifying historical claims.

2) Logical - any serious work needs to be logically consistent. An flaws should be exposed, discussed, and weighed according to their impact on the rest of the narrative.

3) Philosophical - parts of the text or story that deal with human-based philosophy. This could be discussed with the same level-headedness of any other philosophical work.

4) Spiritual - those aspects of the message that touch on 'inner-human' subjects but not reliant on deities or magic for their legitimacy.

5) Supernatural - the claims made in the text that involve deities or other activities not explained by the previous four areas.

Rather than take an all-or-nothing approach to discussing 'religion', all parties should be willing to hear those parts that fall into one of the above categories on its own merits and in the appropriate context. I haven't seen this done elsewhere (but I'm not a religious scholar), and it is certainly a daunting task given the sheer volume of writings and the associated translations that can lead to disagreement. If this is already being done please fill me in, but as it is now people overreach with their arguments whereas certain points of contention could be mutually settled beforehand and removed from the dispute.

I suspect even atheists might be willing to discuss the first four areas above if the fifth is removed from the equation.

"You see how any omnipotent creature capable of hiding it's own existence is impossible to "disprove" using science? The best we can say is, there's no measurable evidence to cause us to postulate Santa's existence, or God's. They have no measurable interaction with the known world, all signs point towards the idea that they're man made myths, and belief in them just doesn't make rational sense."

I can understand this position, Ben. But if you can't find something, or you can't see something, does it necessarily follow that it's being hidden?

"Measurable evidence" is just that. Evidence one can measure. Does that mean that evidence that one can not (yet) measure does not exist?

Does not being able to see, hear, feel, taste, smell or identify certain proof of a concept larger than one's self necessarily mean that such proof does not exist?