Quote Originally Posted by DemianHawthorne View Post
What I meant to say, if it wasn't clear was "How many people do you know who despite their religion are extremely intelligent?".
I've known many. My father is one of them. I also socialized with a remarkably intelligent priest for a time. I didn't agree with his religion, but he didn't push it on me, either.

As for religion and not faith being the enemy here. I disagree. I have a problem with both faith and religion because all faith is is believing in something without evidence because you want it to be. Faith is the idea that desire = truth and to me, this is a very dangerous belief.
I disagree. Faith is believing in something for which no evidence is available. That doesn't make it wrong, provided that the belief conforms to known facts. It's when you maintain faith in an idea despite evidence to the contrary that faith becomes dangerous.

A person can have faith that he can fly simply by flapping his arms. There is no inherent danger in that faith until he actually tries to test it. Gravity's a bitch! But a person having faith in a God in Heaven is not, per se, dangerous. And there is no way, to date, of proving or disproving his belief.

Also I wasn't hurling my wrath and I apologize if it came off like that.
Sorry, the term "wrath" was being used metaphorically and not intended as an accusation.