What if we took their god(s)away from people - especially those who's whole lives are wrapped in the promise of the salvation or reward beyond this life their divine being offers them - what would we replace it with?

It seems to me that to attempt and perhaps succeed at knocking that prop out from under so many people is simply the best way insure their ensuing fall will be injurious.

I would prefer to see the world's people reconcile their difference's rather than try to convince them their differences have no basis in reality and should therefore be adandoned. Most of us are only different from each other in one respect; the god or deity we worship. Some of us worship at the Alter of Science. When it comes to changing people's lives and ways of thinking, what has science done for the bulk of the world's population so far?

It is religion that has brought US - the science literate elitists who live in prosperous, advanced cultures - this far, to the stage where we realize we created omnipotent gods in our own image as a means of dominating and controlling the lives of others. We may no longer need such personal and cultural props to sustain us from day to day through hardship after hardship. And, given time, religious zealism will die out. But it will take availing everyone, not just literate capitalists, of the benefits of science before that demise has even the remotest of chances.

Those are a few of my thoughts on this discussion!

Namaste', J.C.