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Can you explain what you think the "hard core" of that belief is as you see it? Because I have a hard time knowing what we're really talking about here. Like, if someone is religious with a capital R, what does that mean to you and what precisely is worthy of criticism, if you could be as specific as possible?

Again, the example of being a pedophile or serial killer just doesn't work, and not because of the extreme negative connotation, but because being a serial killer means you kill people, being a pedophile means you're sexually attracted to children, but what does being religious mean? That's a serious question and I'd like you to try and answer it. You can say that it's buying into dogma or a world view but is that really the case? I think there are people who don't "buy into" a dogma or world view the way that you mean but at the same time consider themselves religious and would be offended if you told them they weren't.

What I don't like and what I would criticize (and this is the part we presumably agree on) is not some "hard core" of belief that exists inside of people, it's people using their religion outside of themselves for direct influence, argument, or coercion. The way that I see it, if that "hard core" (in my interpretation) truly exists in a bad way, it shows itself. I don't see anything necessarily worthy of criticism about people embracing an abstract concept, even if it has roots in dogma. The only thing I see worthy of criticism is attempting to bring that abstraction into the concrete world and or using it against other people in a concrete way. Beyond that, it really is speculation unless you can be more specific.

I can understand your frustration with my refusal to just deal with the classic understanding of what being religious means, but I think that hits on the very difference in the way we see things. It's not equally likely that a person can be effectively taken over by an obsession with soccer as through some religion, no, but my point is that a person can choose to be taken over by any number of things, religion just being the most practical for that, and no matter how you look at it, whatever a person believes is something they are doing themselves. It is not a passive choice even if it seems like one, as I'm sure you would agree. It's strange because it seems like even though you are criticizing a religious worldview in the face of rationality and reason, you're mystifying religion, and that's exactly what I'm trying not to do. I'm pretty sure that at least you would agree that, generally speaking, people create religion because it suits their needs, right? This makes religion something that people do rather than something that people accept. Everything that a person does is significant in some way or other, and you're right, anything about a person can potentially change the way you look at them, but that little declaration "I am religious" means nothing to me in itself. You may not believe me, but stick with me for a minute here and try to understand what I'm saying. As with your question about who I would feel more comfortable with, I pretty much said that if I had to choose being trapped on an island with one of those people, I would choose someone who was not "religious" as I would be inclined to think that the statistical chance of them being a nutcase would be lower. That is as far as I can go in answering that question, because statistics/facts as they stand, are all that I have to go on there. I'm answering it as best as I can, not avoiding it, but the fact that there ARE other factors involved, and that "religion" is more of a statistical and associative land mine than anything, is kind of the whole point of what I'm saying.

If I knew someone for years and thought they were a cool person and so on, and then suddenly, out of nowhere, they said, "I'm religious," of course I would be aware that might be something that could change the way I saw them, but I would not know if it did until they explained what that meant or how that affected them.

Okay, so let's take the bull by the horns because I have the feeling I'm still not talking about the same thing you are. Let's say there's this guy who's raised Catholic. In his head he believes very simply in all the literal dogma, in the saints, etc., but he never speaks a word of it to anyone outside his family or who doesn't share his beliefs. So we have this literal structure of actual existing belief in very specific things that kind of holds down this spirtual fortress for him, and we're presuming it's no more complicated than that. Through communion and confession he feels, we presume, something that he interprets as spiritual fulfillment, and when he does something that he interprets as a sin, he feels guilty, but he never mentions this to anyone but a priest. Okay, so let's say he's taught about evolution and does not believe in it immediately because he finds it to not be accordance with his beliefs. He doesn't tell anyone he doesn't believe in it, but he doesn't, simply because of what he's been taught through the Catholic church. He does not consider any other option, but he also does not talk about it. Is this worthy of criticism? In my opinion yes, and the main reason why is because he has somehow equated spiritual fulfillment with his ability to uphold a doctrine whose only inherent virtue is its age, and he's probably doing it because he's too scared to consider anything else. There is nothing substantial being used here and it's really at the point where an arbitrary set of rules are really using him, because he has not even thought about why he believes what he believes.

So if that's what you're talking about then yes, I think that kind of thought process is worthy of criticism, but first of all you're never going to be in a position in criticize a person for something like that unless they come right out and tell you what's going on in their head and second of all what I would criticize him for is not being religious but his thought process concerning it and his refusal to consider anything beyond very simple, literal lines.