It looks to me as though John Hardly's source preferences privlege his sources of information a little too conveniently, in order to rationalize his faith. John Hardly, I am assuming (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that you were raised to be a Christian in a predominately Christian culture. If my assumption is correct, I fail to see how you *allowing* that Buddhism could trump Christianity, is anything more than a rationalization for your belief that it doesn't. Same for your suggestion that you ascribe to empirical knowledge, while also dismissing it as irrelevant in your individual case. It seems obvious to me that you reject any empirical knowledge which challenges your faith. A bit too selective, that.

I grant you, it is extremely difficult for any of us to step outside the boundaries of our own cultural beliefs, even when looking at the obvious.

I offer, by way of example, the outcome of the jury trial of the police officers who beat Rodney King. That all white jury refused to believe what they saw, ie that the police officers were guilty of using excessive force against Rodney King, because it would require them siding with a black man of questionable moral character, against white police officers. They couldn't step out of their own cultural bias to do the right thing OR believe what their own eyes told them. This is an extreme example of course, and I use it only to starkly illustrate my point. I am not suggesting you would have done the same. I am just trying to show how hard it is for us to go beyond the boundaries of our own culture's conventional wisdom.

It sure looks to me like your thinking, sophisticated as it may be, simply would never allow you to accept that your Christian faith could be anything but an incontrovertible truth. That has nothing to do with empirical fact, or what's "real" as you define it. It does, however, have everything to do with your cultural bias, IMO. So you see, while I can accept your willingness to discuss the subject and argue a few points, I find your unshakable certainty that your choices regarding the Christian faith undermine your otherwise pretty good arguments about things like the fallacy of facts and such.

And Clinton, my remark that it was dangerous to assume what my views were by basing those assumptions on what you said was meant as no disrespect to you or your opinions. I was merely trying to point out it was dangerous to infer that the first person's opinion could be discerned from or equated to, the expression of a third person's opinion.