Okay, Alaska Mike, sounds like we're on the same track there. I have no TV, do not listen anymore to commercial radio at home, and live rather simply. I agree along with you that organized religion has done great harm over the centuries (and some good here and there but a lot more harm).

I think the all-pervasive pressure of marketing has utterly dwarfed religion as a cultural influence in most developed societies, though. Where you find religion exercising a much more dominant role is in some of the Third World cultures, specially the harder line Islamic states such as Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Religion is just used as window trimming in the West by cynical politicians. What really drives policy is corporate marketing schemes. Religion is used by people like George Bush as a way to influence certain voters, but money issues are the real force behind the throne.

Most North Americans are religious about these 3 things:

convenience, conspicuous consumption, and instant gratification.

They have been encouraged into this pathetic Homer Simpsonesque couch potatoe lifestyle by ceaseless corporate marketing via TV, radio, and print. Most notably TV. You cannot even go to a modern cineplex now and see a friggin' MOVIE without sitting through a whole bunch of adverts first! Nor can you rent a video or DVD without sitting through adverts for a bunch of other movies you probably DON'T want to see. It didn't used to be like that. It's damned annoying. I do not pay to see a movie and expect to have to sit through ads for cars, lip gloss, soft drinks, other movies, and whatever the hell else, but I no longer have any choice.

Thank God they have not found a way to beam advertising straight into your skull somehow. They would if they could.

Organized religion is a bit player now in North America and western Europe. It's not the power it once was. People have got their minds mainly on the material rewards of life, not spiritual considerations.

Two Bears - Yeah, you're probably right about that. I find Taoism to be very appealing and sensible.

Paranoid Android - Gandhi was a pacifist. He was not an atheist. Jesus was a pacifist. He was not an atheist. Mother Teresa was a pacifist. She was not an atheist. Buddha was a pacifist. Most of the saints were pacifists. Most serious spiritual seekers are pacifists. I have all my life been, in practice, a pacifist. I am not an atheist.

Your statement simply does not hold water. In fact...where did you ever get such a bizarre idea???? I have to wonder about that.