Hi LH. Your list of materialistic and other distractions. Religion should be in the list rather than sitting outside of it. Religion may provide a word called salvation but iTunes provides entertainment, escapism, nostalgia and is just as effective at keeping you a paid up member of the poor and meek. Politics is the art of keeping you there and feeling grateful.

Hey Joe! Common sense debate isn't in the spirit of these threads. Some of us try forming a new Mudcat.org inspired religion (how cool is that? ) and you don't even offer to call bingo for us.   Why would I want to be interested in grown up debate on the subject. (Note grown up and common sense, the temptation to say rational would set me off on my usual tangent. )

LH's list is what is available today. If any of those distractions were available in medieval times, would religion have been so popular? After all, I am typing on my ipad but as a youngster I thought cassette tapes were the height of cool.

By the way. Jerk dug up the hatchet and restarted the name calling not me. I was happy to fly over and buy him a pint, name my kids after him etc but he took the gloves off. Huh! I'm supposed to not turn the other cheek.   Mind you, turning the other cheek can have unintended consequences around sailors.