Peter K - I like your answers. :-) I too have had precisely the experiences you describe with Jehovah's Witnesses on a number of occasions, and once with an earnest pair of young Mormons too. It was fun talking to them about the general subject of religion, which is why I bothered to do it. I didn't convert them to anything, but I certainly gave them something to think about and raised some doubts in their minds. I think if I had been representing any church I might have got those two Mormons interested enough to come back and discuss it again. As for the JW's...forget it. They're sure they are among the elect, "the few" who will be saved! It it makes 'em happy, well that's okay with me. :-)

I'm fine with people following any path they want to as long as they don't unduly trouble other people about it.

Yeah, I'm positive you're religious about some things, but that's not saying I know what they are...

And I don't mean religious in a church sense, needless to say. I tend to use the word religious to describe any strong and deep level of belief in anything which rests on faith alone, or on established habit, or on various other quite arbitrary cultural assumptions...and we all have such assumptions. Most people never even examine those basic assumptions. We have them about things like money, romantic love, political parties, moral practices, sexuality, dress codes, personal grooming methods, whatever we have absorbed holus bolus from our culture, and in the process, taken for granted and made part of our own identity.

We all do bizarre things and think they are "normal", necessary, and efficacious when they are usually arbitrary and unnecessary...and sometimes downright harmful. I call that being religious...because it is thoughtless programmed behaviour acquired from others through the passing on of mythology...which is what religion is for many, many people. They let someone else do their thinking about life for them and they then think it's the ONLY right way to think about life. Scary!

John's original question was a bit silly. However, it's stimulated some interesting debate.

Dave - Yeah, I guess I do consider that those "three statements are really true beyond argument." But that's just me... :-)

You can, of course, argue with them by all means and you have a perfect right to. No problem.