It is facile to assume that because people are religious they must necessarily be weird, deluded, naive, or stupid. But that's what I see many who are opposed to all organized religion on principle assuming. And that, in fact, is what I assumed when I was younger and far more arrogant than I am now. When you're an 18-year-old, well-educated atheist who is intellectually rather gifted, you figure you know everything.

You may have assumed these things and you may now feel diferently but I see no reason for you to assume that others may feel the same and for you to pass judgement upon them based only on this assumption. But if someone states this here - you can argue with them for I agree that it is indeed a facile assumption. This is not the point about organised religion that I am arguing with great care.

For an assumption by anyone that those politicians, advertising people and those who accepted what they were told by them were weird etc - would be an equally unhelpful judgement. And whether such judgements are right or wrong or have any basis in fact - perhaps you would accept that they are no help to us in dealing with the results of the claims made by those who are 'spinning' them?

Would you similarlly excuse the spin of a Government official or an advertising executive who also just happened to believe in what they were trying to sell to us? Would you accept that the reason someone is picking out the good bits and not mentioning any bad bits - is exactly the same whether it is done by someone selling a political policy, someone selling the un-provable tenets of an organised religion or someone trying to sell you any other product?