Thanks for that, Kat.

There *are* atheists and agnostics who wish to prevent people following a religion (or to persuade them not to) because they truly believe that religion damages a person's ability to make rational decisions. Richard Dawkins is maybe the best-known example.

I have to say that on many levels they're right. Morality is basically the situation of avoiding harm to others (by action or inaction). If your religion follows that rule, and you know every tenet of that religion, then you're fine. Trouble is that remembering every corner of a religion is *hard*. But if you have the reasoning power to think "what decision will have the best outcome for other people?" then you should be fine.

And this also assumes that absence of harm is the cornerstone of the religion. That's where organised religion all too often falls down - the Catholic church's "every sperm is sacred" policy on birth control is a classic example of that. I'm with Richard Bridge on this one - if a religion can't open its doors to rational discussion and admit errors by the (all-too-human) clerics who make up its rules, then it's not deserving of followers. It then lays itself open to the charges of "fairy tales" - and that accusation is *valid* at that point, because the basis for the religion then has about as much basis in truth as Little Red Riding Hood.

Graham.