"Every once in a while, Steve Shaw posts a snippet of something that makes me think he's almost on the brink of understanding all this. Example: What makes it all even worse is that you only tell them all this because you happened to be born here. Had you been born in India the story would be different. In the Australian outback, different again. In Iran, different yet again. To you, though, these considerations are minor inconveniences. But you have the neck to convince them that they will find deeper truths and happiness if only they espouse this nonsense. It's in your heart, it's sacred to you, you don't need to defend it, etc. Yet it's indefensible, even if you're a believer.

But then he posts another twenty posts that show he still doesn't have a clue."

Well, you clearly don't have much of a clue about arithmetic, or for that matter honesty. In fact, between that post and this one, I've posted eight times.

"It's true that every culture has sacred stories, sacred myths, that form the basis of the religious practices of that culture. And while these stories/teachings/myths may not be "true" in Steve's semi-scientific understanding of the word "true," these stories hold and convey profound truth drawn from many generations of the wisdom of that particular culture."

Well here we go again with Joe's favourite buzzword "sacred", clearly intended to invest his statements with a veneer of authority that is meant to keep us at arm's length. I bet he wishes we still had heresy laws. That would keep us pesky purveyors of evidence and reason at bay!

"As I've said before (and Steve has not responded), Europeans tend to disregard and destroy the wisdom and religious practices of every culture they have conquered, attempting to replace such "primitive" thought with their own "enlightened" thinking"

Well, Joe, just replace "Europeans" with "Catholic imperialists" there and you have it about right!

"...there is much wisdom in the world and through the centuries that is not in the realm of scientific inquiry."

No there is not. All the wisdom in the world (to use your language, not the way I'd put it, but hey) comes from science and culture, reason and evidence. There is no wisdom to be gained from delusions and lies, none whatsoever, however "sacred" you hold those things to be. They simply get in the way of wisdom, stunt the mind (as you frequently demonstrate, for example with your nonsense about evolution) and make the world a much worse place. You can have some wisdom predicated on stories and mythology, as long as you fully recognise them as stories and mythology, but not only do you not recognise that, you pass the nonsense on to your children as truth. Mother Teresa and John-Paul II espoused your brand of wisdom, lest we forget, not to speak of those popes who variously espoused antisemitism and who were in hock with Hitler and Mussolini.