John Hardly wrote See, this is my assertion. If they depend on an unchanging world around them for the survival of their religion, they will necessarily fail…..as I said, if not by Christian influence, by some other influence that does function better in a changing world. The environment, both physical and intellectual, stands still for no one. That's my point.

I said nothing about the natural world being "unchanging." As an evironmental philosopher, I would be the LAST person to make that assertion. The syncretic impulse I discussed earlier is what allows the flexibility to live in a world with a spirituality based on the natural world and to absorb useful elements of other cultures as they pass by. To put it bluntly, this is the original "shit happens" kind of world view. Evil exists, one must learn to live with it. And these tribes have, by and large, done just that. But not on their own terms. Disease, warfare (of which they were not innocent, I don't make that claim, either), but on a European scale, and interference with the cultural teachings were more than many tribes could swallow.

Additionally, Mr. Hardly said . . .this discussion dismisses prior to the argument, the possibility that revelatory religions might be based on an objective truth. Yes, that is true. My non-christian, not-quite-atheist roots are showing. My a priori assumption is bolstered by an a posteriori examination of history. He also said We accept everyday that something may be both true and unproveable. We dismiss this notion when we talk about religion…..probably because that possibility makes us too uncomfortable to think about. We clearly will not agree on this point. It doesn't make me uncomfortable to think about it, I dismiss big organized religion in general as a male-dominated power game. Man did make god in his own image. I don't, however, dismiss the personal strength that individuals who have given it a lot of thought obtain from it.