". It's been a good discussion and people have said what they honestly believe. Even with tongue in cheek. "

And the challenge is to say what you believe with your tongue in cheek, and not bite your tongue... luckily, we're all typing ;-)

:::Ducking and running:::

Seriously, though, one of my favorite quotes on the value of religious diversity dates from way before Political Correctness became trendy:

It is reasonable that whatever each of us worships is really to be considered one and the same. We gaze up at the same stars, the sky covers us all, the same universe compasses us. What does it matter what practical systems we adopt in our search for the truth. Not by one avenue only can we arrive at so tremendous a secret.

Quintus Aurelius Symmachus (A.D. c. 340-c. 402), Roman senator. Letter, written 384, to the Christian Emperor Valentinian II, pleading for the continuation of pagan ceremonies (published in Finley Hooper and Matthew Schwartz, Roman Letters: History from a Personal Point of View, ch. 10, 1991). [*]

Really, if there really is only one God, then surely all acts of love, kindness, mercy and justice would be acceptable to Him (Her? The Divine is beyond gender, but our language isn't) regardless of the words we use to describe them to ourselves... in other words: "What that dud Quintus said."

[*]Copyright information:

The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations is licensed from Columbia University Press. Copyright © 1993 by Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.