Rich:

I urge you to differentiate between the very vital and positive human sensitivity we call "Faith", and the bizarre dramatization of forms and figures which usually passes for religion, actually a piss-poor country cousin at best.

Conviction which draws on -- what to call it -- "sentient certainty" of a seep and spiritua; kind does not only not encourage dramatization and psychosis, it renbders it highly improbable. If in its place you substitute fixed ideas, dogmas, doctrine as a defense screen against feeling and being in the world in a genuine way, you get the kind of melodrama that spills blood.

But why confuse that with the spiritual power that actually informs compassion, breakthrough insight, genius and deep love? Just because people steal the labels off a Ferrari and paste them onto a Pinto doesn't mean its horsepower goes up.

A.