What I don’t get is, how is attributing religion such quasi-mystical abilities to control people’s minds any different from believing in fairies at the bottom of the garden?

I would also suggest you need to look up what a Christian fundamentalist actually is. I don’t think your case that the Inquisition were a bunch of protestants actually holds much water.

Thanks James. I’ve replied here.

But I think it is important, in trying to answer a question that you are looking for a true answer, rather than an answer that fits some other criterion.

Could a religion then be founded on truth? Perhaps. Perhaps there is something in the charge that some of us treat science like a religion. Of course any who do are not understanding scientific method.

The way to advance knowledge is to welcome criticism of your ideas, to discuss, to change your mind when you appear to be mistaken. Authoritarians don’t like this sort of thing. And relativism has given up the discussion altogether. Both say that you shouldn’t argue.

Much but not all religion is authoritarian in this sense, but so, possibly, is Kuhnian science - as opposed to, say, Popper or Lakatos (the good guys) or Feyerabend (the relativist).

Paul, like Thomas Aquinas?

““In order that the happiness of the saints may be more delightful to them and that they may render more copious thanks to God for it, they are allowed to see perfectly the sufferings of the damned. So that they may be urged the more to praise God. The saints in heaven know distinctly all that happens to the damned.” ”

Sorry, I’m sure your comment was good natured, but I couldn’t resist.

There is an old tactic of asking false questions which is used by opponents of liberalism to divide us on issues of style and opinion for their purposes of obtaining the power to decide the actual matters of substance which we really care about.
It plagues us come election time when the subject of a potential coalition rises, while we can currently see it used against us on the issue of a European referendum.
It is a tactic of which we should be more aware, so as to be able to counter it more effectively whenever and wherever it is encountered - so ideas like religion must be neatly sidestepped in order that we concentrate on our true goals.

When it comes to talk about “truth” and “falsehood” I become immediately uncomfortable, although I accept they both have mundane, less absolutist meanings. I’m just not convinced it is a useful test as opposed to, say, “disproven” and “not disproven” (choosing my words carefully there) or pro-liberty and anti-liberty (choosing my words less so). I recognise I’m in danger of sounding very relativist there and I’m trying not to be; I just want more sophisticated tests to judge things by than “truth” which seems to cover a wide range of different factors and which no-one seems to agree on the meaning of anyway.

I don’t see religion happily allowing Greek philosophy to flourish. It was more or less forgotten up until the enlightenment, and only rediscovered then because it had been preserved in the interim by Muslim scholars. Where are all the writings of Epicurus? Somebody burnt them. Even today there appear to be two Epicuruses, one debauched and amoral, and the other who enjoyed nothing more than a good piece of cheese and discussing philosophy with his friends.

I agree on the role of protestantism, largely with Tawney’s arguments in Religion and the Rise of Capitalism. Not that it was the doctrines or ambitions of protestantism that were necessarily better, initially at least, but that it had less control over the state.

I don’t see why an ideology can’t be utterly false (or true). If a claim is incapable of being true or false, then it is meaningless. I think the problem with Laurence is that he treats a certain kind of religion as “true religion” in order to attack religion in general. Yet of course he does not believe that “true religion” is true. If you insist on arbitrarily crediting one of a range of false doctrines as being the true false doctrine, you might at least save that honour for our liberal allies among the religious.