Heh heh. Cool. And welcome to the hizzle.

 Bahh, let the fundamentalist wacko masses have their opium, I find its best to just ignore them. 

Seriously though, just because the dumbass fundamentalists of a religion are retarded doesnt necessarily make the religion itself a bad thing. 

Have fun with it while you're so inclined. I don't know how long you've been out but in my experience a lot of people just have that kind of fun early on, and later it just changes form if anything.
 

The point about fundamentalism is significant, though. It isn't about the content of one's belief system but rather the attitude, more specifically this irrational clinging to their "truth" which might even be non-religious in nature. So I'd agree, it is a disease - a mental disease. There's even the phenomenon where one jumps from one religion to another, not even necessarily another Christian sect or a theistic religion - but the common denominator and element that does not change is the "zeal" or fundamentalist attitude that the individual approaches their new found faith with. It's sort of like being infatuated I guess, obviously even the zealot would agree their previous faiths were in error and the current one is their "true love", but it may not really dawn on the person that they have this pattern of religion hopping when none of them have had any real deep impact on their life - it certainly didn't prompt them to do any self examination, or else they might have taken some time out instead of jumping on the next bandwagon.

You know, that's just it because I think essentially a lot of people are not growing - even if they change horizontally it's like there's much 'support' to remain at a certain level of development - but I suppose there are always going to be less people that can relate as you mature. I remember this line from Choke by Chuck Palahniuk "I'm not so much the good friend as the parent who doesn't want him to grow up" when one addict friend was telling another something like everything in moderation, even recovery.

I had the thought the other day that it's like child abuse is the common theme with a lot of things. Even when there's no direct physical abuse or anything there's a lot of encouragement to remain at the sensori-motor level to use just one model, so there's hardly a realization of the potential we know is there. At a certain point it's like people don't even WANT to grow and mature, it's like they are so well conditioned that they are happy living this rather limited life believing the same thing, acting the same way.. If they are not getting anywhere there's not much of a journey to speak of!

Yes, you might even say that a perpetual dying is the way to go - I'm sure you can appreciate that as well.

I wasn't thinking of the whole lost faith situation though, but actually more about the general population. It seems to me for most people they don't go through that kind of drama to come to an appreciation of what you're talking about and laziness may actually play a big part. The point about death still applies of course, but it is so easy to stay right where they're at you know? But I guess where there isn't much life there's not that much energy or inclination to really do anything either.

I'm reminded of Fight Club, I had gotten a t-shirt with the quote "This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time." And of course in that scene after they crashed the car Tyler's line was "we just had a near life experience!"