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I'm sorry I haven't had time to reply to your comment sooner, Pat, but I'll manage a short reply now. You talk about a "modern" religion that doesn't make any exoteric claims. That is basically not what I am discussing in this article, as 99% (roughly) of religous people today do not take part in any such religion. On the contrary the vast majority of religious people are actually quite dogmatic (eg. the majority of US-americans believe the Bible tells a _literal_ truth), at least when asked, if not allways in their daily lives. So the religion you are talking about is allmost non-existent (allthough I am sure you can find som examples that it is in fashion amoung some milieus of relatively well-off and well-educated westerners), that is why I am not talking much about it.

Also - if something doesn't make any supernatural claims of any kind - why call it religion (in my mind it wouldn't be)? Why not call it a meditation technique or sometning like that? I believe such a labelling is erraneous, and only contributing to confusion.

Mathematics is a formal logical system - a language if you will. And hasn't mathemathics brought new knowledge into the world? It has been used as a tool in many sciences and proved itself quite effective. It is interesting to speculate about what mathematics really is - but when proving itself so effective in dealing with the world we live in, I believe it has at least proved to have som connection with that reality. I therefore believe comparing math with a religion is quite erraneous.

I have not seen any evidence that religion has actually brought more peace and happiness, on the contrary - I have heard many arguments that it has done the opposite (again religions who actually exist amoung larger parts of the human population naturally, and not your completely "internal" religion). And, Dawkins argues that even more "modern" religions are problematic because they widen the space for their more extreme brothers and sisters. (I'm not sure I neccesarily agree with him completely there, but it's a valid argument at least.)