There's definitely a God...

How do they differ from other Christians ?

I would say they are as representative of Christianity as any other church.

There is a kind of cherry picking going when we attempt to deal with religion, we pick and choose using our own Western liberal culture as our guide, when we find anything in Islam/Christianity (or any religion) that falls four of our own values we say "that is not representative of Islam/Christianity" - even if it is canonical to that religion.

Guilty as charged! All accurate and well put as usual Dr T. I guess I stuggle a little with objectivity on the matter of religion. I'm pretty well read on the monster that is the RC church and the 'governing bodies' of other major faiths, along with the absurdity of pretty much most religious doctrine. I understand that religion is a manifestation of man's ignorance, fear, greed, predjudice,... (insert your own words here).

I guess my reluctance to resolutely decry religion is the fact that most of the people 'of faith' that I have met during my life have been on the whole good, moderate people. When I've caught a whiff of say, homophobia excused by scripture I've challenged it; I have fucked them off if they try to force their dogma on me, thankfully I have rarely had to either.

I suppose amongst many logical flaws I'm guilty of some form of 'argumentum ad hominun' in reverse!

Unfortunately I am so cynical as to think that alot of people are twancunts (I'd love to be proven wrong). I also know that alot of these twancunts are religious, and do bad things 'in the name of God'. People then seem to extrapolate from that and think religion=twancuntishness.

None of my bollocks is aimed at any one or anything posted here. Just thinking out loud I guess. Back to the buses!