Many of the good people in all these largely arbitrary categories have a good deal more in common than they might like to imagine, so long as they value the quality of human life and like to look at things within large contexts from broad perspectives. As a member of the self-ordained clergy in the Common Denomination, I must say that John's approach, and Fred's, certainly appeal to me. Cowan's assertion that religion is most fundamentally a language caught my eye. I'm willing to let him explain more specifically what he means by that, but I did resonate to it, because this is about what I've been thinking for years. It's like expressing some of the same concerns in Russian or English or Japanese or Hindi.
Languages are fundamental, because thought and expression are inherently merged.
I. This was a good sign, I thought. Bystanders might have assumed that we were a couple of rumpled old guys from the maintenance crew at the elementary school up the street. That is, he is not simply MBA number 6,327. He doesn't fit into any of the conventional categories by which people in the pressured work world tend to think. If he did, they wouldn't have to move out of their familiar patterns of thought and action in order to relate to him or his ideas.