
Sadly understandable...


Yes.

To be fair, you should really qualify this as semitic-western religions, but
you basically go ahead and do this later on anyway.


Again, this should really be evaluated at a personal level.  For example, there
was only one Jesus (presumably), and he probably didn't say all that many
things, and yet (seemingly) billions and billions of Christian sects have
arisen.  Perhaps there is one that is totally dedicated to rationalism and
believes in Christ as in pantheism.  It would seem to go against the Bible, but
it is amazing what people come up with under the guise of "personal
interpretation".


This is a good point.  We have here the quintessential Christian: he sets up a
system of values/beliefs for himself, which work very well, and every
event/experience is understandable and deablable within the framework of this
system.  However, we also have an individual who has the inability (at least
not without some difficulty) to change, which is important, because the problem
with such a system is the same as with any system: one cannot be open minded to
the point of "testing hypotheses" against the basic premise of the system
without destroying whatever faith is invested therein, unless of course, all
the tests fail.  In other words, the *fairer* way would be to test and evaluate
moralities without the bias/responsibility of losing/retaining a system.


Interesting, but again, when it seems to basically boil down to individual
nuances (although not always, I will admit, and probably it is the
mass-oriented divisions which are the most appalling), it becomes irrelevant,
unfortunately.


Granted


In which case the people become the bullets, and the religion, as the gun,
merely offers them a way to more adequately do some harm with themselves, if I
may be so bold as to extend your similie?


Also understandable... ;)

-- 

best regards,
