The world is witnessing a huge explosion of religious conversion and growth, and Christianity is growing faster than any other religion. Nietzsche's proclamation "God is dead" is now proven false. Nietzsche is dead. The ranks of the unbelievers are shrinking as a proportion of the world's population. Secularism has lost its identification with progress and modernity, and consequently it has lost the main source of its appeal. God is very much alive, and His future prospects look to be excellent. This is the biggest comeback story of the twenty-first century.
If you've been reading one of the atheist bestsellers like The God Delusion or God Is Not Great, you may have missed this news. If God is back, you may wonder, why don't I see it? The reason is that many of us live in the wrong neighborhood. "Visit a church at random next Sunday," Brent Staples writes in the New York Times, "and you will probably encounter a few dozen people sprinkled thinly over a sanctuary that was built to accommodate hundreds or even thousands." Yes, I've seen the "empty pews and white-haired congregants" that Staples describes. But then, Staples lives in
Of course my neighbors do not think of themselves as atheist. Very few of them belong to atheist organizations or subscribe to atheist literature. Some of them who are highly educated like to think of themselves as agnostic: they haven't made up their minds because the evidence simply isn't in yet. Others even consider themselves Christian, either because they were born that way, or because they attend church occasionally. The distinguishing characteristic of these people is that they live as if God did not exist. God makes no difference in their lives. This is "practical atheism." We all know people like this. Some of us hardly know anyone not like this. And sometimes we live this way ourselves.
If we live in the wrong neighborhood, we risk missing the most important development of our time-the global revival of religion. It's happening on every continent. In my native country of , Hinduism is undergoing a resurgence. So is Islam. As I have written about Islamic radicalism and terrorism I am often asked,"When will the Muslims understand the importance of secularism? When will we see an Islamic Reformation?" My answer is that Muslims will never understand the importance of secularism. Nor do they need to, because as we shall see, secularism is increasingly unimportant as a global phenomenon.
Moreover, Islam is in the middle of a reformation. We see a resurgence of Muslim piety not just in the Middle East but also elsewhere. At one time Turkey provided a model of Islamic secularism, but not any longer. No Muslim country is going the way of Turkey, and in recent years even has stopped going the way of Turkey.
Some Western analysts describe the religious revivals around the world in terms of the growth of "fundamentalism." This is the fallacy of ethnocentrism, of seeing the world through the lens of our own homegrown prejudices. Remember that "fundamentalism" is a term drawn from Protestant Christianity. It is an American coinage that refers to a group of early twentieth century Protestant activists who organized against Darwinian evolution and who championed the literal reading of the Bible. Fundamentalism is a meaningless term outside this context.
There are, of course, Hindu militants and Islamic radicals, and they are indeed a menace to the world. But the growth of religious militancy and the growth of religion are very different. One may seek to benefit from the other, but the two should not be confused. The resurgence I am talking about is the global revitalization of traditional religion. This means traditional Hinduism, traditional Islam, and traditional Christianity. By "traditional" I mean religion as it has been understood and practiced over the centuries. This is the type of religion that is booming.
Traditional religion is the mainstream, but it is not the only form in which religion appears today. There is also liberal religion. Here in the West, especially among the intelligentsia, we meet liberal Christians. Some of them have assumed a kind of reverse mission: instead of being the church's missionaries to the world, they have become the world's missionaries to the church. They devote their moral energies to trying to make the church more democratic, to assure equal rights for women, and so on. A small but influential segment of liberal Christianity rejects all the central doctrines of Christianity. H.Richard Niebuhr famously summed up their credo: "A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross."
I have met liberal Christians who are good and sincere people. But their version of Christianity is full intellectual withdrawal, and it is also becoming less relevant. The liberal churches are losing members in droves. Once these churches welcomed one in six Americans; now they see one in 30. In 1960 the Presbyterian church had 4.2 million members; now it has 2.4 million. The Episcopal church had 3.4 million; now it has 2.3 million. The United Church of Christ had 2.2 million; now it has 1.3 million. Traditional Christians who remain within liberal churches become increasingly alienated.
Unfortunately the central themes of some of the liberal churches have become indistinguishable from those of the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Organization for Women, the gay rights cause, and the environmental conservation movement. The traditional churches, not the liberal churches, are growing in America. In 1960, for example, the churches affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention had 8.7 million members. Now they have 16.4 million.
The growth of traditional religion and the decline of liberal religion pose a serious problem for a conventional way of understanding religious trends. This is the way of secularization-the idea that as an inevitable result of science, reason, progress, and modernization, the West will continue to grow more secular, followed by the rest of the world. The more confident exponents of secularization believe, as Peter Berger puts it, that"eventually Iranian mullahs, Pentecostal preachers, and Tibetan lamas will all think and act like professors of literature at American universities."
For a good part of the last century, this secularization narrative seemed plausible. Secular people believed it and reveled in it, while religious people believed it and bemoaned it. But now we see a problem with the thesis. If secularization were proceeding inexorably, then religious people should be getting less religious, and so conservative churches should be shrinking and liberal churches growing. In fact, the opposite is the case.
Some scholars put this down to "backlash" against secularization, but this only begs the question: what is causing this backlash? The secularization thesis was based on the presumption that science and modernity would satisfy the impulses and needs once met by religion. But a rebellion against secularization suggests that perhaps important needs are still unmet, and so people are seeking a revival of religion-perhaps in a new form-to address their specific concerns within a secular society.
Of course the secularization thesis is not entirely invalid. In Europe, Australia, and Canada, religion has been expunged from the cultural mainstream. It has been largely relegated to a tourist phenomenon; when you go to Chartes and Canterbury , the guides tell you about architecture and art history and little about what the people who created those masterpieces actually believed. According to the European Values Survey, regular churchgoers number, depending on the country, between 10 and 25 percent of the population. Only one in five Europeans says that religion is important in life. Czech president Vaclav Havel has rightly described Europe as "the first atheistic civilization in the history of mankind."
But if Europe generally supports the secularization thesis, the United States presents a much more problematic case. America has not gone the way of Europe. True, church attendance in the United States has declined in the past three decades. Still, some 40 percent of Americans say they attend church on Sundays. More than 90 percent of Americans believe in God, and 60 percent say their faith is important to them. All of this is a serious difficulty for the secularization thesis, because America is at the forefront of modernity. The thesis would predict that America would be the most secular society in the world. In fact, America is the most religious country in the Western world.
Perhaps the greatest problem for the secularization theory is that in an era of increasing globalization and modernization, the world as a whole is becoming more religious, not less. In a recent survey, sociologists Pippa Norris and Ron Inglehart sum up the evidence. Despite the advance of secularization in the West, they write, "The world now has more people with traditional religious views than ever before, and they constitute a growing proportion of the world's population." Consequently, the West is more secular but "the world as a whole is becoming more religious."
Even more remarkable is that the religious revival is occurring in places that are rapidly modernizing. China and India today have the fastest growth rates in the world, and religion is thriving in both places. Turkey is the one of the most modern of the Muslim countries, and Islam has steadily gained strength there. In Central and South America , the upwardly-mobile classes are embracing Pentecostal Christianity.
The global spread of American culture, with the secular values it carries,seems not to have arrested or even slowed the religious upsurge. The reason is that many non-Western cultures are actively resisting secularism. A common slogan in Asia today is "modernization without Westernization." Many people want American prosperity and American technology but they want to use these to preserve and strengthen their traditional way of life. They want to live in a world of multiple modernities.
We often read that Islam is the fastest-growing religion. Not true. Christianity is the fastest-growing religion in the world today. Islam is second. While Islam grows mainly through reproduction-which is to say by Muslim shaving large families-Christianity spreads through rapid conversion as well as natural increase. Islam has become the fastest-growing religion in Europe, which for more than a thousand years has been the home of Christianity. The Catholic writer Hilaire Belloc wrote in 1920 that "the faith is Europe and Europe is the faith." Belloc was convinced that the future of Christianity lay in Europe.
Ironically while Europe has moved away from Christianity, the Christian religion has been expanding its influence in Central and South America, in Africa, and in Asia . The new face of Christianity is no longer white and blond but yellow, black and brown. "If we want to visualize a typical contemporary Christian," Philip Jenkins writes in The Next Christendom, "we should think of a woman living in a village in Nigeria or in a Brazilian favela." The vital centers of Christianity today are no longer Geneva, Rome, Paris, or London. They are Buenos Aires, Manila, Kinshasa, and Addis Ababa . "The era of Western Christianity has passed within our lifetimes," Jenkins observes, "and the day of Southern Christianity is dawning."
In 1900, more than 80 percent of Christians lived in Europe and America. Today 60 percent live in the developing world. More than two out of three evangelical Christians now live in Asia,Africa, and South America . Here are some numbers Jenkins provides. Europe today has 560 million Christians and America has 260 million, yet many of those are Christians in name only. In comparison, there are 480 million Christians in South America, 313 million in Asia, and 360 million in Africa. The vast majority of these are practicing Christians. There are more churchgoing Presbyterians in than in Scotland.
Oddly enough, this Christian growth occurred after the period of European conquest and colonialism has come to an end. The old boys in pith helmets are long gone, but the faith that first came with them has endured, and now thrives without them. It's just like the early times of Christianity. After Constantine converted and Theodosius proclaimed Christianity the state religion toward the end of the fourth century, Christianity was carried by the Roman empire. Yet the faith spread fastest after the collapse of that empire, and soon all of Europe was Christian. We're witnessing a comparable pace of growth for Christianity in the rest of the world.
A century ago, less than 10 percent of Africa was Christian. Today it's nearly 50 percent. That's an increase from 10 million people in 1900 to more than 350 million today. Uganda alone has nearly 20 million Christians and is projected to have 50 million by the middle of the century. Some African churches have grown so big that their churches are running out of space. While Western preachers routinely implore people to come every Sunday to fill the pews, some African preachers ask their members to limit their attendance to every second or third Sunday to give others a chance to hear the message.
Central and South America are witnessing the explosive growth of Pentecostalism. As David Martin shows in his study Tongues of Fire,partly this is a shift within Christianity: millions of South American Catholics have become evangelical Protestants. In Brazil, for example,there are now 50 million evangelical Protestants whereas a few decade sago there weren't enough to count. The movement of Catholics into Protestant evangelicalism should not be considered purely lateral, however, as the conversion of lackadaisical, nominal Catholics to an active, energized evangelicalism can perhaps be considered a net gain for Christianity.
Even within Catholicism there is an expanding charismatic movement that has grown in response to the success of the Protestant evangelicals. This charismatic Catholicism emphasizes many of the same themes as "born again" Christianity including a personal relationship with Christ. And the Catholic numbers remain huge: Brazil had 50 million Catholics in 1950, but now it has 120 million.
Despite the limitations imposed by the Chinese government, there are now tens of millions of Christians in who worship in underground evangelical and Catholic churches. At current growth rates, David Aikman observes in his book Jesus in Beijing,China will in a few decades become the largest Christian country in the world. In South Korea, where Christians already outnumber Buddhists,there are numerous megachurches with more than 10,000 members each. The Yoido Full Gospel Church reports 750,000 members. The Catholic Church in the Philippines reports 60 million members, and is projected to have 120 million by mid-century.
What distinguishes these Christians, Jenkins writes, is that they immerse themselves in the world of the Bible to a degree that even devout Western Christians do not. For poor people around the world, the social landscape of in the Bible is quite familiar. They, too, live in a world of hardship, poverty, money-lenders and lepers. The themes of exile and persecution resonate with them. Supernatural evil seems quite real to them, and they have little problem in understanding the concept of hell.
This "original" Christianity is coming our way. South Korea has become the world's second-largest source of Christian missionaries, with 12,000 preaching the faith abroad. Only the United States sends more missionaries to other countries. We may be seeing the beginning of a startling reversal. At one time Christian missionaries went to the far continents of Africa and Asia, where white priests in robes proclaimed the Bible to wide-eyed and uncomprehending brown and black people. In the future, we may well see black and brown missionaries proclaim the Bible to wide-eyed and uncomprehending white people in the West.
We might think that this preaching will fall on unreceptive ears. But I'm not so sure. The Washington Post reports that there are 150 churches in Denmark and more than 250 in Britain run by foreigners as "part of a growing trend of preachers from developing nations coming to Western Europe ." Stendor Johansen, a Danish sea captain, seems to reflect the sentiments of many Europeans who are joining the new congregations. "The Danish church is boring," he says. "I feel energized when I leave one of these services." If more people come to share these sentiments then secularization may ultimately be reversed even in Europe.
Peter Berger writes about what he calls "the myth of secularization." He means that the thesis of inevitable secularization has now lost its credibility. In fact, it is going the way of Zeus and Baal. Berger's work points to the reason for this. Berger argues that modernization helps people triumph over necessity but it also produces a profound crisis of purpose in modern life. The greater the effects of modernization, the stronger the social anxiety and the striving for "something more." As Wolfhart Pannenberg puts it, "Secular culture itself produces a deep need for meaning in life and therefore also for religion."
This may not be religion in the same form in which it is imbibed in Nigeria or Korea, but it is traditional religion all the same, no less vital for having adapted to new circumstances. It is quite possible that a renewed Christianity can improve modern life by correcting some of the deficiencies and curbing some of the excesses of modernity.
I have found this to be true in my own life. I am a native of , and my ancestors were converted to Christianity by Portuguese missionaries. As this was the era of the Portuguese Inquisition, some force and bludgeoning may also have been involved. When I came to as a student in 1978, my Christianity was largely a matter of birth and habit. But even as I plunged myself into modern life in the , my faith slowly deepened. G.K. Chesterton calls this the "revolt into orthodoxy."
Like Chesterton, I find myself rebelling against extreme secularism and finding in Christianity some remarkable answers to both intellectual and practical concerns. So I am grateful to those stern inquisitors for bringing me into the orbit of Christianity, even though I am sure my ancestors would not have shared my enthusiasm. Mine is a Christianity that is counter cultural in the sense that it opposes powerful trends in modern Western culture. Yet it is thoroughly modern in that it addresses questions and needs raised by life in that culture. I don't know how I could live well without it.
In the end, though, my story doesn't matter very much and neither does it matter whether the West returns to Christianity. Perhaps the non-Western Christians will convert the Western unbelievers, and perhaps they won't. Either way, they are the future, they know it, and now we know it too. Christianity may come in a different garb than it has for the past several centuries, but Christianity is winning, and secularism is losing. The atheists may continue their fulminations, but they represent not the cry of victory but the cry of desperation. Deep down, the atheists realize that God is winning and atheism has no future.
Excerpted from What's So Great About Christianity, Regnery Publishing, October 2007.
Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 7)
1. Can I laugh at one of those statement? "Christianity is experiencing a period of growth"?
As if! More and more people today are turning AWAY from Christianity and more and more people are embracing atheism. They just aren't TELLING anyone because every treats them like they are MAD not to believe in some imaginary god that it has been proven, DID NOT create us!
Dinesh, the people who are losing are the religionists, year after year after year after year, and it is YOU who is losing and so is Christianity.
Christopher Kidwell at 8:54AM on Oct 22nd 2007
2. Think it's easy to be an atheist? Not in America. Take another good look both sides of your dollar bill. One side carries the credo: IN GOD WE TRUST. Yes, there is Almighty God and there is Almighty Dollar. Jesus says "You cannot serve God and Mammon" and we're trying to prove him wrong.
bull at 9:03AM on Oct 22nd 2007
3. *yawn*
More lies from Dinesh.
Knight_of_BAAWA at 9:08AM on Oct 22nd 2007
4. "In my native country of ,"
Good grief, Dinesh, have you ever considered proofreading? Or a proofreader?
This is possibly the worst blog you've posted. It looks as if you've plagiarized yourself, copying and pasting from your book without telling us. Come on, if we wanted to read your book, we'd buy it. Please stick to your normal blogging with only *occasional* plugs for your book, 'k?
Jack at 9:40AM on Oct 22nd 2007
5. I don't doubt for one minute that religion is on the rise. The dumbing down of people all over the world has been going on unababted for many years. Credulity of all kinds is on the rise from conspiracy theories of all types from 9/11 to the death of princess Diana. Why should it surprise anyone that as ignorance spreads over the growing number of uneducated and undereducated peole so should religion and superstition. These cycles in history have happened before where there has been an explosion of scientific and technological advances running parallel to a backlash of spirituality and superstition. Rises or falls in the level and extent of religiosity doesn't validate religious beliefs nor is it a positive development historically.
eric at 9:42AM on Oct 22nd 2007
6. actually, islam is the worlds fastest growing religion...as more people are becoming educated to the true history of king james and his "version" of the word of god,they are seeking answers elsewhere..the holy homo sacraments have folks running from the cat holistic church and recent information that points to much of the christian bible having been stories stolen from egyptian folklore can not be helping...
the truth at 10:10AM on Oct 22nd 2007
7. F SO, WHOLLY IMMATERIAL TO TRUTH.
julian haydon at 10:31AM on Oct 22nd 2007
8. There are two kinds of christians...a sincere believer and a carnal believer...the sincere believer takes his walk with God very seriously, and trys to live his life free of hypocrisy, and trys to overcome everyday in his walk with God, and there is the carnal "christian," who thinks he can believe in God, and live his life like the devil would have him live it...that is the difference...one is sincere and one is not...the atheist KNOWS the difference! Hypocrisy is what makes atheists in the first place! Christians need to reevaluate their walk with God, and take it very seriously if they ever want to bring someone into the realm of Christ...and WE as christians are going to be held responsible for our actions as a christian, we will stand before God at the Bema Seat Judgement(the judgement where christians stand before God and receive rewards for deeds done in the body for Christ Romans ) I am not speaking of the White Throne Judgement seat that happens in Revelation chapter 20...I would not want the blood of an unbeliever on my hands when I stand before God...It is indeed time for christians to WAKE UP! BE SINCERE! AND STOP THE HYPOCRISY IN OUR LIVES! As Christ brings people into our life, witness to them, but be sincere in your walk with Christ...we can fake the fruits of the Spirit such as being kind, caring,but you cannot fake a lifestyle! I realize that christians are human, and we make mistakes, yes,the bible says the natural or carnal man is enmity against God, that our carnal natures want to do nothing but rebel against God...that is why it is important to renew our minds in Christ everyday, have a prayer life, have a devotional life where you read the bible for a time everyday...in doing this you will renew your mind in Christ...and stay obedient to God..."We fight not against flesh and blood, but against powers and pricipalities in higher places"..."Put on the full armor of God...the helmet of salvation,etc...this isn't the national guard, part time , this is full-time service in God's army!
Bridget at 10:39AM on Oct 22nd 2007
9.
The religious "explosion" you speak of won't last long. Once people see how much death and suffering come from these fundamentalist boom times, they dump it off. They see that many use religion to spread their hate, and intolerance. It's happening in the Muslim world, and it's happening here.
When you have a belief system that says you'll be punished for eternity for not "fighting for God", then there isn't much you won't do to get those proverbial 72 virgins.... Christians seem to think that's funny, but crack a joke about different languages coming from a guy who built a tower, well, that's offensive.
Dinesh's brand of religion is extremely intolerant, as his constant attacks on people who don't believe in his God, or any other, shows. If you want to believe, believe. Belittling others for thier opinions isn't what decent, civilized people do.
Ken at 10:49AM on Oct 22nd 2007
10. This is the longest, badly written diatribe about nothing that I have ever seen. Who is this self promoting, egotistical twit?
Geoff at 10:48AM on Oct 22nd 2007
11. Christianity is NOT growing faster than any other religion, that dishonor goes to Islam.
Such a blatant fabrication that early in the article doesn't do much for your already tarnished credibility, Mr. D'Souza.
azandi at 10:57AM on Oct 22nd 2007
12. An atheist was walking through the woods.
"What majestic trees"!
"What powerful rivers"!
"What beautiful animals"!
He said to himself.
As he was walking alongside the river, he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him.
He turned to look. He saw a 7-foot grizzly bear charge towards him.
He ran as fast as he could up the path. He looked over his shoulder & saw that the bear was closing in on him.
He looked over his shoulder again, & the bear was even closer.
He tripped & fell on the ground. He rolled over to pick himself up
but saw that the bear was right on top of him, reaching for him with his left paw & raising his right paw to strike him.
At that instant the Atheist cried out, "Oh my God!"
Time Stopped.
The bear froze.
The forest was silent.
As a bright light shone upon the man, a voice came out of the sky.
"You deny my existence for all these years, teach others I don't exist
and even credit creation to cosmic accident."
"Do you expect me to help you out of this predicament?
Am I to count you as a believer"?
The atheist looked directly into the light, "It would be hypocritical of me to suddenly ask you
to treat me as a Christian now, but perhaps you could make the BEAR a Christian"?
"Very Well," said the voice.
The light went out. The sounds of the forest resumed.
And the bear dropped his right paw, brought both paws together, bowed his head & spoke:
"Lord bless this food, which I am about to receive from thy bounty through Christ our Lord, Amen."
M2D5 at 11:07AM on Oct 22nd 2007
13. Let's say for a moment that Dinesh is actually correct. Distasteful, I know, but let's play devil's advocate.
First... so what? Through out history theism has grown and shrank. At one time the catholic church was so corrupt, having two popes, selling rampant indulgences, and even taxing salvation, that people questioned the very morality of God. This lead to the great protestant schism. Theism has shrunk with the enlightenment, grown during the romantic era, shrunk with colonialism, and grown with victorianism. It will grow again. It will shrink again. So Dinesh's claim that theism is 'on the rise' is not only irrevelant (not to mention questionable) but doomed to inevitably wane once more.
Two, the fact that theism is popular once more is not proof that there is a higher power. If three billion people believed the world was flat, the world would not suddenly flatten. The universe is utterly indifferent as to our belief. So if more people need religion, then it proves that... more people need religion. Not that atheists are wrong nor that theists are right, but that social conditions are thus that more people need spiritual structures in their lives.
Three, there will always be atheists. There will always be theists. There will always be agnostics. One is no better than the other. It is up to the individual to decide if atheism is right for them, or if they need a mythology to support their world view.
Fourth, I try to be more tolerable than those who are intolerable of me for being a lesbian. But I am done with this man and his straw man masturbatory faith fest. His generalizations and blind statements reveal to me not what is "Good about Christianity" but the exact opposite. I read in his words the presumption that killed millions in the new world. I read in his statement the arrogance that burned women and pagans alive. I see the cruelty and insinuations of the Inquisition. I see pride. I see sloth. And I see hate.
And these excerpts chosen by Dinesh give up a glimpse into his mind as a christian, as these are the gems that he picked to place on his blog. And they sum up a terribly baffling preminse: Atheists are an insideous, yet stupid, growing, yet shrinking, threat to the victorious yet threatened faith of christianity.
This man is not worth any more of my attention. Why is he worth yours?
Somber at 11:31AM on Oct 22nd 2007
14. Key points:
- "The secularization thesis was based on the presumption that science and modernity would satisfy the impulses and needs once met by religion. But a rebellion against secularization suggests that perhaps important needs are still unmet, and so people are seeking a revival of religion-perhaps in a new form-to address their specific concerns within a secular society."
How come? People aren’t looking deeply enough, and are seeking the easiest, most comprehensive answer to soothe their weariness and fear. It always boils down to fear, and the insecurities it brings - in this case, the fear of nothingness, and the insecurity of knowing that no, you don't "mean" anything outside of those with whom you interact. Sorry, you don't.
- "[...] modernization helps people triumph over necessity but it also produces a profound crisis of purpose in modern life. The greater the effects of modernization, the stronger the social anxiety and the striving for 'something more.' As Wolfhart Pannenberg puts it, 'Secular culture itself produces a deep need for meaning in life and therefore also for religion.'"
How come? People are f&%$#ng ARROGANT, and require justification not merely that their tiny little lives are somehow meaningful, but also that the proposition of their existence is somehow meaningful in an abstract, cosmic sense – that “Humanity” is somehow important, and that we humans are indeed “chosen” by divinity to represent the end-all meaning of the Universe.
- "The atheists may continue their fulminations, but they represent not the cry of victory but the cry of desperation. Deep down, the atheists realize that God is winning and atheism has no future."
Not necessarily; “atheism”, as it is commonly misunderstood, is losing ground to the current crop of intellectual midgets who seek a quick-fix of significance (see above), but atheism is hardly a message of desperation – it’s exasperation, to those who simply cannot conceive of a universe in which humans are not the center of everything.
Get over youselves, already.
tg at 6:43PM on Oct 22nd 2007
15. This diatribe is a compilation of total garbage trying to defend religion's demise. The fact is that a majority of people of finally becoming aware that all regligions are without foundation, built on ignorance and fantasy. As we become more knowledgable of our surroundings, and what a tiny speck we are in this universe, Atheism becomes the most valid answer. This Dinesh obviously cannot be very bright or he wouldn't come up with his conclusions. We need Freedon from Religion!!
carlo at 11:47AM on Oct 22nd 2007